For most people, November 26 is a date etched in national memory as one of the darkest days in India’s history. For Arjun Rampal, it is also his birthday – making the events of that night in 2008 a deeply personal wound that has stayed with him for nearly two decades.
At the Hello! Hall of Fame Awards in Mumbai on March 22, the actor opened up about what he witnessed on the night of the 26/11 attacks, and how his role in Dhurandhar: The Revenge finally gave him the closure he had been waiting for.
“I thought I was going to be sick”
Rampal revealed that on the night of November 26, 2008, he was at the Four Seasons hotel in Worli, having arrived to pick up friends before heading to the Taj Hotel to celebrate his birthday. Within minutes of their plans being finalised, phone calls began pouring in with warnings of a gang war in Colaba.
Within 20 to 30 minutes, the entire Four Seasons was cordoned off and he and the others were asked to stay inside as it was not safe to venture out. The birthday celebrations never happened.
As the night unfolded and the full scale of the terror attacks became clear, Rampal found himself trapped inside the hotel, watching the horror play out. “In the morning when I drove back home,” he recalled, “I stopped at least three times because I thought I was going to be sick.”
Dhurandhar: The Revenge as his personal revenge
It was that visceral, unresolved memory that made Rampal’s casting in the Dhurandhar franchise feel like fate. When director Aditya Dhar narrated the 26/11 sequence to him during the script reading, something clicked into place.
“When Aditya Dhar narrated to me the 26/11 scene, I knew I was going to have my revenge and that’s what I did with Dhurandhar,” he said, signing off with a heartfelt “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”
For an actor who had witnessed the horror of that night firsthand, stepping into the shoes of the very kind of man responsible for it – and doing so convincingly – must have required an extraordinary and deeply uncomfortable journey into his own trauma.
In the film, Rampal plays Major Iqbal – a cold and calculating ISI antagonist inspired by militant figure Ilyas Kashmiri, portrayed as one of the key forces behind the 26/11 attacks. His performance has been among the most praised aspects of the film, and in light of his personal connection to that night, it is not difficult to understand why.