Sashi Kiran Tikka: ‘Major’ is Adivi Sesh’s best work thus far

Director Sashi Kiran Tikka terms ‘Major’ as an emotional, personal story of Sandeep Unnikrishnan, beyond the 26/11 attacks

What the world knows about Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan is that he fought against terrorists in the 26/11 attacks of 2008 at The Taj Palace Hotel, Mumbai, and was killed in action. Major, the Hindi-Telugu biopic scheduled to release on June 3, is pitched as a personal, emotional story of Sandeep. “His parents, friends and colleagues remember him as a vibrant person with a great sense of humour. Our film shows the man behind the hero,” says director Sashi Kiran Tikka, when we meet for this interview during the post-production of the film.

Post the release of the Telugu espionage thriller Goodachari in August 2018, Sashi and actor Adivi Sesh, also co-writers of the film, had decided to work on individual projects before another collaboration. However, things turned out differently. As Sashi puts it, “Sandeep brought us together again, sooner than we expected.” 

Dream projects

Sashi and Sesh have known each other since 2010, in the early stages of their film careers. As Sashi recalls, “We used to discuss story ideas that could be our dream projects. One of the ideas Sesh had was Sandeep’s biopic.” 

In mid-2018, Sesh had almost completed Evaru (a Telugu remake of the Spanish film The Invisible Guest), when producers Sharath Chandra and Anurag Reddy enquired if Sesh had a story that would be interesting for an all-India film. Sesh pitched the idea of Sandeep’s biopic. A meeting with Namrata Shirodkar followed and Mahesh Babu also came aboard as co-producer. Sony Pictures also stepped in. 

Meanwhile, Sashi was busy with another script. When Adivi Sesh called to ask if he would direct Major, Sashi was not keen. Back home after the interaction, Sashi could not stop himself from researching Sandeep Unnikrishnan: “The more I read, the more audio and video clippings I tuned into, the more I was drawn to Sandeep’s story.”

Memory lane