Recreating the life of someone on the silver screen can be a tricky affair. Either one can create
a film, which will go down into the pages of history as a cinematic masterpiece – like
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, based on the life of physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, or they

can do what Kannan Iyer has done. Iyer, who has given us in the past, the
stellar Ek Thi Daayan has come out with the biographical drama Ae Watan Mere Watan, based

on the live of Usha Mehta, credited with starting the Congress Radio during the Quit India
Movement in a pre-independent India. The film, with Sara Ali Khan in the lead, however, for
the lack of better words, can simply be defined as – lacking.

Ae Watan Mere Watan is a biographical drama that chronicles the life of Usha Mehta (Sara Ali
Khan), a courageous young woman who played a pivotal role in India’s struggle for
independence in 1942. Amidst the Quit India movement, she initiated an underground radio
station aimed at fostering unity and resistance against British rule. This daring act triggered an
intense pursuit by British authorities, leading to a thrilling chase as Mehta fought to amplify the
voice of freedom.

Sara, fresh off the Homi Adajania murder mystery Murder Mubarak, takes on the mantle of the Khadi-clad heroine here, a champion of Swadesh, crying out “Karo Ya Maro” at every opportune moment in the narrative. She is ably supported by Abhay Verma’s Kaushik and Sparsh Srivastava’s Fahad. As the three get pulled into the workings of Congress and the fight for freedom, spurred by the atrocities being committed by the British Raj, they must fight their demons – both within and without – as they journey to realise their dream of an independent India.