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Can reciting Hanuman Chalisa drive CBFC away? Asking for a friend

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Pathikrit Sanyal
Pathikrit SanyalMar 24, 2017 | 14:47

Can reciting Hanuman Chalisa drive CBFC away? Asking for a friend

That’s it! This country does not need the likes of Pahlaj Nihalani any more to be our moral guardian angel, trying to decide for us what we should or should not see. We, as a country, have put up with this idiotic excuse for a human being for way too long and this is the final straw.

According to a report in DNA, a sequence from the new Anushka Sharma- and Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Phillauri, which shows actor Suraj Sharma reciting the Hanuman Chalisa in the bathtub in a ghost’s presence, has been asked to be deleted. The CBFC, according to the report, feels that ghosts are supposed to be eradicated, not pacified with the recital of the Hanuman Chalisa, and hence it is a sequence that just can’t stay.

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“This amounted to hurting of religious sentiments. The CBFC has asked for the Hanuman Chalisa to be removed from the soundtrack. All that the audience will hear now is Suraj's long droning chant which would be inaudible,” said a source inside the CBFC to DNA.

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Photo: Screengrab

Let that sink in for a moment. The CBFC or Central Board of Film Certification —  a body that’s supposed to rate films, not cut them according to their goddamned beliefs — has no problem accepting the school of thought that ghosts exist, or the fact that random Sanskrit shlokas can help get rid of them. In fact, the very idea that something as "scientifically" concrete as reading the Hanuman Chalisa to a ghost doesn't get rid of it, is something that they have a huge problem with.

Can we as a whole stop standing for this nincompoop organisation and its halfwit beliefs? Should it not offend you that the CBFC thinks the population of this country does not have common sense enough to take this movie with a pinch of salt?

Should it not offend you that Nihalani does not consider the people of this country to be mature enough to judge a movie, or a joke or anything on their own accord? Yes, there are always going to be thugs like the Shiv Sena, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Rajput Karni Sena, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who will get offended, and who will cause trouble, and who will vandalise theatres and harass actors, producers and anyone who is not a politician. But they still do not represent the entire population of India.

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I am sick and tired of the likes of Pahlaj Nihalani telling me that I can’t watch a certain movie because it depicts the drug problem in Punjab all too realistically. Or that I can’t watch a certain movie because it is “too women-centric”. I am tired of having to watch TV shows where innocuous words like “sex”, “screw” or “nipple” (yep) are muted out because, oh my god, we will lose our sanskaar.

I am sick of the CBFC behaving like a stickler school teacher. I am sick of that organisation’s audacity and arrogance. In fact, I’m generally just sick of having to deal with a daft organisation that treats the people of this country like children, when the guy who heads it is so ignorant that he thinks sex will ruin a nation that has the second-largest population in the world.

Can we please edit out the CBFC, and mute Pahlaj Nihalani? 

Last updated: March 24, 2017 | 14:47
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