By Maya Palit
Film-maker and theatre director Manish Harishankar’s upcoming film Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laddoo Diwana, due for release on April 7th, is the latest to get caught up in pointless controversy. And this time it isn’t CBFC that’s causing it. Vishwa Hindu Parishad members apparently thought a scene in the film, where a pregnant woman gets married to a man who isn’t the father of her child, was way too outrageous and would piss off the Hindu community no end.
According to reports, a crowd of over 70 VHP supporters showed up outside the producer TP Agarwal’s office in Andheri, Mumbai on Monday morning, demanding that the scene be removed from the film. Eventually the police intervened, but in the meantime, Agarwal had categorically refused the demands, explaining that the CBFC had been okay with it (and as we know they are professional nitpickers about the most bizarre things) and that there was nothing remotely offensive about the film.
Their retort was to ask him whether he would allow his daughter to get married if she was pregnant — a familiar enough tangent. One of the protesters was reported saying that Hindu rituals don’t permit a woman to get married if she’s pregnant, so “the concept of the film itself is incorrect”.
There’s nothing new or remarkable about the VHP’s take but the current controversy over Harishankar’s film just goes to show that even the mildest of diversions from a certain vision of what a pregnant woman should look like is vulnerable to attack and censorship.