25 years ago on this day, Tamil and Hindi cinema witnessed the release of what is arguably Kamal Haasan's best work to date, Hey Ram (2000). An alternate history film depicting India's partition, 1946 Calcutta riots, and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse as a result the increasing Hindu-Muslim divide, Hey Ram was a failure at the box-office at the time of its release.

"It didn’t work anywhere. Critics were kind. But Hey Ram was a commercial disaster. Hey Ram, which was so edge-of-the-seat that audiences slipped out of their seats and out of the theatres (laughs). Even when I was making it, people asked me what the hell I was doing. Such expenses, for what? I said it was a promise I made to myself. Like a spouse and a house. 

 

Our Hey Ram went wrong with the audience. I’m not angry with the audience for rejecting it. When people call it a great film now, it doesn’t make any sense. It was like Guru Dutt’s Kaagaz Ke Phool. Not enough people went to see Hey Ram." - Kamal Haasan in an age old interview with Subhash K Jha

The movie was rejected by theater audience in the 2000s mainly because Kamal Haasan spoke daringly of many Gandhian mistakes, speaking of which could be considered blasphemous 25 years ago. The Pandora box of Hindu-Muslim divide was also addressed in the film, which naturally meant opposition for the movie, at surface level. 

Ironically, Hey Ram is Kamal Haasan's most celebrated work PAN India, with three National Awards to its credit. Reminiscing the silver jubilee celebration of Hey Ram, which was also written, directed, and produced by Kamal Haasan, the Tamil star released a special poster and the link to the full movie (watch above). 

Notably, Hey Ram is an important film in the career of all actors who worked on it, especially Atul Kulkarni, Rani Mukherjee, Shah Rukh Khan, Vasundara Das, Delhi Ganesh, Naseeruddin Shah among others. Shah Rukh Khan not only acted in the movie for free, but also distributed the Hindi version of it. 

Very recently, Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddique revealed an interesting anecdote about working on Hey Ram 25 years ago. Nawazuddin Siddique was an AD who had also done a small role in Hey Ram, but his scenes were cut due to runtime limitations. Seemingly Nawazuddin didn't take this too well and was crying inconsolably at Hey Ram's Mumbai premiere, and it was a 14 year old year Shruthi Haasan who tried to calm Nawazuddin Siddique down.

 

“It’s premiere was held at Film City in Mumbai and I took at least 5-6 of my friends.. Before the film began, Kamal Haasan sahab came to me and said, ‘Nawaz, tell your friends your role has been cut'. I told Kamal Haasan how is this possible and I asked him to show my scenes just during that screening.

 

Kamal Haasan refused because the film was to be released the next day. He asked me to honestly tell my friends. I went to my friends and I started crying and I told my friends that my role had been cut. I gave them the choice to watch the film or not but they wanted to watch it.” - Nawazuddin Siddique on The Kapil Sharma show

 

“I am proud of him. Nawazuddin Siddique was also an assistant director of Hey Ram. He was a fantastic actor even then..He’s talking about it casually now, but that day he was heartbroken,” - Kamal Haasan on The Kapil Sharma Show

Former actress Esha Deol is another name who almost acted in Hey Ram. Hema Malini was already in Kamal Haasan's movie, and her eldest daughter was approached for the role of Vasundhara Das initially. But since the character was Saketh Ram (Kamal Haasan)'s second wife, and had intimate scenes with him, Hema Malini felt it wouldn't be an apt launch for Esha Deol at that time.