#MeToo producer Sajid Qureshi talks about his film being scrutinised by the Revising Committee due to its dialogues
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; November 23, 2018)

With the film industry's revolt against sexual predators being met with silence from a fair share of powerful persons, sufficient toil has gone into keeping the discussion around the pressing subject, alive. In what may be seen as another blow to #MeToo movement, a film by the same name has come under scrutiny by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Sajid Qureshi's production founds its inspiration from the agitation that first arose in Hollywood last year, before it found its way into Bollywood. "We completed it over seven months ago, before it began in India," he says of the film, helmed by US-based Harsh Wardhan, and featuring Ritika Singh. "We sent the movie to the CBFC three months ago, but they rejected it," he says, adding that the Board objected to the dialogues used in the film.

The body told Qureshi to seek the Revising Committee's (RC) intervention. "The Mumbai RC had a backlog to deal with, so we were told to approach the Chennai RC. But that body, helmed by actor Gautami Tadimalla objected to the title itself. They questioned our decision to use a title of a movement that was gaining momentum in India."

#MeToo, Qureshi reveals, revolves around a student who encounters sexual abuse. "The film discusses the mentality of sexual predators, highlighting how they behave and talk." The cuts demanded by the body, he claims, affect half of his film, leading to a delay in its release.

"If we delete certain scenes, there will not be any movie left to see. There is no violence or vulgarity, only some powerful dialogues. Yet, they've asked us to edit it," he says, arguing that his film reflects the way men speak. "If four men surround a girl, they won't call her sister or behen ji while eve-teasing, will they?" The producer reveals his team is contemplating approaching the Court or Tribunal.

 
Ritika Singh, who is set to make her Bollywood debut, talks about favouritism and dirty politics in Indian boxing
Anirban Das (MID-DAY; January 23, 2016)

Ritika Singh is not one to pull her punches. The 22-year-old boxer, who steps into Bollywood as R Madhavan’s co-star in Saala Khadoos, does not bat an eyelid when talking about the scams and scandals plaguing the Indian boxing scene. “The state of affairs right now is saddening,” she sighs. But switch to her latest passion — acting — and she lights up like a 1,000-watt bulb. She confesses that the acting bug has bitten her and that she would prefer facing the camera to packing a punch in the boxing arena. Excerpts from an interview:

How did a boxer like you, who had no Bollywood connection and aspiration, land a film?
I was 17 when I took part in a reality show on MMA fighters, but was eliminated after I dislocated my knee and went on to lose fights. Maddy (Madhavan) sir had seen a big poster of me posing like a boxer. So, he found out about me from the organisers and called me up to say he had a film offer. I started feeling giddy with joy. I, along with my father, then met him and accepted the offer.

Was it awkward facing the camera?
Maddy sir and Raju (Rajkumar Hirani, filmmaker) sir never made me feel like an outsider. Maddy sir has become my best friend now. I taught him how to use all the emojis on Whatsapp. Shooting with him was great fun and I learnt a lot from him. He would stand behind the camera and give me cues.

How different is real boxing from reel boxing?
Very. For a scene, I had to fight with street guys and I charged like a raging bull since I did not know that I had to conserve my energy for the same take from different angles, and got tired. That was the first action scene I did. I also hit Maddy sir in my enthusiasm, which I feel bad about. I even hurt myself.

Is this film a one-off thing or do you wish to make a career in acting?
The acting bug has bitten me, but I don’t want to do sport based movies in future. I want to play different characters. Like Maddy sir says, an actor gets to live many lives within one.

Will you choose films over boxing?
If I had a film offer in hand and a boxing tournament coming up, I will definitely go for the film. I had thought of training Bollywood artistes someday, but never acting. I cannot afford to let go of any good acting opportunity.

What is the scope for boxing as a career in India?
This question actually depresses me because I start thinking about the politics and exploitation that happen there. There are fighters who go to coaches and offer sexual favours to get extra attention. And then these coaches encourage only them. Good players will never get opportunities if this scenario prevails. I am a self-respecting professional and luckily, my dad is my trainer. I will be honest and say that sexual harassment happens in every industry. It just that some industries are known more for it. I am sure many people in the boxing field wouldn’t like to believe that I made it to the film industry on my own.

