Padmaavat to be the theme of a Kolkata Puja pandal this year
Deepika Padmaavat
Sreebhumi Sporting Club in the eastern fringe of Kolkata will have Padmaavat as the core theme this year during Durga Puja.
The Padmaavat controversy had the entire nation hooked in the past few months. The controversy brought even the non-cinema lovers to opine on the matter and it became a part of the national discourse soon enough.
The protests may have died down, but the film continues to dominate the Box Office worldwide, making a topic that is still being discussed everywhere.
The film has already travelled to NBA and now a Durga Puja Committee in Kolkata has decided to replicate the film's opulent sets into their pandal this year.
Sreebhumi Sporting Club in the eastern fringe of Kolkata will have Padmaavat as the core theme this year during Durga Puja.
We try to theme our puja around the most discussed topic of the year and this year Padmaavat has been one of the most talked-about issues. We have decided that the pandal would be erected along the lines of the palace of Chittor as shown in the film,"Sujit Bose, TMC MLA from Bidhannagar constituency, who is at the helm of the organising committee, toldDNA.
Sreebhumi Sporting Club had Baahubali 2 as its theme last year which attracted lakhs of visitors each day.
Organisers believe that the theme would send out the message that Bengal believed in the freedom of speech and expression, and the basic right could not be throttled in the state. The state saw the hassle-free screening of the film without any opposition.
In fact, Lokendra Kalvi, patron of Rajput Karni Sena, the organisation which had initiated the agitation against the film, had earlier said that they did not intend to put up a protest in Bengal.
Earlier in November 2017, when the fate of the film was uncertain, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had welcomed makers of the film to Bengal.
"If they are unable to release the film in any other state, we are ready to make special arrangements for it in our state. Bengal will be happy and proud to do it. Sanjay Leela Bhansali and his Padmaavat team are welcome here," Mamata had said at an event.