After Lalu, former Bihar CM Manjhi now takes to silver screen

The movie revolves around the caste difference and discrimination in our society. It is a love story of a boy from a Mahadalit family and a girl from an upper caste family, their struggle and fight against the caste barriers.

Bihar politicians’ love for Bollywood appears to transcend political affiliations.

Former CM of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi (File Photo)

After former Bihar chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who made a guest appearance in Mahesh Manjrekar’s ‘Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav’, it’s now the turn of yet another former chief minister of state and Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular leader, Jitan Ram Manjhi, to take to the silver screen. Manjhi has a cameo role in a Hindi film, ‘Coat’ now being shot at Tungi village near Biharsharif in Nalanda district.

Produced by Kumar Abhishek and Pannu Singh, and directed by Akshay Singh, the movie revolves around the caste difference and discrimination in our society. It is a love story of a boy from a Mahadalit family and a girl from an upper caste family, their struggle and fight against the caste barriers.

Vivaan Shah, who is the son of actors Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak, plays the lead role. The other casts are Sanjay Mishra, Abhishek Chauhan, Badal Rajput and Ragini Kashyap.

Manjhi makes a screen appearance in the role of a chief minister, who makes a visit to the village temple to perform puja and responds to queries by mediapersons on development work undertaken by protagonist, Madho, a Mahadalit boy, played by Vivaan in the movie.

“There is a character of a politician in the film and we wanted a virtual character in this role. When we approached Manjhi ji for this role, initially he did not appear to be interested. He was impressed when I read him the script and told him about his role,” said director and script writer Akshay Singh.

Singh said the former chief minister had done a one-minute screen appearance and also delivered long dialogue in the film.

“We did not have to put in much effort to make Manjhi remember his dialogues. His dialogues were just read out and when the shoot began, he delivered the dialogues extempore. He wasn’t nervous and everything went off smoothly,” he said.

The director said the politician-turned-actor did not wear any make-up. “But you will realise when you see the movie that he appears natural and normal on screen,” he added.

Singh, who has previously done some roles in TV serials and is directing a movie for the first time, said he always wanted to make a movie against the socio-economic backdrop of Bihar, which was his native place.

“I agreed to go ahead when my producer friends suggested me the topic of a boy from a Mahadalit family who works hard to change a Mahadalit’s image. We preferred Tungi village as it provided a perfect setting for a location shoot,” he added.

BLURB

The movie revolves around caste difference and discrimination. It is the love story of a Mahadalit boy and upper caste girl and their fight against caste barriers