A stitch in time

Manmarziyaan producers have deleted three scenes from the film after members of the Sikh community objected to a scene where Abhishek Bachchan’s character is shown smoking. The producers approached the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) regarding the deletion of the scenes.

According to a censor copy, the three deleted scenes include a 29-second smoking sequence of Abhishek, a minute-long scene featuring Taapsee Pannu and Abhishek entering a gurdwara and an 11-second scene where Taapsee is shown smoking. “We have removed the three scenes from the film as people’s sentiments were getting hurt. The said changes have come into effect in metros from today and will reflect across India from the coming Thursday-Friday,” a source from the production side said. Director Anurag Kashyap also addressed the controversy, saying there was never an intention to cause any hurt to the community, but the matter should not be politicised unnecessarily. He said utmost care was taken while shooting the scenes and they took guidance from the community to avoid misrepresentation.

Under guidance

“We asked for guidance from Sikh people for the film. When we shot the sequence in gurdwara, we were told we can’t shoot them getting married as it can’t be faked so we made the actors do only Mattha Tekna,” Anurag, who is out of the country, said in a long tweet.

“When we shot the smoking scene, it was shot on the street and there were close to 150 people watching the shoot. We asked before doing the scene and were told that he has to take the turban off before he smokes away from his house. We were also shown how Robbie (Abhishek) should take the turban off with both hands and how he should hand it over and how the cousin should take it. It was never the intention to hurt the community and why would we do that when we got so much love from them.” he added. Anurag said he was sorry if he had caused a “genuine” hurt to anyone but asked people to not make the issue “unnecessary political because it’s not”. “To those whose hurt is genuine, I offer a genuine apology, that wasn’t my intention. And for those who are doing it for attention, I am glad you have got the attention.” — PTI