To make Chaar Sahibzaade a film on the four sons of the Sikh Guru Govind Singh in the 3D Animation format and to see it finally being released last week was a dream that producer-director Harry Baweja nurtured for decades.  To see that dream come to fruition after years of struggle is a life-changing experience for Harry who last directed Love Story 2050 in 2008.  7 years is a long time for a filmmaker to be absent from Bollywood where it's easily true to say if you are out of sight, you're out of mind. But it was a risk worth taking for Baweja.  Sighing deeply after what he says was his first night of sleep after release, Harry Baweja who in the past has directed super hits like Dilwale and Qayamat, says, "It was definitely a risk worth taking. For five years I've worked only on my dream project. Now when it's released I feel I've done the most important thing in my life. I've eaten, slept and breathed with the film. I've personally looked into every aspect". 

 

 

The budget for the film was understandably very tight. Explains Harry Baweja, "Rightly or wrongly animation films are not known to find acceptability among Indian audience. But I was very sure that my film will find pan-India acceptance and it had to be in the animation format since the Sikh religion doesn't allow human beings to play the holy Gurus." Ironically the other release this week, Ketan Mehta's Rang Rasiya is about putting human faces to the images of Gods. Laughs Harry, "I've noticed the irony. However I've no quibble with opting for the animation format to tell my story." Baweja plunged into an animation film on the lives of the four valorous sons of the revered Guru Gobind Singh knowing that it was probably not a financially lucrative proposition. "It's a terrific story. But we are repeatedly told by trade experts that youngsters don't like to return to our rich past heritage," observes Harry whose last film was a futuristic love story. Chaar Sahibzaade was completed on a shoestring budget. "We didn't even have any money for marketing. Now that the film is released we're depending entirely on word-of-mouth to take the message across to a wide audience."