Chhapaak: The film on acid attack stars Deepika Padukone and Vikrant Massey

A few days ago, Deepika Padukone finally shared the look from her much anticipated, Chhapaak. Deepika Padukone will be essaying the role of Lakshmi Agarwal, an acid attack survivor who garnered a lot of praise for her movie. Meghna Gulzar took to Twitter to announce that she will be collaborating with Fox Studios for Chhapaak.

Who is Lakshmi Agarwal?

Lakshmi Agarwal was just like any simple, teenage girl. But, her life turned upside down when at the mere age of 15, acid was thrown on her face for rejecting the advances of two men. The acid attack took place in 2005, and after recovering, she started the Stop Sale Acid campaign. The campaign was aimed at stopping the sale of commercial acid and acid violence.

The story of Lakshmi Agarwal found its way in the Hindustan Times too. In 2019, she was awarded Women Empowerment Award by IWES, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Unicef and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. She was also the director of Chhanv Foundation, an NGO directed towards helping the acid attack survivors of India. She has also been awarded International Women of Courage, 2014 by US First Lady, Michelle Obama. Inspired by her courage, director Meghna Gulzar has adopted the story of telling her story through the movie, Chhapaak.

Chhapaak: The Movie

Deepika Padukone took to Twitter to announce the commencement of the movie on 24 December 2018. In the tweet, she described the movie very precisely and wrote, “A story of trauma and triumph. And the unquashable human spirit.”

Chhapaak Cast

Vikrant Massey, who has been spotted in quite a lot of Bollywood movies and series has been roped in as the lead male. The shooting of the movie has gone on floors since March. Describing the happiness as Deepika and Vikrant join the team, Meghna in an interview last year said, “We will start the film in the third week of March 2019, and the cast is still coming together. Vikrant is somebody who I wanted to work with since Raazi. And after I saw him in A Death In The Gunj… you know there are some actors that you just want to work with – and I’m just glad I got the opportunity to have a suitable character for him in this film, which is Deepika’s partner.”

She also described how she landed up with the title. “We were initially toying with two titles. One being ‘Gandhak’ and the other, ‘Chaapak’ (Sound Of Splash) which got locked. The latter conveys that the film is about acid violence immediately.”

Chhapaak First Look

The first look of Deepika Padukone as Lakshmi Agarwal was dropped on 25th March 2019. And the response was amazing. The internet was all praises for the actors to have come up with such great content. Many Bollywood and non-Bollywood figures also lend in their support for the movie. Deepika shared the picture script of the movie in her Instagram handle. In an interview, regarding the movie, Deepika said, “It’s a very important film, and I feel that the story which we are showcasing in our film needs to be told.”

The movie will make its way to the theatres in January 2020, and you should see it.