Anubhav Sinha is currently in the news due to his web series debut IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack. The director, who made his comeback to longform storytelling after 27 years, actively promoted the Netflix series until its release on August 29. During one of the promotional events, Anubhav was seen taking permission from his ‘dear friend’ Dia Mirza before putting his hands across her shoulder to pose for a photo. This gesture of Anubhav went viral. In an exclusive conversation with the indianexpress.com, Anubhav opened up about the incident. The director also spoke about the discussion around women’s safety and said, “We are not raising our kids well.”
When informed his gesture of seeking consent from Dia had become a talking point, the director told indianexpress.com, “Strangely, Dia and I have not spoken about it yet. I don’t know what is viral about it.” Explaining further, he said, “I put my hand around her shoulder, and I suddenly felt I needed to seek her permission to do that and I just did that. I don’t know what is the drama in it. I have put my hand around the woman’s shoulder a lot of times.”
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“Dia and I share a very long relationship. In our personal life, I don’t need to (seek her permission),” he added.
Recalling a picture of him with Dia Mirza on his Instagram, Anubhav Sinha said, “There is another picture of me and her I had posted on my Instagram on the set of Bheed. In that photo, my hand was around her shoulder and we were walking and talking. It was for five minutes. Then, I didn’t seek her permission because I was on my set. I have that relationship with her where we can put our hands around each other’s shoulder. We have that trust and comfort with each other.”
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He added, “But, this was a public space. Maybe that’s the reason why I felt like asking her this question. I didn’t realise it was going to be noticed. If you see the video carefully, she even laughed at me. ‘Why are you asking me’, she said. And I was like, ‘I thought I should,’ and then we had a funny chat. And then we saw Vijay Varma doubling up because we were having a funny conversation, that thankfully never got recorded.”
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Anubhav Sinha, who has helmed films like Thappad and Article 15, among others, also shared his opinion on the ongoing discussion around women’s safety that began after the Kolkata rape murder case. He said, “Why are we discussing women’s safety now? Why are we not discussing all year round? Today, I suddenly heard of a rape incident in Maharashtra. What I have been told is in our country, every 16 seconds, a girl gets raped. Why is not this society outraged all year round? They should be. We should be mad about this. Its heartbreaking that women have to think about an eventuality that they can be violated. It is tragic.”
The 59-year-old director added, “We are not raising our kids well.” He further recalled an incident from his personal life and said, “I remember my son was 8 and he was getting into an elevator with a friend, who was a girl. She must have been 6, and I was telling him, ‘Please let her go first and then you can follow.’ And my friends who were standing there started to laugh at me. They were like, ‘He is 8, Anubhav’, and I actually felt like a fool then but I was not a fool. He has to be told at 8 that this is not right. We are not raising our kids well, period.”
Anubhav concluded, “It is so tragic that women have to watch. Its tragic. I don’t look at it like what is going on today in our country. I look at it like what I have been seeing for 59 years of my life. Its going and it will go on unless we do something about it. You know, rape is an act of crime, but violation through your eyes, is where it starts and that needs to be fixed. We need to start teaching our kids about this when they are 6, 7, and then twenty years later, maybe there will be a change.”
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