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One of the Malayalam megastar Mammootty’s most magnificent performances, and a rare foray into Hindi cinema was the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in 2000, which was directed by Jabbar Patel, the avant-garde director of such seminal neo-classics in Marathi as Samna, Sinhasan, Umbartha and Jait Re Jait.

Speaking to me about the honour of playing Dr Ambedkar, Mammootty said in an interview conducted in the year 2000, “That was in English and dubbed into Hindi. But yes, we can call it my fourth Hindi film. You think I did a good job of playing Dr Ambedkar without imitating him? How could I imitate him when I never met him? I had only heard of him. I would say this was an entirely imaginary interpretation of the great man. I could only portray him the way I thought he should be. There were lots of restrictions in playing Dr Ambedkar. Since he was a much-revered real-life character,...