Watch: Short film ‘Azaad’ reminds us of what it took to gain freedom

There are two ways to mark Independence Day. One is to look back on what the nation has achieved since 1947. The other is to look even further back and celebrate the struggle that got us our freedom. Actor and filmmaker Chandan Roy Sanyal takes the latter route. In Azaad, he plays the titular foreign-returned character who is visiting India with his American girlfriend. Azaad has flashbacks to the time when his grandfather and his three friends played their part in the freedom movement. Through these flashbacks, Azaad reconnects to his grandfather’s cause and realises that he needs to take the legacy forward. The short film is cursorily scripted and acted, and far too lengthy for its simplistic premise. It also squanders its best idea. The taxi driver taking Azaad and his girlfriend to his grandfather’s house is Toba Nek Singh, the grandson of Toba Tek Singh, the fictional character from one of Saadat Hasan Manto’s most famous stories. Perhaps Sanyal could chase this potentially more interesting character next year, when India marks 70 years since the end of British rule.