Abhishek Kapoor: Sushant Singh Rajput’s death left me numb, like I still am

By: Mohnish Singh

Filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor’s much-loved film Kai Po Che, which released on February 22, 2013, has clocked eight years. Based on Chetan Bhagat's popular novel The 3 Mistakes Of My Life (2008), the film marked the silver screen debut of Sushant Singh Rajput, an incredibly gifted artist who passed away on June 14, 2020.

On Friday, Kapoor shared a BTS video of the climax of Kai Po Che, where Rajput’s character Ishaan Bhatt dies. The director could not control his emotions while remembering the actor’s untimely death last year.

After the success of Kai Po Che, Abhishek Kapoor and Sushant Singh Rajput teamed up again for Kedarnath (2018), a romantic disaster film inspired by the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. Ironically, in both movies, the actor’s character dies.

Kapoor shared that he cried while writing the climax of Kai Po Che, and even when editing and seeing it with the background score.

“We were so charged about this story as we were writing it. I remember I cried when we wrote the climax, I cried when we shot it and I cried when I saw the edit. I cried most when I saw it with the background score. I saw Ishaan die so many times and then again in Kedarnath. I guess that’s why on 14^th June when we got the terrible news, I went numb, like I still am…,” wrote the director.

On the work front, Abhishek Kapoor has just wrapped up his next directorial offering Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui. Produced by T-Series Films and Guy in the Sky Pictures, the film stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Vaani Kapoor in lead roles. This is the first time when the director has teamed up with both actors.

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui is dated to hit silver screens on July 9, 2021.