With Ae Dil Hai Mushkil getting into trouble for insulting the legendary Mohd. Rafi, writers and filmmakers plead to leave fictional characters be
Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has become controversy’s favourite child — troubles for the film seem to be far from over. Legendary singer Mohammed Rafi’s son Shahid Rafi has become the latest person to have an issue with the multi-starrer.
Shahid slammed both Karan Johar and the scriptwriter of the movie, for a seemingly “derogatory and insulting” comment made about his father in the movie, where Anushka Sharma’s character Alizeh tells Ranbir Kapoor’s Ayaan, “Mohammed Rafi gate nahi rote the” (Mohammed Rafi didn’t sing, he whined). Following this, ardent Rafi fans held a morcha yesterday in front of the director’s house for deletion of the derogatory line. Goa’s Director General of Police Muktesh Chander has also appealed audiences to boycott Karan’s film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil for allegedly insulting the playback singer.
Karan, however, seems to find solidarity in Bollywood directors and screenwriters, who believe that too much is being made out of the matter. “We, as a country, are touchy,” says Rensil D’Silva, who wrote Rang De Basanti. “For every other inconsequential situation, we want to ban things and carry out morchas — we are becoming extremely conservative.”
Screenwriter and lyricist Varun Grover, who won a national award for Moh Moh Ke Dhaage from Dum Lagake Haisha, thinks that there is a mob tendency to scare a producer into making a more sanitised version of a film. “This is a severe overreaction by Mohammed Rafi’s family and it shows how unemployed and opportunistic these fans are who took out the morcha,” he asserts. “What a character says in a film is hardly the agenda of the filmmaker. This scaring people from being liberal, and this tendency of a mob rule for any issue is not what a democracy deserves. And, even if Karan Johar or anyone for that matter, were to make such a statement in public, they would be completely justified in having an opinion. Otherwise, you are turning this into a religion, where there is no freedom of thought.”
Rensil also talks about considering the intentions of the creative person in question, “I have known Karan Johar for a really long time and he wouldn’t be derogatory to someone — especially someone like Mohammed Rafi.”
Anubhav Sinha, the director of Ra.One and the upcoming Tum Bin 2, also vouches for Karan Johar. “I don’t have any personal opinion about the dialogue per se, since I am yet to watch the film. However, I am sure, that coming from the background that Karan Johar comes from, and being the person I know him to be, he would never purposely disrespect Rafi saab in any way,” he says. On the other hand, he also says that since Rafi is a legend in several ways, people are entitled to have an opinion. “Mohammed Rafi is a legend, he is God, and like anyone who becomes a household name, people will have comments and opinions about him. Since his son idolises his father, I can understand why he may have been offended. But, I think that taking out a morcha is simply an overreaction. You don’t have morchas for people going hungry on the streets or for homeless people. You have them about someone’s personal opinion, which is just useless.”
Considering how the audience is becoming more and more conservative, it gets easy for directors and scriptwriters to second-guess their stories and films. “As a creative person, I try not to censor my ideas. But, having been in the industry for so long, one gets to know about certain things that trigger people easily and raise issues,” sighs Rensil, when asked if he self-censors. “When writing or reviewing a script one does do a review to check if there is anything too offensive, but I think that the situation has become more precarious of late and it is easier to offend people,” concludes Anubhav. Navdeep Singh, director of Anushka Sharma starrer NH10, says, “While I try not to self-censor while making a film, sometimes when you hear about all these things happening, you tend to unconsciously censor yourself. It’s not something one would want to do, since it kills creativity.”
