Kashmiris are such Lovely says Vishal Bharadwaj

While in the past too, many Bollywood films have been shot in Kashmir, nobody has gone as deep as in Haider, says Vishal Bhardwaj. In the past, while the film was shot in Kashmir, the central protagonist was always an outsider unlike in Haider, where Shahid Kapoor and his family in the film are local Kashmiris. Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, called me home and said to me, 'Kashmir is mostly misrepresented in films.' I told him I was adapting Hamlet. He had read Hamlet in his university and asked me to narrate the whole story to him. I narrated and he got so interested that he not only gave me the permission to shoot, but allowed us to shoot wherever we wanted to in the state. We have shot in places where no film has been ever shot earlier.

Speaking about the people in Kashmir Vishal Bharadwaj said “The people there are so lovely. If we found that kind of crowd in Delhi, they would pass such lewd comments that you would feel embarrassed. There, if you asked the crowds to move a little, 1000-2000 people would move so easily. They have problems only if you dont let them see the shoot. Strangers would come and invite us for tea and we understood that they feel offended if you say no. Because the story demanded it and I wanted to go to places where no one had gone before”.