From the Vatican to the Ramayana, religion makes news. Add a twist of Bollywood and heady prime time is guaranteed. When Abhishek Bachchan and Lara Dutta (main lead Preity Zinta was not required for this shoot) did a spell of filming for Yash Raj’s Jhoom Barabar Jhoom in a Southall pub, a bunch of Sikh kids went ballistic. The pub is opposite a gurdwara and the film unit was using the compound, after getting the required permission from the president of the gurdwara.

The compound had been given out on earlier occasions too, to other parties, mainly to avoid traffic problems for the rest of the neighbourhood. But the filibustering Sikh youth had heard that disrespect had been shown to the sanctity of the place by the filmwallahs who drank, smoked, ate meat, even changed their clothes there. That amounted to blasphemy of the Guru Granth, the Holy Book that is in the sanctum sanctorum of the gurdwara, protested the religiously hurt youth. After apologies and decisions not to hire out any part of the premises to film units, the protesters dispersed.

However, Abhishek and Lara who were not the culprits (some lower down unit hands had used, or misused, the compound), were splashed in all the reports about the perceived blasphemy of the Holy Book!

Katrina Kaif’s legs were in a similar predicament when she shot for Vipul Shah’s Namaste London in Ajmer. The scene was about her father, Rishi Kapoor, introducing her to the major religious sites of India. Playing a raised-in-London girl, Katrina was suitably dressed in a skirt for a shot at the famous dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer. But there was a furore over the fact that Katrina had dared to enter such a sacred spot in a skirt that revealed her legs!

“I was not there,” said Akshay Kumar who is the hero of the film. Since he has done Vipul Shah’s two previous films too (Aankhen, Waqt), Akki commented, “I am sure that shot doesn’t even exist any more. Knowing Vipul, even as we’re talking about it, he must have cut out that shot and thrown it out forever. Anything that hurts religious sentiments is a no no.”

However, Akshay Kumar had underestimated his producer-director friend Vipul Shah’s moral strength. Vipul explained, “All of us, Rishi Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and the rest of the film unit, had presented ourselves before the Anjuman Committee before we went into the dargah. They’d objected to our DOP (director of photography) who was dressed in shorts, so a lungi was provided to him and it was fine with everybody. The Committee had also looked at Katrina and their only condition before allowing her in was that her head should be properly covered. That was also immediately complied with. They had absolutely no objections to her dress.

“If we had done anything wrong, we couldn’t have shot there for two hours without interruption.”

Here’s an inside bit of info from Vipul himself. According to him, the arrival of stars and a film unit had attracted a huge crowd and media attention, of course. Vipul revealed, “The media wanted to interview the stars. I told them that meeting them before the shoot was not possible, but that they’d get their interviews after the shooting was over. They complied and waited while we did our shooting inside. But the moment the shooting was over, the stars said, no interviews, and drove away. That angered the media. One person told me, ‘We’ve waited for four hours and they can’t give us one byte?’”

The film people would now like to believe that it was the press — which had been shabbily treated by the imperious stars of the day — that did them in. So has Vipul paid the price of editing out the Chisti shots?

Sorry, Akshay, but this is what the producer-director has done. “I will edit the scene and show it to the Dargah Committee for their approval. I will get their approval in writing to be on the safe side, before releasing the film. I don’t want religious protests causing any kind of problem when the film is released.”

Rest assured that you haven’t heard the last of Katrina Kaif’s legs.

Meanwhile, the Ramayana has caught the fancy of Bollywood. Even young Zayed Khan wanted to make it (and cast brother-in-law Hrithik as Lord Ram). But it is Rajkumar Santoshi who is finalising a Rs 90-crore big screen narration of the epic. His unannounced choice of Ajay Devgan and Kajol to play Ram and Sita has already got eyebrows shooting up. How can the fiery Kajol play the submissive Sita? But isn’t that what acting is all about and who can deny that she is still the most spontaneous actress in town? Besides, Sita had her huge moments of fiery determination (eg. in Lanka with Ravana) which should make Kajol quite an interesting choice.

And, hey psst, if you know about Ajay Devgan’s colourful, off-duty activities, you’d forget about his wife and wonder if he’s the right choice to play the pious Lord Ram!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International