Meena Iyer (DNA; January 21, 2018)

So Akshay Kumar decided to postpone his own Pad Man to February 9 at the behest of his filmmaker friend Sanjay Leela Bhansali. With this magnanimous gesture, he paved the way for Padmaavat, which stars Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, to get a solo march on the Republic Day weekend.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: WHERE DOES THIS LARGESSE STEM FROM?
Akshay has done two movies — Rowdy Rathore (2012) and Gabbar is Back (2015) — produced by Bhansali. Both were superhits. So, obviously there is a lot of goodwill and trust between the two. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

In fact, the Bollywood superstar even joked that after Bhansali met him and put forward his request asking him to move Pad Man to benefit his own Padmaavat, they also talked about doing Rowdy Rathore 2.

SO IN ALL THIS, AKSHAY HAS COME UP SMELLING LIKE ROSES
Yeah, sample this. SLB said that Akshay’s generosity had no parallel in the industry. “This is how we stand by and respect each other,” he exclaimed with folded hands, looking in Akki’s direction. “I will remain grateful to him for life,” he added dramatically. He further stated, “The fraternity will be proud because it’s a gesture that is otherwise quite impossible in this industry.”

THEN IT WAS AKSHAY’S TURN TO SCRATCH BHANSALI’S BACK
“I can completely understand that Sanjay’s need of this date is more than mine,” said Akshay at the press conference held on the lawns outside his home on Friday evening to announce why he had decided to defer his own movie to February 9. “They’ve gone through a lot and the stakes for their film are higher. He’s a great friend so when he asked for it, I went ahead with the postponement.”

THE ‘PERIOD’ FILM HAS MADE WAY FOR THE HISTORICAL
So, the period (no pun intended) film, Pad Man, has made way for the historical, Padmaavat. However, not everyone is happy by this great gesture.

WHAT HAPPENS TO US? ASK EXHIBITORS AND DISTRIBUTORS OF PAD MAN?
Though the Supreme Court has lifted the ban on Padmaavat throughout the country, fringe groups and miscreants continue to threaten cinema halls where the movie is slated to play. Raj Bansal, one of the leading Bollywood film distributors-exhibitors, who is based out of Jaipur, says, “I was not distributing Padmaavat because till two days ago, the fate of the film in our state was a question mark.”

He added, “I applaud the SC’s decision to lift the ban. No filmmaker should be put through what SLB has faced. But at the same time, it has left some of us with very little time to plan. I had neither taken the distribution rights of Padmaavat for Rajasthan nor was I supposed to screen it in any of my theatres in Jaipur because as I said earlier, we didn’t know how things would play out.”

Like Bansal, there are other exhibitors too from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh who had reserved screens only for Pad Man. Now that this film is not going to play on the Republic Day weekend, they are at a loss.

AN EMERGENCY MEETING BY THE RAJASTHAN TRADE
One hears that a meeting will be held on Monday evening by exhibitors in Rajasthan to take a final call on their future course of action. Their decision would be announced by Tuesday afternoon. A source says, “All of them will now screen Padmaavat by default. However, many are still worried about vandalism by fringe groups. Of course, the state is committed to giving them police protection but how far this will go in helping their cause is not known. The thing is, when they had a choice of playing at least Pad Man, they knew their cinema halls wouldn’t be empty. But with Pad Man moving out to give Bhansali’s film a solo release, theatres will have to wear their armoury and make do with Padmaavat.”