Ashutosh Gowariker wants all 19 Minutes of ‘Feel-bad Footage’ to be telecast

Last weekend Ashutosh Gowariker created quite a flutter in the film industry by vocally criticizing host Sajid Khan for satirizing well-known personalities from the film industry on stage. The buzz in the industry is that the Jodhaa-Akbar director wanted the footage of the heated unpleasant exchange between Sajid Khan and him to be deleted from the telecast and was upset and embarrassed to see the channel highlighting the on-stage fight in their promos of the awards telecast. The truth is quite the contrary. Ashutosh wants the entire footage of his protest to be telecast. Verbatim. And has in fact requested the channel not to cut a single line. Says a source close to Ashutosh, “He has requested the channel to keep all the 19 minutes of his argument with Sajid. Ashutosh’s protest about what he feels to be the public ridicule of distinguished film personalities would serve no purpose if it didn’t reach the public at large. He has felt for too long the need to stand up and protest against the entertainment at the industry’s expense provided at awards functions by the anchors. Now that he has belled the cat Ashutosh wants the message to go out loudly and clearly. So he personally requested the channel to not cut any of his protest.” Though several leading filmmakers agree with Ashutosh’s contention that the anchors at popular awards tend to overstep the line of decorum they don’t want to come forward, for the fear of being the victims at the next awards function.