Interview with NH-10’s Navdeep Singh

Thanks to agyaat for pointing me to this interview — love Nh-10 or hate it, Navdeep Singh’s passion and bitterness does shine through here. The bit about the censor board’s elitism, determined to protect “the masses” from thinking for itself, convinced that only “educated” folk can be trusted with representations of violence, is not only absurd but ironic for those of us who have seen NH-10, given the mess the “educated” Arjun lands the leading couple in. — Qalandar

EXCERPT: “You had to fight with the Censor Board to get the film released. What were you told to cut?
Words like randi, saali, kutti were cut. We were allowed to show the word “randi” scribbled on the wall, but nobody could speak it. We were told to tone down the fights in the honour killing scene and when Meera (Sharma) gets beaten up in the sarpanch’s house. The second time when Meera sees the word “randi” written on the wall after her husband dies, we were asked to cut the shot from six seconds to three seconds. I asked the board members why we had to cut it the second time when it was allowed the first time in the bathroom scene, and the answer was that the first time she erases it. That’s so arbitrary! But the first time we went for the censor certificate, half the members wanted to ban the film.”

Read the complete interview HERE