|
'I did not stage-manage my attack in Bhopal'
Raja Bundela gives his side of the tale
|
Subhash K Jha
Friends in Mumbai are aghast. Actor-director Raja Bundela has been accused of staging a violent protest against his directorial debut. Bundela, himself, is shell-shocked. "How could I be accused of masterminding the attack on me? Who on earth would do something like that?"
A gifted stage, television and film actor, Bundela’s first feature film as a director, Pratha has landed itself in a roaring controversy. On November 18, during a private screening of the film, Bundela was roughed up by Bajrang Dal activists. According to the Bhopal administration, Bundela orchestrated the violence to generate interest in his film.
Harassed and distressed, Bundela cannot believe the turn of events. "I've been missing from the screen for ten years. I was tired of doing the same kind of roles. I launched a production company Prayas, which produced serials like Mujhe Chand Chahiye, O Maria and Yeh Shaadi Nahin Ho Sakti. Pratha is my first feature film. No one knew anything about it because I do not have friends in the media. I wanted my work to speak for me. Now Pratha is doing a little bit too much speaking for me! I wanted the film to be screened in Bhopal so I could get tax exemption. From the start, there was uneasiness in Madhya Pradesh regarding my film."
Bundela, a native of Madhya Pradesh and leader of non-political movement, Bundelkhand Mukti Morcha there, feels that people are 'hellbent on politicising my film to get at me'.
He relives the fateful day in Bhopal. "On 18 November, before the press screening, I was given a memorandum that some scenes in my film were objectionable. Earlier, I had also received some intimidating letters from Jhansi, Lalitpur and Gwalior asking why I hadn’t cut the objectionable scenes.
"Suddenly, during the screening, a huge gang of Bajrang Dal members roughed me up. K K Sharma [Bundela's host in Bhopal, who had arranged the films’ screening] took me to the hospital. He told me that the demonstrators had got carried away. Next thing I know is that I am accused of stage-managing the violence on myself!
"The cops told me Sharma had accused me of this. Sharma, a District Forest officer, claims that though I was staying with him, he did not know why I was in Bhopal! Actually, the police wanted me to lodge an FIR immediately after the incident. But even after four hours of the incident, Sharma did not take me to the police station. I was persuaded not to lodge an FIR. The cops warned me against keeping quiet, arguing that those who attacked me were well-known goons and that I may be blamed later. I trusted Sharma because he was a friend. I returned to Mumbai the same day.
"Suddenly the following day, I’m all over the papers as the person who got himself beaten up. Does that make sense? Now I’m trying to get in touch with Sharma but he isn’t coming on the line. He has given a official testimony that I’ve stage managed the violence and that I should be punished."
Pratha is about a young girl in Madhya Pradesh who is drugged and projected as a living goddess to villagers by vested interests. Says Bundela, "The objections were about Irfan Khan, a Muslim actor who recently did our country proud with his performance in The Warrior, playing a Holy sadhu (mendicant). The dissenters say the Sadhu rapes the protagonist in a temple. That isn’t true. The crime is committed in the basement of the temple. They say that I have degraded Sati [a Hindu ritual of burning a wife in her husband's funeral pyre]. My film has nothing to do with Sati.
"The film is about a boy (Deepak Bandhu) who returns to his village to discover his fiancee (Ashney Shroff) has been turned into a goddess by the locals. He is not allowed to even meet the girl he loves, as she is held captive in the temple. But one night, he rescues her."
Bundela knew the film was controversial. But the thought of creating publicity appalls him. "First of all, if I wanted to draw attention to Pratha in this underhand way, why would I choose Bhopal? Why not Lucknow or Delhi where I held press screenings earlier. Secondly, why would I have invited members of two different parties: the Bajrang Dal and Congress? My film didn’t need the attention. Pratha has already been sold in all major territories, including Mumbai, Delhi, UP and overseas. The press praised the film. I went to Bhopal only to get a tax exemption for my film."
Bundela is sure the controversy is created to humiliate him. "People are laughing at me and saying, 'Badi achchi publicity hai' [great publicity]. If only people know how humiliated my wife and I feel by this incident," Bundela adds. "We don’t switch on the television, because we don’t want our kids to see how their father is being projected."
Irfan Khan, who plays a pivotal role in Pratha, says, "I did the film because of my long-standing friendship with Raja Bundela. I don’t think he masterminded the controversy. I saw how upset he was when the controversy erupted."