NEW DELHI, June 18: After facing flak from the general public of hurting religious sentiments, the “Adipurush” dialogue writer Manoj Shukla on Sunday said the makers of the mythological epic film have decided to “revise some of the dialogues.”
The statement came after the Prabhas, Saif Ali Khan-starrer was criticised heavily for its pedestrian language. Manoj Shukla, who has penned the Hindi dialogues and songs of the retelling of the Ramayana, said the amended lines will be added to the film by this week.
“…For me there is nothing greater than your feelings. I can give countless arguments in favour of my dialogues, but this will not lessen your pain. Me and the producer-director of the film have decided that we will revise some of the dialogues which are hurting you and they will be added to the film this week,” Shukla said in a statement shared on his official Twitter account.
Adipurush, which was released across the country in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil on Friday, stars Prabhas as Raghav (Ram), Kriti Sanon as Janaki (Sita) and Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh (Raavan).
Directed by Om Raut and produced by T-Series, big-budget multilingual saga Adipurush has been panned on social media over its poor VFX and colloquial dialogues, with Shukla under fire for Lord Hanuman’s dialogues in the ‘Lanka Dahan’ sequence, among others.
Many viewers and political party leaders pointed out the oversimplified language used by the characters, especially Bajrang (Hanuman) played by Devdatta Nage.
In his statement, which he wrote in Hindi, Shukla said it was possible that in a three-hour film he may have written “something different from your imagination for 3 minutes of duration”, but viewers shouldn’t hurry to label him as a Sanatan drohi. “The first lesson one can learn from Ramkatha is to respect every emotion. What is right or wrong changes with time, but the feeling is constant.
“I wrote more than 4,000 lines as dialogues in Adipurush, some sentiments got hurt on five of those lines. In those hundreds of lines, where Shri Ram was glorified, Maa Sita’s chastity was described, I was hoping to receive praise for them, which I don’t know why I did not get,” he added.
The writer-lyricist, who won the National Film Award for best lyrics in Saina, said he had no complaints with the audience. “If we stand against each other, Sanatan will lose. We have made Adipurush for Sanatan Seva, it’s a film which you are watching in large numbers and I believe you will watch in future as well,” he further said.
Later, T-Series said the team has decided to make alterations to the dialogues of Adipurush in order to value “the input of the public.” “Adipurush is garnering an overwhelming response across the world and is conquering hearts of audiences across all ages. Making this visual spectacle a memorable cinematic experience, the team decides to make alterations to the film’s dialogues – Valuing the input of the public and the audience,” the banner said in a separate statement.
The makers are revisiting the said dialogues, ensuring to resonate with core essence of the film and the same will reflect in the theatres in the next few days, said T-Series. “This decision is a testament that in spite of unstoppable collections at the Box Office, the team is committed and nothing is beyond the sentiments of their audiences and harmony at large,” the production house added.
Mounted on a reported budget of ₹ 500 crore, Adipurush has raised ₹ 240 crore in two days, the makers claimed despite the controversy.
(Manas Dasgupta)