“Blatant misuse of power” – Pahlaj Nihalani
Eklavya will be India’s official entry for the prestigious Oscar awards. The decision to nominate Eklavya as the Indian entry for the awards was announced by Film Federation of India President Vinod Pande. The other films where were considered for official entry are hugely-popular Chak De India, Gandhi My Father and Guru.
This is the third time that a film by Vidhu Vinod Chopra will be going to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His short non-fiction film “An Encounter with Faces” was one of the first Indian films to be nominated for an Oscar in 1980. In 1989, “Parinda” was sent to the Oscars as India’s official entry.
Pahlaj Nihalani, President of Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programmes that selects the entry, is very upset with the decision and have used the strong word “disgraceful”, “shameful”, “blatant misuse of power” for this decision. His argument is that a film rejected by Indian masses can not have the privilege of “Official entry for Oscar awards”.
He says,
Yes, it is true that Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya has been selected as India’s official entry to the Oscars. It is disgraceful that the jury has selected a movie for the Oscars, which has been rejected by the people. I don’t see any logic behind selecting this movie when there were other deserving movies like Chak De India. If this is the taste of the jury, then it is better they leave the industry. Eklavya does not deserves an Oscar entry. This is a clear case of partiality. The selection has been done under the influence of certain people, which is shameful. The way Indian films are becoming globally recognised, wrong decisions like this will only spoil our hard-earned goodwill. This is blatant misuse of power.
I am not a big fan of Shahrukh Khan, but I liked the movie “Chak De India” very much. I think, “Chak De India” should have been the official entry for the Oscar awards. Anyways, I don’t have any complaint because in recent time, apart from Lagaan, my opinion has never matched with any of the official entry for Oscar. Paheli, RDB, Shwaas(don’t get surprise, this was our official entry for the year 2004) was just a joke as these movie don’t reflect the true picture of our Bollywood movies.
If you would like to know my opinion on Eklavya then I would call the movie as “Eklavya – The Royal Bore” instead of “Eklavya – The Royal Guard”.
Let me know what you guys think?
