Hawaizaada

<p>During the era of the , a happy-go-lucky school drop-out named ( ), a.k.a. Shivi, falls in love with a local stage dancer named Sitara ( ). This makes Shivi’s father throw him out of the house. Shivi bumps into a crazy scientist, Pandit Subbaraya Shastri ( ). Shastri is constantly being chased by British soldiers for his weird experiments, but unbeknownst to them, Shastri is secretly building a flying machine. Seeing Shivi’s great knowledge of the , Shastri shares with Shivi a , which he is using to build an aeroplane. Shastri offers to let Shivi be his assistant, but Shivi refuses. Shivi later proposes to Sitara, but Sitara resists on the grounds that society will not accept their marriage. She goes away to Hyderabad. Heartbroken, Shivi goes back to Shastri and accepts his offer to assist him. Together they work for several months on the flying machine, but they fail again and again. On running out of funds, they ask a local king to sponsor their experiments. Finally, they manage to build a small aeroplane and have a successful unmanned test flight in the presence of eyewitnesses — but it crashes within a few seconds. Shivi later learns that Sitara is back in Bombay, living in poverty and debt. In order to get Sitara out of debt, Shivi sells Shastri’s secret book to a British officer. Feeling betrayed, Shastri does not survive this trauma and dies. Shastri’s death makes Shivi feel so guilty that he (along with Sitara and Shivi’s nephew Narayan) decides to fulfill Shastri’s dream. In his quest to build a perfect flying machine, Shivi goes to to meet a guru, to whom Shastri used to refer. The guru gives Shivi a code, “4121”, which helps Shivi figure out that will be the best fuel for his engine, since in Hindi the word for “mercury” ( ) looks like the number 4121. Before Shivi can complete his machine, British officers arrest him on a complaint made by his brother. After being rescued by a freedom fighter, Shivi finally takes the aircraft to the beach. Before the soldiers can arrest him, Shivi flies away with Sitara, thus becoming the first people to ride in a flying machine. The film was originally titled . Interested in creating a realistic 1895 setting, the filmmakers re-created an entire city from scratch in , . The team also recreates several antiques. Director Vibhu Puri stated in an interview, “Many artefacts that we read about aren’t available in this day and age. So, we used our imagination and recreated them. We even designed the plane based on how it was described in the books.” The makers of recreated a plane from scratch as Puri wanted to depict ‘s first plane in all authenticity. For this, the team of did extensive research on the products used in ancient times for making the plane that is shown in the film. The team used velvet, wood and canvas that was available at that time including all natural colors in painting the plane, and had to create about 25–30 models before finalizing the plane for the film. From these samples, only 2 small planes will be seen in the film. Also, In order to maintain the authenticity of the era and avoid fabrication, the makers kept every single detail in mind to re-create the plane. The team was keen to install the plane at , as that was where Shivkar Talpade’s first plane had taken off. But since the makers denied permissions from the authorities, the sequence was shot at in . Nearly 3,000 technicians had worked in this film for almost two years. The director insisted to bring “magical realism” for the audience. Ayushmann Khurrana learned Marathi lines for the film, based on the character of Marathi-scientist . Director Puri and his team did many look tests for and , and the former tried on nine different hairstyles for this film. Sahil Kochhar, was the costume designer of the film. He and his team designed outfits according to the fabrics and colours available in that era. They made sure we didn’t use any nylon outfits as it had not been invented then. Similarly, the colour pink wasn’t used then. gave the film 4.5 stars out of 5, and stated “Hawaizaada, a film that soars into the skies with its overweening ambitions and miraculously manages to stay airborne as it chronicles the life a man who wanted to fly.” rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stating “Hawaizaada works because this story about India’s unsung hero needs to find its place. But this realm depends heavily on performances – the histrionics could be several notches higher.” of CNN-IBN gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, stating that “The film is an interesting idea that never takes flight.” gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, stating “Vibhu has designed Hawaizaada to be an all-purpose vehicle that has romance, comedy and drama . But the writing is flat and the telling, clumsy. Ayushmann, who is in nearly every frame, trembles with fervour. Mithun matches him. The respite here is Pallavi Sharda, who lifts this film.” gave it 1.5 out of 5 stars stating that “If you watch the film with a feeling that you will be transported into the world of invention of the first ever man made flight, then, take our word for it that, you will be sorely disappointed, because the film actually is an extravagant ‘costume musical’. The film barely touches upon anything that’s got to do with the story pertaining to the first manmade Indian flight and is far away from reality. It is instead loaded with melodrama. At the end of the film, one really feels sorry for the film’s producer because the over-expense was just not needed!” Koimoi gave the same rating noting the work of the design team in recreating the 1800s, but faulted the script for focusing on a fictional love story and too many songs rather than the historical story of the aeroplane’s flight. Then stated that “Hawaizaada turned out to be a sheer disappointing watch. It has a yawn-inducing storyline which makes it difficult to watch even as it drags for over two hours. It is low on historical knowledge and even the execution is not top notch.” The film grossed (equivalent to 7.5 million or US$89,000 in 2023) on the opening day, with (equivalent to 9.1 million or US$110,000 in 2023) on Saturday and (equivalent to 11 million or US$130,000 in 2023) on Sunday, with grossing (equivalent to 28 million or US$330,000 in 2023) on the opening week. Then facing a drop on Monday, grossing (equivalent to 5.3 million or US$62,000 in 2023), total up to (equivalent to 35 million or US$410,000 in 2023) in 4 days. The film grossed (equivalent to 45 million or US$540,000 in 2023) in the first week, (equivalent to 1.2 million or US$14,000 in 2023) in the second week and in the third week, it grossed 80,470 at the box office. reported US$13,440 as the earnings for the first weekend. According to the Indian trade website , the film closing collections were (equivalent to 53 million or US$630,000 in 2023). The soundtrack of features ten songs with three of them were composed by and four by Mangesh Dhakde. Actor had composed and sung a popular of , “Dil-E-Nadaan” which is sung by . He practised hard for singing and composing the number, and he composed it in overnight during the film’s shoot. The song also has a reprise version, which is also composed and sung by Khurrana along with . was invited as a guest composer for the song “Dil Todne Ki Masheen” which is sung by . The background score for the film is composed by . Lyrics for all the songs, have been written by director .</p>