The war has intensified between the CBFC chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani and a news channel which he challenged to prove that the Indian movie-going audience is okay with Shah Rukh Khan discussing ‘intercourse’ with AnushkaSharma in the trailer of Jab Harry Met Sejal.
Now that the news channel claims to have got more than 1 lakh voters to approve of the ‘I’ word, Nihalani says he is being hounded by the channel’s reporters.
They claim they’ve got 1 lakh voters to say they are fine with Shah Rukh talking about intercourse on screen. I don’t believe them. I think it’s Shah Rukh’s fans on Twitter endorsing the use of the word ‘intercourse’. He has millions of followers on Twitter. If among them a lakh say yes to his dialogue, what is the big deal? Show me a lakh of ticket-paying members of the audience approving of an actor with a family image talking so blatantly about sex, and then we’ll see.Pahlaj Nihalani, CBFC Chairperson
In any case Nihalani is thinking of strict legal action against the specific news channel for harassment and defamation. “They’ve been attacking me headlong because no one watches this channel. This is is their way of boosting their TRPs. They are not only using my name to sell their channel, they’re also hounding me to get me to speak.”
The CBFC chairperson claims he was stalked by a young female reporter for his bytes for the news channel. “She waited for six hours at our CBFC office. When I finally reached, she thrust the mike in my face asking questions about the ‘intercourse’ language in Shah Rukh Khan’s film. I refused to answer and walked off. But she followed me into the lift and kept badgering me for a reply.”
Nihalani says his experience was no less than harrowing. “She was just a young girl asking these embarrassing questions. Sorry, I may be old fashioned or fuddy-duddy as the news channel calls me. But I can’t talk about sex with a reporter young enough to be my daughter. She insisted and kept following me right into the lift. To my credit I kept my cool. What if I had lost my temper? She’d gave gone back and made a story about sexual harassment against me.”
The CBFC chairperson thinks the news channel should stop playing judge jury and God. “Who are you to decide whether I stay or go? What gives you the right to call me names? I am doing my job and I am answerable to the government, not to some news channel which is desperate to boost its TRPs by abusing me.”
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