It’s been four years in the making, but Vibhu Puri’s debut feature Hawaizaada, inspired by nineteenth-century aviator Shivkar Talpade, is landing in cinemas at the right or the wrong time, depending on which side of the debate about ancient Indian science you are on.
Hawaizaada stars Ayushmann Khurana as Talpade, who some people believe built an aircraft that undertook the world's first unmanned flight somewhere in Maharashtra in 1895. Talpade is regarded by some as a forgotten hero who could have beaten the American Wright brothers, who got their Wright Flyer off the ground in 1903. Designs of Talpade's aircraft still exist, but it isn't clear whether he was out to fly a plane or a kite. There is little evidence that he launched his contraption in the air.
Moreover, Talpade’s mentor, Subbaraya Shastri, is one of the proponents of the theory that Hindu scriptures contained actual scientific achievements, rather than allegories. On Sunday, a paper at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai claimed that an ancient Indian text, the Vaimanika Sastra, sketched out details about flying machines in ancient India [full text here]. But that text may actually have been composed by Subbaraya Shastri. The publication of the Vaimanika Sastra in 1973 was later debunked by professors at the Indian Institute of Science. They speculated that Shastri composed portions of the text and drawings of planes between 1900 and 1919. The IISc analysis goes on to mention that “one late Dr Talpade (of Bombay) tried to make models under the guidance of Shastriji, but that he was not successful in making any of them fly”.
As Hawaizaada readies for a January 30 release, Puri spoke to Scroll.in about why it doesn’t matter that Talpade’s story is swathed in more fantasy than fact, since he is attempting a “fictionalised biopic” in the first place.
Tell us about how Hawaizaada got off the ground.
I originally wanted to make a biopic on JRD Tata. As I was doing my research, somebody mentioned Talpade to me. I went to a few libraries and looked online. I started writing the film in 2011. It is challenging when you are a first-time filmmaker – people expect you to make romcoms and weddings films, but nobody expects you to get into the space of a biopic, and that too, a fictional biopic. This is where the story is real, but a whole lot of things are devised around it. Such as Hugo, which references the Georges Melies story, or Inglorious Basterds, in which Adolf Hitler is shown as being killed.
How do you make a biopic on somebody about whom little is known or authenticated?
We took many creative liberties. Talpade’s immediate family died out in 1950, and members of his extended family all had different stories to tell about him. It’s like 500 versions of the Ramayana.
What is the validation of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna? How do you validate that Jesus was born? Somewhere, you have to follow your own conviction. I don’t know if the story was a legend or real. It is an incredible story, and I hope it is true. What I suggesting is that the film is based on a few real events that have been described over and over again. It is a film meant for entertainment, not a documentary.
What kind of a plane did Talpade build?
The plane designs are available at the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute in Pune. The plane looked like a spaceship, a cone, and less like what we are used to seeing. The plane we see in the movie retains a few elements from the original model. I took creative liberties again here to make it more believable.
Talpade is said to have called the aircraft “marut-sakha”, or friend of the wind, but there is also a version that says it was called “marut-shakti”, or wind power. I didn’t know what is true, and no one from that era is alive any more. I came to my own conclusions.
For instance, somebody told me that Talpade flew the unmanned plane from Madh Island. Another told me he flew it from Girgaum Chowpatty. There was a story that he fuelled the plane with his own urine. Some aeronautical engineers told me he was a genius. Other said the whole thing was a lie.
Why is the dream of a man who may or may not have flown a plane still relevant to us?
Imagine the days during British India when people didn’t even know what a car was, and here was a man trying to make an aeroplane. Our minds were captured by the British, and somebody wanted to make a plane 125 years ago. I have tried to capture the spirit of the man, not his story. The film is anyway not about the plane or aviation, but it is about the human spirit. It’s about one man and his dream, and that dream could be anything.
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Hawaizaada stars Ayushmann Khurana as Talpade, who some people believe built an aircraft that undertook the world's first unmanned flight somewhere in Maharashtra in 1895. Talpade is regarded by some as a forgotten hero who could have beaten the American Wright brothers, who got their Wright Flyer off the ground in 1903. Designs of Talpade's aircraft still exist, but it isn't clear whether he was out to fly a plane or a kite. There is little evidence that he launched his contraption in the air.
Moreover, Talpade’s mentor, Subbaraya Shastri, is one of the proponents of the theory that Hindu scriptures contained actual scientific achievements, rather than allegories. On Sunday, a paper at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai claimed that an ancient Indian text, the Vaimanika Sastra, sketched out details about flying machines in ancient India [full text here]. But that text may actually have been composed by Subbaraya Shastri. The publication of the Vaimanika Sastra in 1973 was later debunked by professors at the Indian Institute of Science. They speculated that Shastri composed portions of the text and drawings of planes between 1900 and 1919. The IISc analysis goes on to mention that “one late Dr Talpade (of Bombay) tried to make models under the guidance of Shastriji, but that he was not successful in making any of them fly”.
As Hawaizaada readies for a January 30 release, Puri spoke to Scroll.in about why it doesn’t matter that Talpade’s story is swathed in more fantasy than fact, since he is attempting a “fictionalised biopic” in the first place.
Tell us about how Hawaizaada got off the ground.
I originally wanted to make a biopic on JRD Tata. As I was doing my research, somebody mentioned Talpade to me. I went to a few libraries and looked online. I started writing the film in 2011. It is challenging when you are a first-time filmmaker – people expect you to make romcoms and weddings films, but nobody expects you to get into the space of a biopic, and that too, a fictional biopic. This is where the story is real, but a whole lot of things are devised around it. Such as Hugo, which references the Georges Melies story, or Inglorious Basterds, in which Adolf Hitler is shown as being killed.
How do you make a biopic on somebody about whom little is known or authenticated?
We took many creative liberties. Talpade’s immediate family died out in 1950, and members of his extended family all had different stories to tell about him. It’s like 500 versions of the Ramayana.
What is the validation of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna? How do you validate that Jesus was born? Somewhere, you have to follow your own conviction. I don’t know if the story was a legend or real. It is an incredible story, and I hope it is true. What I suggesting is that the film is based on a few real events that have been described over and over again. It is a film meant for entertainment, not a documentary.
What kind of a plane did Talpade build?
The plane designs are available at the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute in Pune. The plane looked like a spaceship, a cone, and less like what we are used to seeing. The plane we see in the movie retains a few elements from the original model. I took creative liberties again here to make it more believable.
Talpade is said to have called the aircraft “marut-sakha”, or friend of the wind, but there is also a version that says it was called “marut-shakti”, or wind power. I didn’t know what is true, and no one from that era is alive any more. I came to my own conclusions.
For instance, somebody told me that Talpade flew the unmanned plane from Madh Island. Another told me he flew it from Girgaum Chowpatty. There was a story that he fuelled the plane with his own urine. Some aeronautical engineers told me he was a genius. Other said the whole thing was a lie.
Why is the dream of a man who may or may not have flown a plane still relevant to us?
Imagine the days during British India when people didn’t even know what a car was, and here was a man trying to make an aeroplane. Our minds were captured by the British, and somebody wanted to make a plane 125 years ago. I have tried to capture the spirit of the man, not his story. The film is anyway not about the plane or aviation, but it is about the human spirit. It’s about one man and his dream, and that dream could be anything.