25 Years Of Aamir Khan's Sarfarosh: Director John Matthew Matthan Researched The Project For Seven Years

25 years of aamir khan’s sarfarosh: director john matthew matthan researched the project for seven years

Aamir Khan counts his 1999 hit Sarfarosh among his finest work. Playing the gritty cop Ajay Singh Rathod, he made a blockbuster impact on the box office doing his own stunts in this involving drama on cross-border terrorism.

Naseeruddin Shah as a Ghazal singer and a closeted terrorist gave Aamir tit for tat, although the two actors did not get along during the shooting, and never worked together again.

Director John Matthew Matthan researched the project for seven years before directing the ambitious film. Sarfarosh was the first Hindi film which named the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) as the No. 1 terrorist organisation operating in India.

The Pakistani population in Great Britain took umbrage to the aggressive tone on celluloid. Sarfarosh sparked protests among certain sections of Asian viewers who found the film to be anti-Pakistan. When Aamir Khan held staged concerts in Britain and the US after Sarfarosh some sections of the Pakistani audience chose to stay away.

Matthan Made a powerful impact with Sarfarosh. What happened to his career thereafter is a tragic illustration of how the star system controlled and continues to control our cinema. Matthan waited five years for Aamir Khan to give the nod to his second script, finally made Shikhar with Shahid Kapoor, followed by a half-complete Himesh Reshammiya starrer. Thereafter John’s career lies suspended.

No one knows where the Sarfarosh director is .

In an interview with this writer in the past John Matthan had said, “I designed another film with Aamir Khan in the lead. I worked on it for two years. It was about a chief minister’s son who migrates to America. It showed that America was powerful because of its technical knowledge.It appreciated what was worth appreciating in the West without bringing down our own culture. But then 9/11 happened. And the subject became nullified. I sat in front of the TV for nearly two months wondering if the world politics will change. Finally I scrapped the project and started on Shikhar.”

Shikhar got scathing reviews.

“Critics even said the film should be shown to your enemies. I couldn’t understand the vicious remarks,” said director John Matthan smarting under the unexpected blow.”I hope some more people will go see it this time without the baggage of scathing reviews weighing down their minds,” said Mathan.I agree Shikhar isn’t Sarfarosh. It was never meant to be. I’m equally proud of both. Working with Aamir in Sarfarosh spoils a director. He is so clued in to his character and every other aspect of a film that the director is anxious about working with any other actor. Sarfarosh wouldn’t have worked without Aamir.”

Sadly, Aamir didn’t like what John Matthan offered him after Sarfarosh. “I wrote it off as fate. Everything has its own time. Na waqt se kam na waqt se zyada . I ran away to Delhi, determined I won’t think about any other idea for a film. A hundred ideas came to me then. Of these I chose Shikhar.”

Aamir was never a part of Shikhar: he was busy with Ketan Desai’s Mangal Pandey.