Bollywood Filmmaker Karan Johar has said he may have reacted impulsively in apologising to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray last October when MNS activists protested against Mumbai being referred to as ‘Bombay' in his production Wake Up Sid, and that reaction could have been one of the triggers for the face-off with the Shiv Sena over My Name Is Khan (MNIK).
But after the MNIK controversy, when its lead actor Shah Rukh Khan refused to apologise to the Shiv Sena for his comments welcoming Pakistani cricketers in India, Johar said he was a different person now and would do things differently if faced with a similar crisis, reports Indian Express.
Johar had rushed to Thackeray's home and apologised to him, saying “we are creative people, we make mistakes” and even agreed to add a disclaimer before the start of Wake Up Sid after MNS activists stopped the screening of the film on its opening day in Pune.
“I have spent 36 years of my life being very sheltered and I am not exposed to certain circumstances and situations. So when it happened to me the first time round, I took an immediate call — what I had to do at the moment,” Johar said while talking to Express group journalists at Screen Chatroom, organised by Screen, the group's cinema weekly.“It was on the Friday of the release. You are far more vulnerable and weak on a Friday... When you are advised, you go and do what you have to,” he said.
“When you think back in time, maybe I would have done things differently today because I have been through another experience after that... I am a different person today,” Johar said.
“But when you are thrown in a situation in a moment... you will react impulsively maybe. I don't know if what I did was right or wrong, and maybe the repercussion of that was the second event that happened.”
Asked if he was wiser after the MNIK experience, Johar replied: “I am older, wiser, and far more mature post-MNIK than I have ever been. I have understood so much about the machinery, the world, people, industry, everything. I feel like I grew up 10 years in those 10 days. I am definitely a more aware man.”
The MNIK stir had also sparked a debate about Bollywood forging unity to take on the opposition. Initially there was little public support for Khan, but as the controversy gathered steam some sections of Bollywood came out and stood by him, although largely through online messages of solidarity.
Johar said that he got a lot of support, mostly on the phone, through calls and SMSes, and added that it was heartening that some of it came from unexpected quarters. “I would have done the same, called and said ‘anything you need I am here'. Some people who didn't call, surprised me. Some people who didn't speak, definitely disappointed me,” the 37-year-old producer-director said.
“What bothered me was some people saying that this was a publicity stunt. That angered me. Who would want and plan for something like this? That's just brain-dead and completely callous and insensitive to even suggest and insinuate,” he said.
