Mohalla Assi Wins Long Battle With The Censor Board

Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi who in the past has woven such pre-eminent erudite literary  content  for  television and cinema as  Chanakya and Pinjar has won a long battle with  censorship  in India.

His  new feature film Mohalla Assi featuring Sunny Deol as a priest in Varanasi battling bigotry, pollution and  tourist invasion in the Holy City, has  finally been cleared  for release  by the CBFC. The  film’s  strong language  filled with  Hindi expletives spares  no holy entity, and is bound  to trigger  off debates on release this Friday, as  it goes  passionately into  the sensitive issue of building a ram temple in Ayodhya.

At one point in the trailer Sunny Deol is heard heatedly telling  his  screen wife Sakshi Tanwar, “Constructing a Ram temple inAyodhya is  our dharm.”

Non-BJP supporters are  already  labeling Mohalla Assi as  pro-government  propaganda  , though the  director very clearly  states that he wanted to tell a story about  the creative, moral  and environmental  pollution  of  Varanasi.

Mohalla Assi based on the well-known novel by Hindi litterateur Kashanath Singh is scathing critique on the touristic commercialization of the Holy city of Varanasi.

In the film  Sunny Deol plays a self-righteous priest fighting against the ecological and moral pollution of Varanasi. The film’s all-pervasive mood seems to have infected Deol. Never known to use even a single profanity in his entire career, Deol  is heard calling himself a ‘chutiya’ in the trailer . In fact the extremely abusive Hindi term “bhosri ke” is used throughout the film as  an integral  part  of the local language.

 The  director who has fought long and hard for the  film to be released  that the  film says is neither pro or anti any government.

“This  is  my homage to  the beautiful  city of Varanasi,” says  Dr Dwivedi emotionally.

 Interestingly Varanasi is the Prime Minister Narendra  Modi’s parliamentary constituency. The Prime  Minister is expected to  view  Mohalla Assi shortly.