Madras Cafe with John

EXPECT AN EDGY THRILLER

    It’s an easy camaraderie that John Abraham and Shoojit Sircar share. “This is what has translated into the films we have collaborated in as well,” says John, who’s been the producer of Shoojit’s National Award-winner Vicky Donor as well as the latest, Madras Cafe. “It’s an association that goes back many years,” says Shoojit, who tells us that one of the first discussions for Madras Cafe with John happened way back in 2007.
    And though Madras Cafe has had controversies surrounding it for a long time now, both John and Shoojit say that that was never their intention. “We understood how sensitive the issue was, and had to keep everyone’s sensibilities in mind. It was a very thin line, and we couldn’t go right or left, but we have managed to pull through a terse, hard-hitting film just the same,” says Shoojit. John adds, “With Vicky Donor and Madras Cafe, the intention was to portray a situation, not to rake up issues.” But then, the latter, a political espionage thriller set in the early 90s, with the Sri Lankan civil war as backdrop and the assassination of the then Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi was bound to be scrutinised because of the very nature of its content, John agrees. He adds, “I am a politically aware guy, and, for me, the morning after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination changed the course of the political history of India.”
    This film also stars Nargis Fakhri and Rashi Khanna.Nargis says, “Once when I went on the set, I walked into a war setting, and there were these people acting wounded, and I was hard pressed to figure out whether it was reality or a staged setting.”Rashi says that playing the mature role of an army major’s wife was something that she had never attempted before.
    Madras Cafe, produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, JA Entertainment and Rising Sun Films Production,releases today.

John Abraham and Nargis Fakhri