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Arjun Rampal who is in real life a practising Hindu, has studied the Holy Quran. For the role of the Muslim police officer in Chakravyuh
Arjun moved in with his Man-Friday Raja who is a Muslim. He also followed Raja closely and learnt the ritual of performing the Namaaz
before performing the sequence Namaaz-reciting sequence in Chakravyuh.
`Yeah, my 'boy' Raja who is a Muslim was my coach. It wasn't about getting the character right. It was about making sure that that I
didn't overdo or underdo it. `
Arjun feels Muslim characters are constantly depicted in a stereotypical way in our films. `It may not be intentional. But a certain tone
always creeps in when a Muslim character is portrayed, in the way the character speaks and dresses.
I wanted my
character to appear normal. He had to look Indian, not Muslim. And since my 'boy' is Muslim without in any way flashing his religious
identity I decided to observe him closely before playing the Muslim cop in Chakravyuh. `
Arjun was specially careful about the sequence where he had to perform the holy Namaaz. He religiously practised the prayer with Raja
for close to two weeks.
The end-result is more than gratifying. Arjun is getting tweets by the dozens from Muslims.
`I think they like the fact that my being a Muslim character is not of any consequence to the way I am portrayed and what I do in the
film, ` says Arjun happily.
Monday, October 29, 2012 12:49 IST