Dhaan grows on issue of farmers’ condition

Shekhar Suman has now ventured into production with his film Dhaan to be directed by Makarand Deshpande. Shekhar is passionate about his subject since it comes with a social message. Dhaan is based on the plight of the farmers in the country. "It is very ironic, our country is known as a ‘Krishi Pradhan Desh’ but farmers are dying and nobody is doing anything about it. The suicide rates are alarming, and we are treating it as just another piece of news. A certain degree of empathy is needed to connect with people and our film deals with this," says Shekhar.

He shares, "Our protagonist is confronted with a farmer who has decided to commit suicide. He feels and understands the pathos that the man experienced. He ultimately renounces the world and his family and goes out to connect with people in search of truth just as Gautam Buddha did."

When asked about the starcast, Shekhar reveals that he is playing the main protagonist, who is a detective. "Kay Kay Menon will also feature in the film. Besides me, there are two important characters, that of my wife and my secretary. My wife feels I am having an affair with the secretary. The secretary has a boyfriend who is into spiritualism, and he connects me to the spiritual world. We are looking at good names for these roles, though we don’t mind taking newcomers."

Director Makarand says that the subject hit him so much that he first turned it into a play and then decided to make a film on it. "I will do the play after the film is released. It’s an intriguing subject. The film will be a rural-urban mixture. We plan to launch it by September 15. The subject is very intense." Makarand’s film Dream Man with Kay Kay is almost complete and he plans to release it by the end of October.