In the recently released song Ek Kudi from Udta Punjab, Alia Bhatt is playing hockey. Talking about how she trained in the sport for the film, Alia enthuses, “Udta Punjab was a hectic film. I trained for hockey before starting the shoot. Hockey is a very difficult sport but I had to push myself despite injuries.
There were a few girls who taught me to play the game – it was interesting and fun. I worked hard because I wanted to be comfortable with the hockey stick, and project the certain ease in the body language of hockey players. I also wanted to bring a degree of strength and force to my character.” But the actress makes no claims of being great at the sport. “I was just pretending to know how to play hockey. Fortunately, I got a lot of help from the director, the coach and the students to get the body language correct.”