Maqbool Khan on Casting Ishaan-Ananya in Khaali Peeli: It’s a Gamble Like Saif Ali Khan in Omkara

“We never realised something like this will happen. ‘Goriya’ word has been used in the past in so many songs and films. So it didn’t occur to us that the audience can react to it like this but when they did we changed it and we can say it is sounding better now.”

“We are responsible creators and understand that we have a certain responsibility towards our audience so we went ahead to apologise on record,” he adds.

Can it be concluded that the audience and the way they watch films is seeing a shift?

“Not just the audience but everything is evolving and there’s room for all opinions and all sort of content. In fact, it has always been like that. In the early ‘90s came Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak starting a trend of romantic films. Films like Maine Pyaar Kiya, Aashiqui became popular and then suddenly Ram Gopal Varma releases Shiva with no romance in it giving way to films like Angaar, Parinda and Satya. And suddenly between these films comes Dil Chahta Hai and everybody turns to stories based on college and friendship. And then films of different genres like Chennai Express, Gully Boy, Queen and Kahaani also made everybody spellbound. There were other films also which were being made and they were co-existing. Similarly, parallel cinema is getting equal recognition now. Earlier there wasn’t a room for them, theaters were dominated by commercial films. It’s a co-existing process we all are part of.”

To sum it all, Khan concluded by quoiting Rajesh Khanna’s dialogue from Anand, “Hum sab toh rangmanch ki kathputhliyan hain jinki dor uparwale ki ungliyon main bandhi hain. Kab, kaun, kaise uthega yeh koi nahi bata sakta hai.”