On Saturday, ‘Haemolymph’, a biopic based on the false implication of Abdul Wahid Shaikh, premiered at the Salar Auditorium in Shivaji Nagar.
The film is about the journey of Shaikh, a school teacher, who was accused in the July 11, 2006, Mumbai train-bombing case and sentenced to nine years in prison. The movie is not only about his fight for justice but also about others whose lives have been impacted by the blasts.
“I wanted to shed light on the atrocities the common man faces in India,” Sudarshan Gamare, the writer and director of the film, tells Metrolife. “Wahid’s story is the perfect depiction of how a misjudgement by the authorities can turn a common man’s life upside down,” he adds.
Talking about the name of the film, he says, “Haemolymph loosely translates to ‘the blood of an ant’. Similar to how an ant can be easily crushed, the common man often gets crushed by the authorities in India.”
Gamare started working on the movie in 2018. “It took me 11 months to do the research. I had to understand every person’s story and get the facts right,” he says.
The movie is a true depiction of everything that unravelled post the false charges on him, says Shaikh. “The director has not taken any creative liberty and he hasn’t made the story too ‘filmy’.”
“There are tons of more stories like this waiting to be told. By narrating them through a strong medium like cinema, we can hold authorities, like the police, accountable for their misdoing. It will also help the falsely accused gain justice,” he reasons.