Give us an example explaining how Indian boxers are discouraged.
When boxers go for international tournaments, they are made to pay from their pockets for stay in five-star hotels. However, they (Indian agents or organisers) put them up in three-star hotels and pocket the balance amount. It is such a bad feeling to see participants from other countries get such good treatment, unlike us. We are supposed to follow a particular lifestyle, hit the gym and stay fit, but if you don’t give us those amenities, how are we going to give our best? It has always been this way and I don’t know what can be done to make it a better place.

R Madhavan on spending his life’s savings on the film
Latha Srinivasan (DNA; January 20, 2016)


There’s hype suddenly around you and Saala Khadoos...
I would like to take the credit completely for myself but the truth of the matter is if I had come with any other film, I don’t think the anticipation level would have been the same. It is the very reason why I took the sabbatical to work for my look — mostly the script motivated me and the director. I think half the hype is because of my new avatar.

Tell me about transforming yourself for the role?
Complacency sets in when you do what you’ve been doing well and it’s very easy to walk down that path. I get bored easily and I was getting bored with myself. My wife told me that she could see the passion go out of my eyes. She said, “Maddy, if you’re that bored, change your profession or revamp yourself.” I needed somebody to tell me that. The mental makeover was far tougher than the physical one. It was really tough to push myself into a corner, stop feeling like a star, be humiliated and humbled, make myself unrecognisable and travel with the public. I just felt what it was to be a common man all over the world. I started rebuilding myself. The hard work was very tough but it was great knowing that one is capable of doing that.

When the director Sudha Kongara narrated the script, did you think it would be a life-changing role?
Oh yes! Right away. My instinct has been my greatest tool. Scripts that other heroes don’t touch or see the light of day are the ones I knew will work for me. In this movie, I’m doing the most anti-hero thing. I’ve grey hair, I’m seen in bed with a woman who’s not my wife, I’m letting the heroine say you’ve a bulky stomach but a cute smile. When the script comes to you, it just motivates you to take these leaps of faith which you normally wouldn’t do. That’s why I felt I should put not just my blood and soul but also my money in it to make sure it sees the light of day in the glory with which it was written. Full marks to Sudha for having been able to pull that off.

This is your first time with a female director.
When you imagine a woman director, you always think she’ll come to you with a emotional story. Sudha, came up with a script on women’s boxing in India. You’re obviously going to read the script with a little bit of apprehension. But the amount of research and interviews she had done and the visuals she had included in the presentation to substantiate the story was astounding. That I didn’t expect from a female director or any director for that matter. There was no way I was going to let something like this go.

Why did you want Rajkumar Hirani on board?
I told Sudha I’ll take responsibility of seeing the film go on floors and producing it. I then tried to find people who will see the film in the same light as me and finance the film as well. But whoever I went to couldn’t see the film the same way. No one was willing to invest in the film as is. It was then that I came to the lowest point in my life and career. I had completely depleted my bank account and was living on wafers. Raju Hirani is a close friend and someone I respect a lot and taking the script to him would have been the obvious thing to do. He kept asking me what I was working on and he asked me why I was talking a sabbatical. He was in the middle of PK so I told him I didn’t want to bother him. I was talking to this dear friend of mine in the US who’s like a brother and I told him I’m going to drop this film. He had seen me every step of the way in this film as I was staying at his place in the US for my training regimen. He told me that I couldn’t drop the project and that there was nothing called failure but just various degrees of success. He said if I don’t take the risk now then I wouldn’t the next time round. He told me, “Maddy, see it to the end. Irrespective of the outcome, you’ll benefit from it in the long run. ” That afternoon I made up my mind to meet Rajkumar Hirani but I didn’t want to put any pressure on him. I narrated the story to him in 20 minutes — the defining 20 minutes of this film. He said he hadn’t heard a script like this in 15 years. Raju asked me, “Tell me, what do you want me to do for this film.” I told him to be the wind beneath our wings and that we would make the film and if he thought it was worthy of his name, then to help us get it released. But he did much more than that. Sashikanth of Y Not Studios also had the exact same reaction and he wanted to produce the film in Tamil. He stood like a rock and when Rajuji happened to come on board, I think it was worth all the effort.

Why cast a real-life boxer (Ritika Singh) instead of an actress?
We wanted someone who was a world champion boxer, around 17, who knew how to act, whose parents would allow her to act, hold her own, look like a heroine and speak in Hindi and Tamil. To find a girl who can speak in Tamil is a big challenge in Chennai. My friend Raj Kundra invited me to the Super Fight League. I saw Ritika there and knew in 15 minutes that I had found my heroine. When Sudha met her, she was euphoric. Ritika took to acting like fish takes to water and reiterated what I always believed in — acting is an innate skill. I believe that the power of the right script draws only the right people to it and this film has done that over and over.

