November to Remember: When 4 lakh Indians gathered for the funeral in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi

Though there are many films made on Gandhi, it is the 1982 film by Richard Attenborough, starring Ben Kingsley that stands out in the minds of people even today. It is known not only for bringing Oscars to India for the first time, but also for depicting the father of our nation in the most accurate way. The film captures the Indian independence movement and the 'Brexit' from India. 

The film is appreciated for its production values, costumes and also the performance of Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. The film won 11 nominations for Oscars and won eight at the 55th Academy Awards, including the Best Actor, Best Director and Best Picture. The film also became a commercial success and collected $127.8 million. The budget for the film was $22 million.

The film opens with a scene where an elderly Gandhi is seen on his way to a meet and greet with his followers and admirers on January 30, 1948. One of the visitors Nathuram Godse shoots him dead. His state funeral is shown, with millions of people gathering to attend the procession. Interestingly, the scene was not a CGI but shot in real with millions of people. 

The actor Ben Kingsley recently revisited the film and shared a few anecdotes about the 1982 film, which he considers, a golden door to the film industry. He revealed that the funeral scene was shot with 400,000 Indians. The film holds the Guinness World Record for the most extras ever used in a film. 

In a video interaction with GQ in 2019, the actor had said, "I think that the coincidence of loving (Gandhi) deeply as a man to portray, did empower me through those long demanding days in India. And people in India were enormously generous. You see, there was no CGI, can you believe that?" he said adding that those were four hundred thousand people at his funeral. "That felt extraordinary to me," he said.

Kingsley also admitted that he never thought they could recreate Gandhi on screen, but Richard Attenborough made the 'impossible, possible'. He recalled that Richard had invited him to watch photographs and unusual footages of the 'iconic character'. He sat for five hours straight to watch the news reel footage that left him believing that it is impossible to portray him on screen. "I decided that it was impossible, left the cinema and didn't look at any more footage ever again," he said. According to him, working on the project was like 'standing on the foothills of the largest ice-covered mountain that you've ever seen'. "It was like standing on the foothills of the largest ice covered mountain you've ever seen thinking I'll go up one foot and slide down five. But he (Richard Attenborough) got me through it," he said.

The first Indian film to win the Oscars also starred Rohini Hattangadi, Saeed Jaffrey, Om Puri, Amrish Puri and Neena Gupta. The historical film was released in India on 30 November 1982 and on December 3 in the United Kingdom. The film was the opening film at the Independence Day Film Festival, which was jointly presented by the Indian Directorate of Film Festivals and the Ministry of Defence. It was held on August 12 in 2016 to commemorate the 70th Indian Independence Day. The film is also ranked as one of the greatest British films of the 20th century by the British Film Institute.

The film is available to stream on Netflix.