Anurag Kashyap on Manmarziyaan scene cuts: My film was chopped without my knowledge

Film-maker Anurag Kashyap seems to be headed on the war path with Eros International, the distributors of Manmarziyaan. Although the film, which released last week, opened to positive reviews, the Sikh community raised objections to a few scenes, and those scenes have now been chopped.

When we contacted the director, Anurag, to confirm the same, he told us, “My film was chopped without my knowledge. I put my anger out on Twitter, and Twitter took it down. My account has limited activity for 12 hours.”

The scenes in question include Abhishek Bachchan’s Sikh character shown smoking, Taapsee Pannu’s character thinking of her past (with Vicky Kaushal’s character) while entering a gurudwara to marry another man, and her character, too, smoking a cigarette.

Anurag had posted his official statement on Twitter on Tuesday, and tendered an apology towards the end, “… Technology does not allow us to cut a scene and it affects the storytelling. So, I definitely cannot do that now To those whose hurt is genuine, I offer a genuine apology, that wasn’t my intention.”

Yesterday, after the cuts happened (as reported by PTI), he again took to twitter and wrote: “Congratulations. Here by all problems of Punjab are solved and Sikh youth have been saved... Next time you are threatened by a film please call Kishore Lulla (of Eros International) directly on 9 ******** 1. Eros knows how to solve matters in minutes.” Soon after, the tweet was taken down, and a further angered Kashyap again posted the same tweet, this time with a screenshot of messages from Twitter’s support team asking him to take down Lulla’s mobile number.

Our request to Kishore Lulla to comment on Kashyap’s tweet was not answered at the time of going to press.

PHOTO: SATISH BATE/HT Anurag Kashyap; a still from Manmarziyaan (inset)