Jigra controversy: Director Vasan Bala deactivates X account

Acclaimed filmmaker Vasan Bala, whose recent release Jigra, starring Alia Bhatt turned into a box-office debacle, has deactivated his X, formerly Twitter, account. This comes in the light of the dirty standoff between the producer of Jigra Karan Johar and actress-director Divya Khossla, and, of course, the underwhelming performance of Jigra at the box-office. However, the filmmaker is quite active on Instagram.

Earlier, a war of words ensued between Divya and KJo as the former accused KJo’s prodigy Alia Bhatt of buying the tickets of Jigra.

While Karan took to the Stories section of his Instagram, and wrote, ‘Silence is the best speech you will ever give to fools’, Divya replied by sharing a quote on her Instagram Stories, ‘Truth will always offend fools opposed to it’. When she felt that she hadn’t made her point, and her voice wasn’t heard enough, she uploaded another story. She wrote, “When you are shamelessly accustomed to stealing what rightfully belongs to others, you will always seek shelter in silence. You will have no voice no spine”.

Divya felt that the collections of the film were inflated at the behest of the production house, which is considered one of the premier film studios in Hindi cinema. Interestingly, Divya’s Savi is said to follow the same basic premise of a jail break story as that of Alia’s Jigra (the difference being in Savi, the titular character played by Divya carries out prison break of her husband, and in Jigra, Alia takes her brother out of the prison).

While Savi managed to make only Rs. 7.83 crore in two weeks of its theatrical run before it was ousted from cinemas for a more lucrative and financially rewarding Chandu Champion, Alia’s Jigra earned Rs. 4.5 crore on its opening day.

Following the box-office debacle of Jigra, KJo also sold 50 per cent of stakes of his Dharma Productions to Adar Poonawalla. — IANS