Amar Singh Chamkila had a child with first wife after marrying Amarjot, reveals Imtiaz Ali

Imtiaz Ali has revealed that Punjabi Singer Amar Singh Chamkila had a child with his first wife Gurmail Kaur, even after seemingly separating from her and marrying Amarjot Kaur. Ali revealed that one of Chamkila's relatives went on record to confirm the news. Chamkila and Amarjot were gunned down by masked assassins in 1988 and their murder remains unresolved to date. Their story was adapted by Imtiaz Ali for his latest film Amar Singh Chamkila released earlier this month on Netflix.

In an interview with News18, Imtiaz spoke about gathering background information about the late singer, and spoke about how the singer shared complicated relationships with the two women in his life. “He had another child with Gurmail after having a child with Amarjot. The circumstance of that has been explained to me by Chamkila’s sister. I’ve it on record and I had written a scene about it also but had to cut it down because it was somehow a bit less relevant than the ones that were already there,” the filmmaker revealed.

He also explained why Gurmail’s character wasn’t given much prominence in the movie. “I couldn’t show too much of her in the film because that part of Chamkila’s life was hidden from Amarjot and the whole world. It’s only later in the film that we reveal that he has another wife. I paper-edited the film a lot to bring it to the duration that it has today. But I agree that there’s a lot that could have been discovered in their relationship,” he said.

Imtiaz said Chamkila was 6 years younger than Gurmail and when they got married, she would ferry him around on a bicycle.

In the film, it is shown that Chamkila kept his marriage with Gurmail a secret from everybody, including Amarjot. But he tied the knot with Amarjot to preserve their professional partnership, which could’ve ended had they remained unmarried and kept touring around Punjab.

Post the release of the film, Gurmail has spoken about how her life was impacted after Chamkila’s passing in several interviews, which left her penniless as he was the sole breadwinner of the family.

She said that she used to interact with both him and Amarjot often and that all three of them were together just a couple of days before Chamkila and Amarjot were killed.

Gurmail said that she had four children with Chamkila, two of whom died when they were young. Chamkila had two children with Amarjot, with only one son – Jaiman – having survived.

WION's review of Chamkila

In her review of the film, WION's Shomini Sen praised Diljit Dosanjh's portrayal of Chamkila, calling it 'terrific'. "Diljit is known to be a terrific live performer, and so performing live as Chamkila may have come easy- but the transformation, with a change in body language to suit his character, is splendid and something that you want to watch with utmost patience just to devour his act. " Read the full review here

Amar Singh Chamkila debuted on Netflix on April 12