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Who hasn’t heard of Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab and its Battle with the Board? That’s the Censor Board, for you, if you’re completely doped and living under a rock in Punjab. But that’s not possible! According to said board, Punjab doesn’t get high.
The sanskari board has offered 13 ‘suggestions’ to the film’s producers, which means a whopping 94 cuts to the film on Punjab’s drug problem. Jai Ho!
But I don’t think it’s the dope-shope (thank god Dev D was released way before this current board’s time). The swearing, the dog named ‘Jacky Chain’ and Tommy Singh urinating into the crowd (it’s cool for Aamir Khan & Co. to urinate in front of their dean’s house in 3 Idiots, but not for Tommy) has ‘pissed’ Pahalaj Nihalani off, but not quite enough.
We at The Quint know the real reasons why the CBFC is making Udta Punjab bleed.
It’s a ‘Real’ Film!
Pahlaj Nihalani is so used to watching Kya Kool Hai Hum 3, Mastizaade, Grand Masti, Housefull 3 that the realism in Udta Punjab put him off. He found it boring and unsexy.
The main problem with the film is that it lacks masala, illogical dialogue, extraterrestrial objects and dirty jokes. Now why would anyone want to exercise their mind when they could drown it in crass sexual innuendo instead?
Sunny Ve!
O Sunny ve, o Sunny ve
CBFC nu hai khush kitta ve
Hai wadia ve, hai wadia ve
Picture vich daal ke toh dekh...
Udta Punjab!
Got it!
Where is Sunny Leone? She’s the lucky mascot for film producers. No kidding! Mastizaade passed the CBFC’s ‘sikka hilla’. The board couldn’t get ‘hard’ on One Night Stand and cleared it with minimal cuts. It also fell into Ek Paheli Leela’s ‘booby’ trap and censored only one scene in the film: one with a woman rubbing colour on her breast during a Holi sequence. That’s it!
Need we say more?
No Sarson Ka Khet, Butter Chicken and Kaneda
Dear Udta Punjab team, enna vi na dope shope maareya karo... ki you didn’t even remember to include Punjab’s USP – Sarson ka khet, butter chicken and Kaneda (read: Canada).
Of course, it’ll upset the sentiments of political parties and Pahlaj Nihalani. It took Yash Chopra years to build an image of Punjab in his films. You, who had the opportunity to make an entire film on Punjab, conveniently took out all the markers? You didn’t even include one butter chicken scene! Butter chicken; the staple food of Punjab!
And if that wasn’t enough, in your trailer, you sent Tommy Singh to London. LONDON, what happened to the pind Kaneda?
Hadippa!
Dismal research. Tut, tut!
Diljit is No Khiladi
Anurag Kashyap, you cast a real sardar, Diljit Dosanjh, to play a Punjab police officer. Who does that? You should have got Akshay Kumar to play a fake, tough cop. Remember Khiladi 786? He had such cool moves. He would not only have weeded out the problem but also ‘Airlift-ed’ your film out of this mess.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)