A promising film by legendry Indian Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt is coming up on the life of a great JNU student leader Chandrashekhar Prasad, who was killed during his campaign of cleaning Indian politics.Mahesh Bhatt sign up Imran Zahid (Director,Take One school of mass communication) to play the lead role of slain JNU student leader Chandrashekhar Prasad in upcoming film 'CHANDU' (
www.chanduthefilm.com ).
Youth has been a buzz word in India for couple of decades now but there's been rarely a better youth icon than former JNU President Chandrashekhar Prasad (Chandu) who was brutally assassinated in 1997.
In spite of all the tall claims about various initiatives for youth, the nation as a whole has failed to do any justice to the slain student leader. Cutting across all the student unions, most student leaders and faculty members are unanimous that there hasn't been anyone more charismatic than Chandu either before or after him. Even more surprising is the fact that there has been a massive outcry and media initiatives for ensuring justice to Jessica Lal, Priyadarshani Matto, and Nitish Katara but no one so far bothered to take up the cudgel on behalf of Chandu who paid with his life for challenging the nexus between the criminals and politicians and bringing about a social change in Bihar. The very politicians who have been in power for years on the plank of social justice are the ones who have
deprived justice to Chandu, so the question is being asked whether this Mahesh Bhatt venture will unruffle feathers and put the spotlight back on those suspected to be behind Chandu's assassination? Will there be a media recognition at long last that justice needs to be done to Chandu?
For most 'real to reel' projects, the filmmakers have resorted to leading stars like Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor...but Mahesh Bhatt reposed his faith in a new comer like Imran Zahid. Even before the research into the subjectd, story, and finalization of other characters, Mahesh Bhatt has been motivating Imran to get under the skin of Chandu's character and motivating him to learn all the finer nuances about his life, mission and ideology.As per mahesh bhatt he choose Imran Zahid to play the Role of Chandrashekhar Prasad as he strongly feel Imran can connect to real issues,just like chandu did.He is not known to the film industry yet and speak to common man's language.
He played the role of Munthdhar Al ZAidi in Mahesh Bhatts theater production, The Last Salute, which is based on the shoe hurling incident involving George W.Busg . He received plaudits for his portrayal and Bhatt has proposed to make a film of it with Zahid reprising the role ( www.thelastsalute.com ).