Badrinath Ki Dulhania director breaks his silence on the molestation scene

Karan Johar’s home production Badrinath Ki Dulhania released last week and was loved by the masses. But there was a particular scene that received a lot of flak from a large number of audiences. The moral police have lost their cool with Karan Johar and director, the Shashank Khaitan for turning a joke out of a male molestation scene in the film.

The scene here is referred to the one where Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan end up in a dark alley in Singapore and instead of Alia, Varun is molested. The scene ends up with Alia saving Varun’s life. The entire theatre was ringing with laughter.

In his defence, the director of the film Shashank Khaitan said, “The intent was to show Badri’s character at an all-time low. Emotionally he was down and out. Vaidehi (Bhatt) had stripped him of his ‘mardangi’ when she asked him to call his father and he couldn’t. He was emotionally defenceless and was unable to even protect his physical ‘izzat’. The humour was to comfort and not trivialise the issue.”

The director gave an example of ‘Balatkar-Chamatkar speech’ from Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots by saying, “One of the most legendary scenes in recent times is Raju Hirani’s 3 Idiots scene. If taken in the wrong spirit, even that can seem offensive.”

While these scenes from both the films are intended at humour, somewhere the makers should consider the humongous influence they have on the masses. Sensitive topics like rape and molestation should be shown as important issues that need to be addressed.