Censor board wants 'Lakshmi', 'Kali' cut in new film

Forget cuss words, now even the images of Indian goddesses have failed to make the cut in front of the Indian censor board. In the soon-to-be-released film Angry Indian Goddesses, amongst the 17 cuts that the Indian censor board wanted filmmakers to make, was the blurring of the images of two Indian goddesses -- a picture of Lakshmi in the credits, and later in the movie, a picture of Kali. 

Movie producer Gaurav Dhingra said that he had failed to make the cut in front of the revising committee. “When we took the film for the first time to the censor board a committee comprising five members refused to give us a certificate,” said Dhingra. A dejected Dhingra said that he was unofficially told that if he made voluntary cuts, the film may be given a certificate. 

“I went to the censor board after I muted all the cuss words, and I was asked to make 17 more cuts,” he said. These cuts included the muting of words like fuck and slut. “It also included the muting of the word ‘lunch’, where one female protagonist is looking at a guy and says to her friend, “There comes your lunch,” said Dhingra. Apart from that the censors also muted the word ‘Indian figure’ with which one protagonist described the fuller body of another woman.

However, what is shocking is that the censors sought to blur the fully-clothed image of the angriest Indian goddess in a film titled 'Angry Indian Goddess.' “They did not give me a direct answer to the cut, but they said that it looked like we were comparing the women in the film to the goddess, and it was unfit for the Indian audience. They also wanted me to change the name of the movie, but we somehow talked them into not doing so,” said Dhingra. 

When asked, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani said that he will not be able to comment unless the film is released and people understand the context of the goddess’s picture. “This can be open to wide generalisations, but everyone must see the context where the picture was placed,” said Nihalani. 

Responding to earlier allegations of the CBFC chief that the producer gladly accepted the cuts, Dhingra said that he had no other option. “I have sold my house to make this film, and I cannot do this to my investors and the people who have supported me. Had I been backed by an established production house, I would have fought this,” said Dhingra. 

The film, which stars Sandhya Mridul, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Rajshri Deshpande, Pavleen Gujral and Adil Hussain in lead roles, is seen as India’s first female buddy film, and has garnered a positive response in the international film circuit. The film has had a theatrical release in 67 countries without any cuts, and is in talks with a major international online streaming company. “It’s ironical that in the country for which the film is made, the film had to suffer such cuts,” said Dhingra. The film releases in India on December 4.