Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi, who in the past has woven such outstanding literary content for television and cinema, Chanakya and Pinjar, has won a long battle with censorship in India.
His new feature film Mohalla Assi, featuring Sunny Deol as a priest in Varanasi battling bigotry, pollution and a tourist invasion in the Holy City, has finally been cleared for release by the CBFC. The film’s strong language, filled with Hindi expletives, spares no holy entity, and is bound to trigger debates on its release this Friday as it passionately deals with the sensitive issue of building a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
At one point in the trailer, Sunny Deol is heard heatedly telling his onscreen wife Sakshi Tanwar, ‘Constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya is our dharm.’
Non-BJP supporters are already labelling Mohalla Assi as pro-government propaganda, though the director very clearly states that he wanted to tell a story about the creative, moral and environmental pollution of Varanasi.
Mohalla Assi, based on the well-known novel by Hindi litterateur Kashanath Singh, is a scathing critique of the commercialisation of the Holy City of Varanasi.
In the film, Sunny plays a self-righteous priest fighting against the ecological and moral pollution of Varanasi.
Never known to utter a single profanity in his entire career, Deol is heard calling himself a ch****a in the trailer. In fact, the extremely offensive Hindi expletive b***** k* is used throughout the film as an integral part of the local lingo.
The director, who has fought long and hard for the film to be released, says that the film is neither pro nor anti any government. “This is my homage to the beautiful city of Varanasi,” says Dwivedi emotionally.
Interestingly, Varanasi is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency. The Prime Minister is expected to view Mohalla Assi shortly.
