The row over Manmarziyaan has escalated with Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu expressing their disappointment over the film distributor Eros International’s decision to delete scenes that a few members of the Sikh community considered offensive.
Anurag Kashyap released the contact details of Kishore Lulla (Eros International) on his social media account. In the tweet, now removed by Twitter, Kashyap said that Kishore is the person to go to when your film faces threats.
The film ran into trouble when a police complaint was filed after a few members of the Sikh community took umbrage over scenes that showed Abhishek Bachchan’s Robbie and Taapsee Pannu’s Rumi – both Sikh characters – smoking onscreen. Further, a scene in which Pannu reminisces about her romantic past with Vicky Kaushal’s character while entering a gurdwara for her wedding with Robbie has also been criticised.
Kashyap had posted a long note on his social media account in response to the controversy, when the complaint against the film was first reported by media.
My statement on the brewing controversy.
Read: https://t.co/VkB0eTyNrx
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) September 19, 2018
Later, Eros caved in and deleted the scenes without notifying the director. An angry Kashyap posted a tweet wherein he furnished the contact information of Lulla. Twitter removed the tweet as it violated its ethical standards.
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Kashyap posted a screenshot of his conversation with an official from Twitter, in which he is asked to take down Lulla’s number from his social media account. The director requested the Twitter team to blur the number, but the tweet was instead taken down.
In response, Kashyap tweeted a newer version of the message, this time without Lulla’s number.
Before my tweet is taken down -Congratulations . Here by all problems of Punjab are solved and Sikh youth have been saved . Happy to be back in LaLa land again. Next time you are threatened by a film please call Kishore Lulla directly on Eros knows how to solve matters in minutes pic.twitter.com/4yqU3T9utK
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) September 20, 2018
He concluded with a cryptic ‘goodbye’ tweet, prompting social media users to wonder if the director intended to deactivate his Twitter account.
Meanwhile, lead actress Taapsee Pannu has condemned Eros’ decision to remove the scenes considered offensive from the film.
I am sure this edit will assure that no Sikh will ever Smoke and no woman will ever think about ANYONE else while getting married in a Gurudwara. THIS surely will make Waheguru proud and assures that MY religion is the purest,most righteous and peaceful ! #Proud ????????
— taapsee pannu (@taapsee) September 20, 2018
