“The world will know
you not by your name but as The Flying Sikh”, a name given to Milkha Singh by
the first President of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan in the year 1960 after Singh
defeated Abdul Khaliq of Pakistan in the sprint. A forgotten hero of Indian
Sports scenario, who took the world in a spree in the 50s and the 60s with his flashing
speed and world record in 400 meter sprint. I must say that I am itched to
write about the biopic of Flying Sikh, created by the Rang De Basanti fame director
Rakesh OmPrakash Mehra. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, the last words spoken by Milkha Singh’s
father before being murdered in Pakistan, is based on the struggle of the
athlete. It was not astonishing when the movie made more than 8.5 million
dollars in its first week of release. The prediction by the trade pundits of
Bollywood was close to 3 million dollars but the impeccable performance of
Frahan Akhtar as Milkha Singh, has taken the film to a different height. He had
yet again proven himself as a fine actor.
I am not a person who
cries while watching movies, firstly because I believe it is fictitious and
secondly I feel it’s too dramatic to cry over a movie. But I admit, there are
moments in this film that had made me choke, gave me goosebumps and made me
jump in excitement. Few scenes I would like to mention is when he was beaten up
in the barrack right before his sprint, and how he with such fresh wounds took
to the track and won the race. Another very heart shaking moment was when 12
year old Milkha finds his whole family butchered during the Indo- Pak partition
and he manages to escape.
Such scenes had made this movie gripping and
interesting from the beginning till the end. Sonam Kapoor as Biro, first love
of Singh was there and yet not there, which was absolutely fine coz the whole
story was about the struggle of an athlete’s career rather than a love story.
The story was never shifted from its prime focus which was Milkha Singh, the
athlete. Not to forget that the flashback scenes were very brief and precise,
this cut the extra length to the movie.
Such amazing story must
have been sold for a lot of money, that is what anybody would think but to my
surprise Milkha Singh sold the whole story for mere Re1 and his sole purpose of
sharing his story was to inspire the coming generation to do something in the
field of sports and make a mark for the country in the world. This also shows
how humble and down to earth he is and his dedication to the field of Indian
sports. In return the director of the movie Rakesh Mehra gifted him with a
currency note printed in 1958, the year, Singh won his first gold medal in
Commonwealth games.
There has been a lot of
detailing done in the movie. Milkha Singh provided the minute details of his
life, his struggle and every event of how much he practiced, his training
hours, his wins and each and every detail to the director and his team to make
it very realistic. He even trained Farhan Akhtar on small details like his
hands movement and his head posture while running to make sure the character
looks real. Special admiration to Farhan Akhtar, not only for exceptional
acting but also for working so hard in building the character. He trained
himself as a professional athlete for 6 months, lost tremendous amount of
weight, grew hair and build his body to look like Milkha Singh. That is called
dedication, sincerity and justice to the character he was playing.
A must watch if you are
looking for a good and inspiring movie but do read a little bit about Milkha
Singh before you watch the movie, just in case you can’t relate to the story. A
big recommendation for the filmmakers of Nepali film industry who talk so much
about experimental movies that they forget the fact, movies are for your audiences
for entertainment. If you make a movie for yourself, you should not release it
commercially in the market and just keep it in your library for your future
reference and satisfaction. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag proved that you need a strong
storyline and close to life characters, for a movie to be successful. A tight
slap to some people from film fraternity of Nepal who claim that item numbers,
sleazy scenes and abusive language makes a movie successful.
