Zip your mouth says the censor board

The F*** word may have become very colloquial in urban Indian lingo, but it’s still a big no-no as far as the Central Board for Film Certification (Censor Board) is concerned.

In fact, film-maker Kabir Khan was left stumped when he was asked to remove a shot which had cleverly tried to camouflage the cuss word in the Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham and Katrina Kaif starrer New York. The scene had actor Irrfan Khan uttering the word.

Kabir says, “My film did not have Irrfan saying the cuss word blatantly. It was extremely stylishly shot and that was making spotting of the word difficult, but yes the censor board did tell us to do something about it and we are making the necessary changes.”

However, Vinayak Azad – regional officer of the censor board in Mumbai says, “The film-makers had tried to mute the word but it was clearly visible what word Irrfan was saying. So we asked them to remove the scene. They wanted a U/A certificate and for that cuss words need to be removed. If they would have liked to settle for an A certificate, then we would have had no problems like in the case of Omkara and many other films in which we did not ask film-makers to chop cuss words.”

We have also learnt that the film has been asked to remove a scene which had a direct reference to a particular liquor brand in it. “A shot also had the actor asking for Jack Daniel’s and that is like directly endorsing a brand in the film. We have also asked the film-makers to remove the scene or change it by saying whisky or single malt. Direct references to liquor brands is not done,” Vinayak adds.