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InDepth headlines national business sports cricket regional entertainment technology world travel autos health | ‘Dharma’ sparks sex row at Kashi Tirth 15.05 IST 09th Apr 2005 By Agencies 
The shooting of a Hindi feature film ‘Dharma’ sparked a row with traditional priests on the banks of the river Ganga in Varanasi alleging their image had been "wrongly projected as anti-social elements" in some sequences of the under-production movie.A representative body of the priests (pandas) Kashi Tirth Purohit Sabha flayed the reported projection of their ilk as musclemen and anti-social elements in some sequence of the movie which were picturised at the Khirkiya Ghat on the bank of the river in Varanasi recently. Taking strong exception to the depiction of the Pandas in the movie directed by Bhavna Talwar, Sabha President Pandit Rajiv Nandan Mishra demanded deletion of the scenes that marred the image of the priests. "Such scenes should be deleted from the picture as it casts aspersion on the image of the Pandas who are held in high esteem by pilgrims and common people," he said. The Pandas have been performing Hindu rituals since ages and have always strived to maintain cordial relationship with the pilgrims and visitors from the country and abroad, he said, charging the film however aimed at marring the image of the Pandas by depicting them in poor light. The film's director was not available for comments. What has particularly angered the Pandas is a scene in which actor Pankaj Kapur, cast in the role of a Panda strongman, is shown misbehaving with lead actress Hrishita Bhatt. In another sequence, a group of Pandas have been shown as beating up a foreign tourist on the riverbank. The Kashi Tirth Purohit Sabha General Secretary Chandrashekhar Shastri dubbed the film as an "attack" on the Pandas' reputation as flag bearers of ancient Hindu traditions and demanded withdrawal of these scenes. Several others Pandas like Pandit Kanhaisya Tripathi, Pandit Chandrashekhar Sharma, Devendra Nath Shukla have threatened to disrupt the shooting of the movie if their demands were not accepted. |
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