Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 27: Bollywood actor Irfan Khan and actress Shraddha Kapoor today drew crowds to the Lal Chowk during the shooting of Vishal Bhardwaj upcoming film ‘Haider’ which is an adaptation of Shakespear’s play “Hamlet”.
Khan and Kapoor and the film crew shot in Press Enclave, Partap Park here from early morning today till the afternoon amid tight security and cold weather conditions. Shahid Kapoor and Tabu are playing lead roles in the film.
Shraddha, clad in parrot-green Shalwar Kameez and a black overcoat, plays the role of a journalist in the film, and Khan who is in the role of a militant, shot in Press enclave for five hours.
Some Kashmiri youth who are playing the role of Army personnel also shot today, wearing Army uniform and carrying AK-47 toy-guns.
Shahid Kapoor, who will be sporting a bald look in the film for some of its scenes, took to Twitter to inform his followers about his arrival in Kashmir valley.
“Reading scenes for the final schedule of ‘Haider’.. Nervous and excited.. Last four days of hair I can run my hands through.. Snowed out Kashmir calling (sic),” Kapoor tweeted reads.
Being the last phase of their shooting, the film crew will stay in the Valley for more than three weeks.
Earlier last year, the first phase the shooting took place in Gulmarg, Pahalgam, in River Jehlum at Panthachowk in the outskirts of Srinagar, and in Kashmir University.
Controversy eclipsed the movie while shooting in the university following protests by the students over hoisting of the National Flag atop a make-shift bunker, forcing Bhardwaj to cut short the shooting.
Later, the director in a press conference said that the film would be a real depiction of the pain people in Kashmir have gone through in the past two decades.
“I want to share the pain which the people of Kashmir have gone through in the last 20-25 years and I want to be very sensitive and honest about it… Kashmir is the biggest human tragedy of our time,” Bharadwaj had said.
This is after six years that Bollywood directors have arrived to shoot for their films in the city centre Lal Chowk that has seen worst violence during past 24 years of militancy in Kashmir.
In 2008, Rahul Dohlakia’ Lamhe, starring Sanjay Dutt and Bipasha Basu, shot for the film in Lal Chowk’s protets hub , Maisuma.
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