Ram Madhvani Reveals a White Man Once Called Him 'Brown Bas***d': 'The Waking of A Nation' is My Answer To That Racism

Many years ago, filmmaker Ram Madhvani was flying to London in economy class with his mother on their first international trip. They didn't get seats together, with his mother sitting on the opposite end. Once the seatbelt signs were turned off, Madhvani made his way to meet her. As he walked towards the front, in the extra space between the seats and the galley, he noticed a white man standing.

"I requested him if I could cross over. He looked at me and said, 'Sit down, you brown bas***d,'" recalls Madhvani — who later achieved acclaim directing projects like Sushmita Sen-led Aarya (2020) and Sonam Kapoor-starrer Neerja (2016) —with a faint, sad smile.

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"I went and sat down, I just couldn't believe someone could speak to me like that. I didn't reply to him; I was too scared and was shaking. Even now, I remember the feeling of just sitting on my seat even as my mother kept calling me. Every time I board a plane, even today, I think about what happened to me then," Madhvani tells The Hollywood Reporter India.

Today, the filmmaker has created his latest Sony LIV show, The Waking of a Nation, set against the backdrop of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The series, headlined by actor Taaruk Raina, is Madhvani's answer to the racism he faced.

"It has taken me many years to reply to that man; maybe I should have done it rightaway when he abused me, but then perhaps I wouldn't have made this show. This is my reaction to what happened to me in terms of racism. We all have stories of humiliation. The show is about the massacre, but it's about what happened before and after. More than anything, it is about prejudice, colonialism and racism."

Written by Shantanu Srivastava, Shatrujeet Nath and Madhvani, The Waking of a Nation follows the conspiracy behind the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and revolves around the Hunter Commission that was set up later.

When Madhvani, who reads close to 40 to 50 books a year, was wondering what to make next, he started going through "all kinds of materials", including records in the public domain about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919.

Ram Madhvani on the set of the show.

The team then spent three years writing the show and wrapped the shoot in 47 days, with close to 800 people being present on location on some days. The makers then invested over a year to edit the series, which drops on the streamer on March 7.

Though the show is mounted around the massacre, Madhvani didn't want to show the tragedy that claimed the lives of hundreds of people.

"It was inherently part of the DNA of the story that we wouldn't show the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. We have not shown that and treated it with the utmost dignity. Also, a lot of other filmmakers have already recreated that. You remember General Dyer's name but not those who lost their lives, because history has forgotten them. They say the official figure was 400, but some estimate that over 2000 people died. So I have shown some of their names in episode four of the show," he adds.

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Since this is the biggest show Madhvani has ever helmed, the filmmaker recalls how every day on shoot was "overwhelming" for him, but he intended to film it in a way that the viewers feel immersed in the world and not observe history from a distance.

"We haven't handled anything of this scale before. We aimed to make everything look like it's unfolding in real time and that it is real. We had no sets at all and everything has been shot on real locations, which makes it more intimate. So, if there is a riot scene, we are hoping it should make you feel like you are in it, and not watching it as an observer," he concludes.

The series also stars Sahil Mehta, Bhawsheel Singh Sahni and Nikita Dutta.