For last few days, media as well as celebrities went hammers and tongs over Ram Gopal Varma’s visit to the Taj along with Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh and his actor-son Riteish Deshmukh.
While this act of his was termed as insensitive by quite a few, there were not many voices that came forward in Ram Gopal Varma’s support. No wonder, the man himself has come out in open after a gap of a few days and as expected, doesn’t mince any words.
“My question is, what is it that which could be affected by me being there? If the Officers there thought that there will be a breach of security or I will see things which I am not supposed to see, they would have stopped me. And if they did stop, why in the hell would Mr.Vilas Rao force them to let me in”, fumes Ram Gopal Varma in his blog, “The reason why they did not stop is as simple as this because the areas we were shown were where the investigations were already completed and footage of which was already shown thousands of times on the media.”
Explaining the reason around him seeing broken glasses, broken tables and bullet riddled walls which the whole country has seen a thousand times on TV and hence creating an outrage, he says, “After seeing the footage which ironically was shot by Mr. Vilas Rao’s own team and given to the TV Channels, the media minds started speculating on my presence there and developed conspiracy theories and to support their speculation they used slow motion techniques, putting red circle around me and putting a flickering arrow marks pointing at me. Added to this a voice over of their interpretation of why I was there and why Mr. Vilas Rao took me there completed the story which resulted in the understandable outrage.”
Hardly in a mood to restrain his anger around the situation, he questions back, “Even assuming for a moment if I went to research there for a film I am planning what possible information will I gain as a filmmaker of seeing lesser than what I have already seen on TV? In all the footage one saw of our so-called terror tour, was there a single visual of the place that the people have not already seen on TV?”
Talking about what goes into the real research, he reasons, “Research for a film can’t happen by visiting crime scenes as I am not some forensic scientist. Research can only happen if I have one-to-one conversations with investigating officers after they complete their investigations which might take months. Some news channels even went to the extent of saying that we were disturbing a crime scene. If that is the case, isn’t it the job of the investigating officers to stop us. They didn’t because like I said they were only showing areas where investigations have been completed.”
He concludes though by admitting that he was curious to see the place, “Yes, I was amazed that I got a opportunity to see the place where such a horrendous incident happened and I would like to know which person in the entire country would not have been curious to see the place.”
By Joginder Tuteja
