Vicky Wanted to Change ‘How’s The Josh’ Line: ‘Uri’ Director

Aditya Dhar spoke about the origin of the iconic line.

Vicky Kaushal in a still from Uri.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

At a recent event, Uri: The Surgical Strike director Aditya Dhar revealed that star Vicky Kaushal was initially hesitant about the hit line “How’s the josh?” from the film and had to be convinced to say it.

Recalling the incident during a conversation with veteran screenplay writer Robin Bhatt as part of a programme titled "Wartalaap" by the Screenwriters Association (SWA), Dhar said: "We first shot the line 'How's the josh?' during the Myanmar sequence. Two minutes before the camera rolled, Vicky came to me and asked me to change the line because he thought somewhere the 'feel' was not coming. I tried to explain that to motivate their team, army commanders talk like that, so let's give it a try."

“I used to visit the Army club in Delhi along with my friends when I was a little boy. There used to be a former Army officer, who would ask all of us children to stand in a queue and ask us ‘How’s the josh?’. The game was, one by one, all children have to reply, ‘High, Sir’. Whoever would say it the loudest and the best, would get a chocolate. Most of the time I used to win the chocolate,”

Aditya Dhar

“It was just a memory that stayed with me,” shared Aditya.

When he started writing the script of Uri: The Surgical Strike, he wrote the dialogue as part of Vihaan's character without realising that the dialogue will become such a hit.

As the film has received a ton of appreciation from audiences and critics alike, Aditya was asked if he had been approached to make such a film again.

“Yes... Bollywood functions based on what is trending. Once a rom-com is hit, people will start making dozens of rom-coms. If a war film is hit, people will start making many of that. When I made Uri, war film was not a commercially successful genre of the present time.Now that everyone wants to make films on war and Indian Army, I would look for something very different and start a new trend and will find a new challenge.”

Aditya Dhar

“When I start writing a story, I think about it two, three years ahead of its time,” he added.

(Inputs: IANS)