Pakistan bans Raanjhanaa

Raanjhanaa is a 2013 Indian romantic drama film, directed by Anand L. Rai and written by Himanshu Sharma. The film is produced by Krishika Lulla under the banner Eros International. It stars actor Dhanush in his Bollywood debut, Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol in its lead roles. The film was released on June 21, 2013 worldwide, while the dubbed Tamil version titledAmbikapathy was released a week after its Hindi counterpart. The dialogue of the Tamil version was written by John Mahendran.

The background score and soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. The Hindi lyrics of the tracks were penned by Irshad Kamil, whereas the Tamil lyrics were written by Vairamuthu.

Within a week of its release, its collections surpassed 34 crore (US$5.8 million). Box Office India declared the film a hit in India.

Kundan Shankar (played by Dhanush) is a strong believer of God and the son of a Tamil priest. Since his childhood days, Kundan has had a strong one-sided love for Zoya Haider (played by Sonam Kapoor), a Muslim girl residing in Varanasi whose father is a professor. Being kids and having crushes makes it pointless but a few years later, Kundan is steadfast in his love for Zoya. When she is at school, he always attempts to be around her and hold her hand but gets slapped several times in the process. Zoya finally changes her mind because of Kundan's constancy of affection and attraction. Zoya's family is orthodox, preventing the lovers from being together. By the time Zoya moves to Aligarh for her further studies, Kundan harmonizes with Zoya's family, assisting them with various works especially pertaining to house. The film shifts its centre when Zoya gets into Jawaharlal Nehru University and through her, the idealistic and political culture of the Delhi is explored. She discovers a long-lost strength as she confronts and then falls for student leader Jasjeet Singh Shergill (disguised as Akram Zaidi for political reasons in the film; played by Abhay Deol) in Delhi.

After a period of eight years, Zoya returns to Varanasi. Kundan again attempts to ask Zoya for her love but she is reluctant, revealing that she is in love with Akram. Zoya then urges Kundan to convince her family about her marriage with Akram. Initially refusing the plans because he still loves her, Kundan eventually agrees to it. Kundan gets his work done and the wedding of Zoya and Akram is arranged. Kundan promises Zoya that he will also tie the knot with another girl and will forget her. Kundan proposes to his childhood friend Bindiya (Swara Bhaskar), who has had a crush on Kundan since their childhood days, for marriage.

On the day of their marriage, Kundan finds out through a newspaper article that Akram is a Hindu, whose actual name is Jasjeet Singh Shergill. This enrages Kundan as Zoya had used their religious differences to convince him that their match was not possible. In a separate flashback it is shown that Zoya, despite Jasjeet's misgivings about the plan, convinced him to portray himself as Muslim to marry her. Enraged again, Kundan reveals everything to Zoya's parents thereby interrupting their marriage ceremony. Later, Kundan is informed by his friend that Zoya tried to commit suicide and is in a critical condition. He rushes to the hospital where he is also informed that Jasjeet was mercilessly beaten by Zoya's relatives and is also critical. Later Jasjeet's parents take him back to his village and thank Kundan for helping him. Kundan tries to redeem himself by taking Zoya to Jasjeet's village. However, he is devastated to find that Jasjeet has succumbed to injuries, finally making Kundan understand that his one-sided love has resulted in an innocent man's death. Kundan also forgets about his own marriage with Bindiya, which was supposed to happen the same day as that of Zoya and Jasjeet. For this reason, Kundan's family disowns him.

Kundan then becomes homeless and begins visiting various religious places and volunteering in their activities so that he can atone for his sins. During one such visit to the banks of Ganga, a man advises him to do the right thing rather than running away from his sins.

Motivated, Kundan locates Zoya to Jawahar Lal Nehru University, where she is spearheading the activities of the political party "All India Citizen Party" (AICP), created by Jasjeet. Kundan joins the nearby canteen and serves the people of the party, all the while trying to get Zoya's attention. Over time, Kundan becomes popular among the party due to his simple nature. In between Kundan also helps the party in negotiating some tough situations by using his simple yet witty tricks. Slowly, he emerges as a popular face of the party, disturbing Zoya. She holds a grudge that the person who is responsible for Jasjeet's death is now taking his place. She also tries to instigate party members against Kundan but Jasjeet's sister Rashmi (played by Shilpi Marwaha), who is also Zoya's best friend, tells Kundan to continue, as he is the best choice for fulfilling Jasjeet's dreams.

