Category: Ahmedabad Mirror

After Big B, it is now Shah Rukh Khan’s turn to visit Amdavadi pols.

SRK and Farhan will be in Ahmedabad for a week around June next year.

King Khan will star in national award-winning director Rahul Dholakia’s next Bollywood venture Raees, that deals with the liquor business in Ahmedabad despite the prohibition rule. The action-packed movie is set primarily in Ahmedabad and South Gujarat with SRK playing a bootlegger and Farhan Akhtar, a cop. It is scheduled to go on floors by mid-2014, said Dholakia who is scouting for the right locales in the city. “I have planned a majority of the scenes in Manek Chowk, a few pols in and around Bhadra fort.

The walled city looks stunningly superb on camera. Some parts of the movie will be shot in areas near south Gujarat. The shoot will be wrapped up within a month and the team will be in Ahmedabad next June for over a week. I have been visiting Ahmedabad often for the past few years, first for story writing and now for choosing the right spots for the shoot,” said Dholakia. “The story has been written by journalists Harit Mehta and Ashish Vashi after a detailed research on the issue for over a decade,” added Dholakia. Dholakia, Mehta and Vashi gave about two-and-a-half years to script this film. “We scripted this film over weekend drives. The productivity peaked when we discussed the story and its dialogue while on long drive. We have visited south Gujarat, villages on the border of Gujarat and Mount Abu, Rajasthan. The story of Raees was born out of several such long drives that three of us took together within span of over a two-and-a-half years,” said Dholakia.

And what makes Dholakia think that prohibition, and its politics and economics – an element which is peculiarly linked with Gujarat alone – will interest others? “It has interested top brass of Bollywood including Shah Rukh, and the best team of technicians. It is a query that is on top of the mind of each visitor planning to visit the state. The strength of the film is its story. It is perhaps the first movie focussing a Gujarati family, is shot in Ahmedabad and written by three Amdavadi writers on a local issue,” he said. According to sources, Shah Rukh Khan may clash with Salman Khan in the year 2015. Shah Rukh’s Raees and Salman’s yet untitled Being Human production directed by Kabir Khan are expected to release on Eid 2015.