It took Gour Hari Das three decades to wrangle out a certificate recognising his work as a freedom fighter. His struggle is now the subject of a film

In the dead of night during the mid-1940s, Gour Hari Das would customarily set out of his house and sprint alongside passing trains, relying on their beacons to guide his 14-year-old feet.

He was joined in this exercise by others roughly his age, all part of a group called the vanar sena that nimbly ferried covert messages and publications of the freedom movement.

Many years later, the same pair of legs tirelessly carried him up and down the stairs of government offices in Mumbai. The communication he sought this time was a certificate recognising his work as a freedom fighter - it took three full decades to arrive.

The prolonged personal tryst for acknowledgment got him more attention than even his participation in the freedom struggle. His travails form the subject of an upcoming film Gour Hari Dastaan - The Freedom File.

After reading a newspaper report, director Ananth Mahadevan was struck by the irony in Das' experience.

"Here was a man fighting for identity in a country that he helped to free," he observes. Mahadevan traced Das to his current home in suburban Mumbai and convinced him to share his story. The film, with screenplay by journalist and poet C P Surendran, has been shortlisted for screenings at three Indian film festivals so far.

In his first meeting, Surendran says he did not find Das terribly impressive but noted an understated grit about him. Mahadevan too was nonplussed during an initial interaction.

"Leave alone three decades, this man did not look like he could have fought for three days."

His largely self-effacing persona led the film's makers to play on silences.

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This freedom fighter's struggle for his right is now a movie