Kundan, however, only wants Zoya to forgive him. He silently follows Zoya's instructions despite them resulting in harm coming to him. The Chief Minister (played by Sujata Kumar) tells Zoya she must seek revenge on Kundan so as to take the place Jasjeet/Akram held for the AICP. To get back the position, she tells her to let Kundan get injured as he delivers his campaign speech for the party. Zoya gets brainwashed by this plan and as the Chief Minister desired, Kundan is hurt badly and sent to ICU, thus fulfilling Zoya's revenge.

Zoya slowly begins to understand the extent of Kundan's love and at a press meet following Kundan's injury, reveals that the plan was plotted by her and the Chief Minister. Zoya leaves the press meet in agony and finds out through a policeman that Kundan was aware of the plot and still let himself be injured. Shocked by this fact and ultimately realizing her love for Kundan, she rushes to the hospital to finally confess her feelings to him. However, Kundan dies.

In a final voice over, Kundan says he can be born again and again in the same Benaras with the same surroundings, fall in love with a girl like Zoya again, and become a Raanjhaana with her love.

Charater:

Actor Dhanush plays the character Kundan who has a passion for his city Banaras and Zoya (played by Sonam Kapoor). It depicts him a young boy and a teen who turns into a sensitive adult. Sonam Kapoor quoted her character as, "'Zoya' is child-like and unpredictable. She can be cold and at the same time, objective. She has every quality that makes her desirable to a man." In an interview, Kapoor revealed that for playing the role of a school girl in the film, she drew inspiration from the character Jaya Bachchan played in the 1971 film Guddi. Actor Abhay Deol as Akram plays a secure yet confident university student, socialist and a budding politician.

Filming:

After main casting announcements, filming was substantially delayed; the reason was speculated to be composer A. R. Rahman's music being denied outright by the film director. Filming officially began in Varanasi, India in early September 2012 and continued for 40 days in and around the city. As per reports, the leading duo were also seen essaying the role of 17-year-old teenagers. In mid-September 2012, the schedule of filming was put on hold as actor Dhanush fell ill on the sets in Varanasi. While filming in October 2012, the actor injured his shoulder during the filming of an action sequence for his Tamil outing Maryan. The consequences led to the scheduled shooting of dance sequences to be postponed and were shot in Varanasi on December 19, 2012. On November 4, 2012, Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol shot the song "Tu Mun Shudi" at India Gate, Delhi, and their dialogue scenes were shot at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication campus in Delhi by early December 2012. Permission to shoot inside was denied to the director by the college authorities. So, the unit shot some scenes in Amity International School, Noida. To avoid footage leaks, over a hundred potential crew members were made present at the filming venue. Certain filming was also done in Gurgaon and Faridabad. The title track of the film was shot on December 27, 2012. The final schedule of filming began in Delhi on January 7, 2013. In March 2013, the film's crew shot several scenes at the Pataudi Palace in Haryana over two days.

Overseas:

At The Hollywood Reporter, Lisa Tsering left the film unrated and asserted, "The fact that the film marks the Hindi-language debut of South Indian star and YouTube superstar Dhanush is bound to draw interest at the box office, though Rai's firm refusal to play by the rules of the typical Bollywood love story may make it hard to sustain momentum."

Controversy:

The Central Board of Film Censors (CFBC) in Pakistan banned the film shortly before its scheduled release. Chief Executive Officer of IMGC Global Entertainment Amjad Rasheed, the importer of Raanjhanaa, told that he received a letter from CBFC of with directives to shelve the film's release. The letter from CBFC stated that the film portrays an inapt image of a Muslim girl (played by Sonam Kapoor) falling in love with a Hindu man and having an affair with him."

Pakistan has banned screening of Raanjhanaa, a film depicting the love affair of a Muslim-Hindu couple on the grounds that it could offend viewers in the Islamic republic.

The film, starring Sonam Kapoor and Dhanush, was scheduled for release in June, but the Pakistan Film Censor Board refused to clear it. “The Censor Board did not clear it because of its controversial story,” Arshad Ali, a senior government official and Censor Board chairman told AFP.

“The board recommended that the movie's storyline could offend the majority Muslim population in the country and a law and order situation could arise in response,” he said.

In 2012, Pakistan banned Agent Vinod , in which an Indian secret agent thwarts Pakistani spies from detonating a nuclear bomb in Delhi. - AFP