At a time when several politicians and fringe groups haved criticised Sanjay Leela Bhansali for "Padmavati", the film's lyricist A M Turaz has come out in the director's support, calling him a responsible filmmaker.
Turaz has penned the songs in the period drama.
"Bhansali has made the entire film with a sense of responsibility. He is a sensible director who has made beautiful, poetic films. He is a man of love," Turaz says in an interview with PTI.
Various Rajput groups and politicians have accused Bhansali of distorting history but the makers have time and again said the film does not show the Rajput community in a bad light and that there is no dream sequence between Rani Padmini (Deepika Padukone) and Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh).
"It's saddening to see your art being objected to, when there's nothing wrong in it," Turaz says.
"Ghoomar" song, featuring Deepika, from "Padmavati" may have received thumbs up from the audience but a Chhattisgarh royal has criticised the track saying Rajput queens never danced before anybody.
Turaz is baffled how a song can upset someone when it does not have anything vulgar or offensive.
"If you see the song, there's no vulgarity either in the picturisation, the lyrics or even in the composition. If people have to nitpick they will.
"The biggest thing is, entire India, especially people of Rajasthan, have loved it. How can all of them be wrong? There's absolutely nothing vulgar in it. Deepika is graceful in the video."
The lyricist says it was not easy for him to pen this song but he did enough research to understand "Ghoomar".
"It was challenging for me to write this song because I had never written something like this before. I went to Rajasthan and stayed there for two days to grasp what exactly is 'Ghoomar', why does it happen, where and when.
"He (Bhansali) gave lots of inputs and briefed me about the situation. I had to rewrite it to keep the 'shayari' intact... It took me several weeks to write it. I wrote it couple of times but Sanjay ji said the version I wrote first was better. If you look at the 'antra', it has my poetry too. It was a wonderful process," he adds.
"Padmavati" marks the third collaboration between Bhansali and Turaz and the lyricist is grateful to the director for providing him a platform to showcase his work in cinema.
"This is my third film with him after 'Guzaarish' and 'Bajirao Mastani'. I've a good tuning with him. He respects poetry, he understands it. I feel proud of my work with him.
"He is an extremely gifted composer. His compositions have a 'therav' (stability). The way he shoots it too, it has some 'therav' so the actor gets to showcase his acting, the lyricist gets to write good thoughts and the singer gets enough room to perform well.
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