Bollywood fraternity breathed a sigh of relief when Pahlaj Nihalani, the ‘too-sanskaari- to-handle’ Chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification, was finally sacked.
The man made headlines every other day during his reign because of his insane demands to eliminate certain words and scenes from movies. He even disallowed the word intercourse in the trailer of ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, reasoning that the Indian mentality is not ready for such progressiveness yet.
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Oh but how the tables have turned now in your favour, haven’t they, Mr Nihalani? So when he was finally replaced by ace lyricist Prasoon Joshi, the Indian film industry and even the audience rejoiced. But the happiness didn’t last for long!
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Nihalani managed to stir the country by becoming the ‘presenter and distributor’ of an upcoming (erotic) thriller, ‘Julie 2′.
But, of course, he had an explanation for the same. When the trailer was released, he was of the view that ‘Julie 2′ should get an ‘A’ certificate because it is a “very, clean adult movie” even though the trailer was in complete contrast to his clarification.
He further added in an interview that ‘Julie 2′ should be given an ‘A’ certificate without any cuts. There is no vulgarity, obscenity or even a language problem.”Turns out, his dreams have come true as the movie has cleared the censors and has received an ‘A’ certificate from CBFC without any cuts. We repeat: no cuts whatsoever!
Mr. Nihalani is obviously on cloud nine now as he even expressed his happiness by saying, “This is just what I had hoped for. If I was still the CBFC chairperson, I’d have given Julie 2 an ‘Adults’ certificate with no cuts. It is a clean adult film for adult members of a family. Though it’s a film on an adult subject – the exploitation of strugglers and newcomers in Bollywood—the film has no nudity, no skin show, and no double-meaning dialogues. Like I said it is a family film for adults and the CBFC has done the right thing.”
The internet went ballistic when the trailer was released and didn’t shy away from calling Nihalani a hypocrite for peddling soft-porn, to which he conveniently replied, “Soft porn or soft corn, or harsh reality, let the film release. The world will know.”
“I can’t even”…“daf***”…“Ye kya bak****i hai”. Go on. Take your pick from these expressions while venting about this hysterically ironical moment!
via GIPHY