Soorma: Did Diljit Dosanjh's Sandeep Singh Biopic Lie To Us About Taapsee Pannu's Character?

For some reason, Bollywood has an issue in making a true biopic. To add drama to the proceedings (because we Indians love it, don't we?), the film-makers give a convoluted twist to what the reality is. Sure, we can take cinematic liberties at times; after all, they are making a money-making venture. But changing characters and incidents so unrecognisably that it doesn't do justice to the people involved is so not right. Remember how Aamir Khan's Dangal was accused of changing the final watch of Geeta Phogat to something more dramatic (the real match was mostly a one-sided affair)? Or how the recent Sanju tried to show media in a bad light so that the subject of the movie can be shown as a victim? Now add Soorma to that list of fictionalised biopics!

The trials and tribulations of the hockey player, Sandeep Singh, is something that deserves to be made a movie. More so, than some star who found himself in jail over his own mistakes. The story of how he fought his condition of paralysis successfully to emerge at the top of his game, is something legends are made of. So for that matter, Soorma as a film mostly did justice to his spirit.

But where it failed is in its depiction of the character of Taapsee Pannu's Harpreet. Before the film came out, the makers had said that she was modelled after Sandeep's ex-girlfriend who left him when he was paralysed. In the movie, she isn't shown in a negative portrayal. Harpreet does leave him when he was lying paralysed at the hospital, but it was more so to make him fight back his condition and stand on his legs, even if he felt anger towards her. It wasn't a great decision to say, but it wasn't exactly negative.

So how true is this? In reality, Sandeep Singh was in a relationship with his current spouse when he was paralysed in 2006 in an accidental shooting. His wife, Harjinder Kaur, was also a hockey player who left the game when she got married to him and became a home-maker (so much for that scene in Soorma where Sandeep assures Harpreet's mother, that she will play hockey after marriage). In an earlier interview to Indian Express, this is what she has to say about that turbulent time, "I was by his side all the time. Till he fully recovered and was back on the field, we were worried for him and his career." In the movie, it was his family, especially his elder brother Bikramjit (played by an excellent Angad Bedi) who was there by his side.

Also, there are reports that mention that Sandeep and Harjinder used to practice hockey from childhood and they used to court each other much before their marriage. So where does this 'Harpreet' figure in these scheme of things?

Interestingly, a running theme in Soorma was that Sandeep used to get distracted from the game when Harpreet was watching him. It happened with Harjinder IRL, as she told the publication in the same interview. She revealed, "I went to watch the Punjab Gold Cup final against Holland in 2009 but India lost. So he asked me not to come to matches anymore."

So the question is, if Sandeep's real spouse has been his strength all along, why the use of a supposedly fictional character to enhance his tale?

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 13, 2018 05:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).