Shikara Is About My Mother’s Home, My Home, And How We Lost It…. But I’ll Never Sell Hate For Profit: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Director-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra first took his cinema back to his childhood home, Kashmir, with the arthouse thriller Khamosh (1985). In 2020, he delved deeper…into personal history. Shikara, perhaps the first full Bollywood feature on the Kashmiri Pandit story, had emotional Pandits streaming to the halls. But it also had a rather troubled ­reception—among Pandits. Chopra opens up here about Kashmir, his memories and the controversy, in an interview with Lachmi Debroy:

Share with us your memories about Kashmir…

Once a Kashmiri, always a Kashmiri. The landscape, the beauty, the warmth of the people, the food, the ­culture and heritage are deeply ingrained and ­nothing can take that away from me. Growing up in Kashmir was one of the most beautiful things that happened to me. My first crush, my first aff­air, my first kiss—every­thing ­happened in Kashmir. I tell my children that I regret not being able to give them a childhood in...