It is astonishing what adversity can do to you. It has been 8 long painful and mortifying months now, filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the master of epic sagas like Devdas and Bajirao Mastani which have made insane amounts of money while asserting the director’s place as the only true successor to the epic filmmakers K Asif, Mehboob Khan, V Shantaram and Raj Kapoor. For the past months while my dear friend Sanjay has been attacked physically and emotionally he has felt like none of the movie moghuls mentioned above could have felt. In fact Sanjay feels like a common criminal being hounded threatened bullied and heckled for a crime whose nature he isn’t aware of. Maybe he needs to read the law books which say making films in this country can be damaging to the filmmaker’s health.

The Padmaavat crisis has broken Sanjay physically and emotionally. For months now he hasn’t been eating or sleeping properly. And he has started chain-smoking again. “It’s Lataji’s songs and cigarettes which have kept me going all these months,” he tells me. I stay quiet. I’ve no words of consolation.

To say Sanjay has been to hell and back would be an understatement. Living under the constant shadow of threat and fear is like coping with a fatal diseases, a cancer of the spirit that eats away at one’s soul. The very real threats from the fringe groups—and I’ve been first-hand witness to them where callers on his cell phone have been shouting they would do him much worse than merely behead him—is something that no outsider would understand, let alone empathize with.

The lack of real camaraderie within the film fraternity makes it worse for someone as private as Sanjay Bhansali. He became more vulnerable to attack when the attackers realized he had no support system to buffer the bullying. The post-midnight calls became more abusive and the threats more pecuniary in nature. If you know what I mean.

Yes, there were open offers to ‘stop all protests’ in exchange of fiscal favours. Sanjay closed down his cell number. The calls then began coming on his home number which were sometimes received by his old ailing mother.

For Sanjay the most important thing at that moment was to protect his mother from the hurt. He stopped watching news channels at home—and once the attacks gathered momentum and the security was beefed up he was at home most of the time—so that his mother wouldn’t be exposed to her son’s vilification .But then she would read about Sanjay’s demonizing the next morning in the Gujarati newspaper that she combed religiously.

The situation at Sanjay Bhansali’s home was beyond depressing. At some point Sanjay just gave up the fight and stopped thinking about the fate of Padmaavat. He left all the marketing decision to his producers Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. The decision to release Padmaavat on January 25 is the producer’s.

My friend Sanjay Bhansali has become a bystander in the drama of his own that’s being played out in full public view. No one is sure how this bizarre narrative based on hearsay and political antipathy will pan out finally. As Sanjay Bhansali told a friend, “Can the film release in the states that have threatened to ban it? Does the CBFC endorsement mean anything to those who want to stop my film at any cost?”

And why do they want Padmavati, now titled Padmaavat, stopped? A whim, an impulse? Or it is it something far deeper that you or I cannot understand?

Sanjay Leela Bhansali expresses his grief

A lot of Bollywood stars came out dressed at their glamorous best at the Star Screen Awards 2017. For the media, this was a golden chance to ask the celebrities to comment on the problems faced by the upcoming period film Padmavati. The trouble began in January earlier this year when Sri Rajput Karni Sena alleged that the film has a romantic sequence between Alaudin Khilji and Padmavati. Fuelled by the rage that the film distorts Rajput history, the workers of this organization assaulted director Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Jaipur on the sets of the film. The trouble then had got over but it becomes prominent as the release of the film got near. With no option, the film’s makers decided to postpone the film. Padmavati was to release on December 1 and now its release has been pushed ahead to 2018.

At the Star Screen Awards 2017, three prominent celebrities – Hrithik Roshan, Varun Dhawan and Sonakshi Sinha – spoke about these protests. There have been also death threats issued to Sanjay Leela Bhansali and lead actress Deepika Padukone. Hrithik Roshan said that these protests and threats prove that we still have a long way to go to evolve into completely civilized human beings. He added that the protests were not ‘right’.

Varun Dhawan stated that he has no qualms with peaceful protests. After all, its democracy and everyone has the right to voice their opinion. But to make a death threat is not at all fair in a democratic society. He signed off by saying that he has faith in the judiciary and that they’ll manage it. Lastly, Sonakshi Sinha also echoed Hrithik Roshan’s words that the protests were not ‘correct’ and that’s its wrong if death threats can be given openly. She called for strict action against those who made such violent threats.

Padmavati also stars Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh. As of now, five states – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab – have banned the film. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is yet to see the film but the censor process is expected to get over before the end of the month.

Bollywood stars condemn on Padmavati controversy

The release of the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed Padmavati landed in the middle of a storm with protests against the film erupting across the nation. If that wasn’t enough there have been numerous calls for the ban on the release of the film, along with threats being levelled against the film’s director and its cast members.

However, amidst these controversies the makers of the film Viacom 18 announced that the release of Padmavati had been pushed till matters were solved. Well now we hear that the film which was initially scheduled to hit screens on December 1, will release only in January 2018. If that wasn’t all, the date being selected is apparently the same as Akshay Kumar’s release date for his film Padman, which will hit screens on January 26.

Though an official announcement of the new release date for Padmavati is yet to be made, internal sources at the production house stated that January 26 has been locked as the unofficial release date.

Padmavati might release on Jan 26

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter, and music director. He is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India. Bhansali has adopted the middle name "Leela" as a tribute to his mother, Leela Bhansali. He is the founder of a production house, Bhansali Productions.

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