However, Nishikant Kamat, of Dombivli Fast fame, says that his Mumbai Meri Jaan is not just about terrorism. “The subject is about overcoming your fears and leading a normal life,” he explains. “It is about people and our will to survive.” MMJ deals with this subject against the backdrop of the 7/11 train blasts in 2006.

Kamat says it wasn’t so difficult to get backing for this unusual story nor did it take a lot of convincing to persuade stars such as Soha Ali Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Madhavan and Paresh Rawal to act in the movie. As far as research went, the team spoke to people who had witnessed the tragedy and also verified all the facts and figures.

Research was one of the vital things that Kunal Shivdasani did before scripting Hijack. “We spoke to many air hostesses and to people who had been on planes during hijacks,” he says. “We researched the Kandahar hijack and the situation in the planes involved in 9/11. We did not want to write some inappropriate comic scene.”

Shivdasani made this film on human emotions with terrorism as the backdrop. “We intend to show what happens to people when they are in such tense situations. How friends can turn foes, how you end up becoming friends with people you wouldn’t have spoken to otherwise,” he says. In Hijack, Shiney Ahuja is “a normal guy who finds the courage and will power to save his daughter from a hijacked plane”.

Neeraj Pandey, who has written and directed A Wednesday, insists that though it has a terrorist as one of its protagonists, the film is not about terrorism.

“I was inspired by what’s going on around us,” he agrees, “but my film is about guys like you and me. I zeroed in on this idea because I felt this has an original point of view and it was an interesting story that needed to be told,” explains Pandey, happy to have Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah immediately agreeing to do the film. “They were the first actors I approached and they responded positively,” he says.

Ruslaanis another film that is based on the train blasts in Mumbai and is currently under production. According to director Mohan Sharma, whose previous film was based on the July floods, “Ruslaan is based on the reality of the July train blasts (7/11). I wanted to show what the reality was.” He and his team spoke to survivors and families of blast victims.

“We want to depict the pain and the frustration of the people by focusing on the main character Ruslaan and how his life suddenly takes a turn with the blasts.”