Ranveer will play a great Indian hero

Playing the great general will be a challenge for the talented actor.

After signing up to play Kapil Dev in 1983, Kabir Khan's film on India's 1983 World Cup triumph, Ranveer Singh has just volunteered to play the most challenging role in his career.

Ranveer will play Sam Maneckshaw, the legendary general who led the Indian Army in the 1971 War in Director Meghna Gulzar's biopic on arguably India's greatest contemporary military hero.

A director Ranveer is close to tells Subhash K Jha, "Ranveer is the right fit for playing Field Marshal Maneckshaw, but he will have to curb his natural exuberance. Gravitas is a must. Sam Maneckshaw is a national hero, revered and iconised. The film can't afford to go wrong."

Interestingly, Meghna has also signed Deepika Padukone -- Ranveer's wife -- to feature in her biopic on the acid attack victim Laxmi Aggrawal.

Both movies will be hard work for Ranveer and Deepika though playing the general may be a tad easier for Ranveer.

Like Ranveer, Sam was a flamboyant man. He was a brilliant manager of men, a soldier who could get his troops to do anything for him, a general who could speak bluntly to prime ministers as Indira Gandhi only knew too well.

When he passed away, the Manmohan Singh government did not bother to send then defence minister A K Antony to represent the Indian State at the last rites. Then army chief General Vijay Kumar Singh was not present either.

The nation did not do justice to the great general's memory. We hope Meghna Gulzar does that and more.