Amole Gupte is relieved that Saina is primed for a big-screen release. With this, his six-year journey on the biopic of former world no 1 badminton champion Saina Nehwal reaches its culmination. He says, “I started researching in August 2015. The beauty of her story lies as much in her success as it does in the simplicity of her family and her. How does a lower-middle-class family maintain its values and navigate their daughter’s global success?” In December 2015, the director met Nehwal in Hyderabad. “She had knocked off [then] world number one Carolina Marin in a quarter-final in Dubai, and was home, nursing an injury. When I saw her come down the stairs, my heart was full,” recounts Gupte. 

Given the family’s modest background, were they not daunted about their lives being dramatised in a Bollywood film? “Seeing my track record, they believed I would make the film with deep sensitivity. I am neither in the media glare, nor on Twitter. I am here to make movies, not to gather followers.”