‘Swarajya ha Mazda janmasiddha Hakka aahe, aani to Mi Milavinarach!’(Independence is my birth right and I shall get it at any cost) These are the famous words every school going child has learned in school text book. It portrays the grit and determination of the person, who said it and these words are the uttrances of the first leader of the nation Bal Gangadhar Tilak, during the rule of Britishers. Born in Konkan region of Maharashtra, Keshav Gangadhar Tilak spent most of his life in Pune, where he edited and published a newspaper ‘Kesari’, which was a tool to educate and induce our people to boycott anything that British rules imposed. British colonial authorities called him the ‘Father of the Indian unrest.‘ He was conferred with the honorary title of‘Lokmanya’, which literary means Accepted by the people, as their leader.
Presented by Nitin Keni and Nikhil Sane of Essel Vision, ‘Lokmanya, Ek Yugpurush’ is being produced by Neene Raut for Neena Raut Films and is directed by Om Raut. The film has Subodh Bhave playing the title role of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. A press conference was organised by the makers and presenters of this film in Mumbai on Monday evening. While interacting with media, Subodh Bhave confessed, “Initially, I was reluctant to do ‘Lokmanya’, as I was scared” . Producer Neena Raut said, “This film not a biopic, but a thoughtpic. We have emphasised the views and thoughts of Tilak in this film, which are relevant today also.” She added . One of the presenters of the movie Nitin Keni said “We do have expectations from this film and We did not trust this idea of a debutant director doing a film on ‘Tilak’, but when I saw the film at a special screening at midnight, before the sunrise, we decided to be associated with this talented bunch of people.”
Director Om Raut, who returned to India after finishing a film making course from USA, expressed that Tilak and his thoughts were worshipped at their house and after research on the subject for about one and a half year he was confident and determined to go ahead with this project. He along with Kaustubh Savarkar have penned the screenplay and dialogues of Lokmanya and managed to convince Subodh Bhave to do the central character of the film.
On this occasion, the Music of Lokmanya, ek Yugpurush was unveiled by ever youthful Sachin Pilgaonkar and Shankar Mahadevan. Sachin wished best luck to the entire team and Mr Bharatkumar Raut, ex-MP, Rajya Sabha, and father of Om Raut. Shankar Mahadevan thanked music composer duo Ajit (Parab) and Sameer (Mhatre) for giving him an opportunity to be part of this historical figure film. Chinmay Mandlekar said that he plays a director’s point of view character in the movie, by binding past and present era. Bharat ‘Amul’ Dabholkar, Nanubhai of Video Palace, Ankush Choudhary, Aashish Shelar, Pushkar Shrotri, ‘Classmate’ director Aaditya Sarpotdar, Vikram Gaikwad (noted make-up designer), Shashank Joshi (famous musician), Nandesh Umap, Siddharth Chandekar also graced the occasion.