'Everyday Should Be Celebrated As Independence Day', Says Gurmeet Choudhary

Patriotic fervour is at its peak as India celebrates its 72nd Independence Day today. For decades, films in Indian cinema have been paying a tribute to those who have sacrificed their lives for the nation and one of the first filmmaker who comes to mind when we think of such films is JP Dutta. The director is back with another war drama ‘Paltan’. Republic TV caught up with the star cast of the film including Arjun Rampal, Sonu Sood, Harshvardhan Rane, and Gurmeet Choudhary who expressed their emotions this Independence Day.

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Arjun Rampal who plays Lt. Col. Rai Singh in ‘Paltan’ said, “There is a scene in the film Where I address the whole platoon and it is on Independence Day and I think JP sir wrote a really beautiful line where he said, ‘India is an idea which is worth dying for’ and I think that kind of sums it up because India is such a special country, it is so diverse, we were just separate little states which all got united as one and that is how we became India. Throwing some light on India’s history, the actor said, “We have been ruled all our lives by foreigners coming and invading us and now that we have our independence, we should keep this diversity, we should keep our culture, the way we live with each other, no matter what caste, colour, creed we are, we should stay united and I think that is what every Indian should do and the responsibility of every Indian is to keep India one and united.”

Sonu Sood recalled a dialogue in ‘Paltan’ while expressing his emotions. The actor said, If you talk about independence, there is a beautiful line in the film ‘the difference between the life of a common man and that of an army man is that in normal life, a son sets fire to his father’s pyre while in the life of an army man, a father sets fire to his son’s pyre’, so that is the kind of sacrifice the family makes. We salute each and every soldier who is fighting and their families also who are living without them. Because of these people, today we are standing here an enjoying this Independence.”

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While Harshvardhan Rane had a different take on what freedom means to him. The actor said, “I always feel that freedom is one of the most underrated emotions that we have and it runs to every one of us. People try to express it through their work of art, through building a career, through making an empire, making a family, I think all this is an expression of freedom and without that everyone feels suffocated and that is what we yearned for.”

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Gurmeet Choudhary stressed on the fact that every day should be celebrated as Independence Day, “I don’t understand why a feeling of patriotism is evoked only around Independence day and Republic day. Every day for us should be August 15”, he said. The cast signed off with ‘Jai Hind’ as they echoed the emotions every Indian is feeling as India celebrates 71 years as a free nation.