Shah Rukh Khan also played a coach in Chak De! India. Do you think there’ll be comparisons?
Obviously. The comparisons will be in the filmy section of the audience and the filmy people. We’ve had 40 screenings but no one came up with Chak De! India. Secondly, the first day first show audiences who would have seen that film then aren’t the same ones today. Thirdly, there’s no similarity in the form, sport or characterisation themselves. My movie is more about the relationship between a man and a woman — two broken people who support each to get to the glory they are capable of. Chak De! Is about a man who was vindicated after he was assumed to be a traitor. If we are to compare every film that had a coach, then even Million Dollar Baby is one.

MID-DAY (December 21, 2015)

R Madhavan, who will be seen next in Rajkumar Hirani’s Saala Khadoos, recently remarked that the toughest part for the makers was finding a female boxer who could act too. Now how tough was it exactly? Sources close to the project say 18-year-old Ritika Singh was shortlisted after the casting team had a ringside view of 700-odd duels and had auditioned nearly 100 athletes.

Says a source, “Hirani chose a national level boxer over an actress to play the lead role. He felt the fights required stamina and intensity, and only a real boxer could make them look real. So, the entire team set out on a hunt for one. They auditioned over 100 boxers and attended over 700 boxing matches all over the country, before they finalised the female lead.”

The auditions spanned a couple of months and the makers found Ritika perfect for the role. The national-level kickboxer holds a black belt in karate and is also trained in mixed martial arts. Madhavan will be seen as her coach — a taskmaster.

Hirani, at a recent media interaction, had admitted that he was apprehensive about casting a boxer as the lead heroine, adding that he has taken a “chance”.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 30, 2015)

When actor R Madhavan who lives close by came to Rajkumar Hirani with a script he had been working on with a young director, Sudha Kongara Prasad, the filmmaker was immediately interested in co-producing it with him. His second production, a Hindi-Tamil bi-lingual, Saala Khadoos/Irudhi Suttru, is the story of a rustic fisherwoman who Madhavan's character, a retired boxing coach, grooms into a match-winning boxer.

What Hirani wasn't sure about was casting a real boxer in the lead as Sudha and Madhavan suggested. Their argument as they went from one association to another, watching matches, was that the fights needed stamina and intensity and only a boxer would make them look real. They must have auditioned at least 100 boxers before they finally found their girl in Ritika Singh. She is a national-level kick boxer who is a black belt in karate. She has also learnt mixed martial arts and participated in Raj Kundra and Sanjay Dutt's Super Fight League.

"For the auditions we made her shoot a boxing scene just for me since I had not seen her in action in a match. I was impressed. Then, we gave her an emotional scene which required her to get angry and yell at Maddy. She took me by surprise. She doesn't try too hard, she's a spontaneous actress and an extremely focussed girl," Hirani points out.

What's really got the 17-year-old who's a familiar face in the boxing circuit the thumbs up from the director is the fact that with only a few lessons to help her grasp her dialogue, Ritika was able to convincingly carry off her scenes in Tamil. "Of course we'll get someone else to dub her voice but she was able to express herself well in the alien tongue. Hindi, of course, is her language so there was no problem there. We have not made her undergo any professional acting classes because we wanted a certain rawness. Even her diction is not completely polished," he adds. They started the shoot with the climax match and after that Ritika went on to fight several other bouts, besides singing and dancing. "Most of the songs play in the background but there is one rustic dance which she has done really well, along with a love song," Hirani applauds.

So what was the biggest challenge for his protege, you wonder, and he laughs, "Initially she had to lose some matches and Ritika grumbled that she didn't like getting hit. She would rather do the hitting herself."

Hirani wasn't able to be completely involved with the filming since he was busy with PK at the time.

They couldn't delay the shoot as Madhavan was all pumped up after undergoing a sixmonths training in the US and then had to shed the extra kilos for Tanu Weds Manu Returns. But he admits he's been creatively involved with the editing and the music. Has he been keeping an eye on the budget too? "I'm terrible with that," he guffaws. "I've made them do some amount of reshooting. The idea is to make a good film."

Hiren Kotwani (BOMBAY TIMES; May 19, 2015)