When Arjun Reddy director Sandeep Vanga decided to tweet against the heinous Hyderabad rape and murder, he probably thought all the allegations of misogyny leveled at him after Arjun Reddy would magically wash away.
However the opposite happened. Vanga was trolled savagely for speaking of women’s safety after making the world unsafe for women in Arjun Reddy and its Bollywood twin Kabir Singh.
Director Vikramaditya Motwane questioned Vanga on his slap-happy heroin Arjun Reddy.
In fact, we don’t know if Vanga knows this, but many top actors are shying away from working with Vanga in his next project entitled Devil. Mahesh Babu said no to it. Then Vanga took Devil to Bollywood where Ranbir Kapoor showed a keen interest. But after the initial enthusiasm, Ranbir has stayed away from Vanga and is unlikely to greenlight the project.
We hear even Vijay Deverakonda who played Arjun Reddy is not keen on working with Vanga.
It looks like it would be a while before the director can live down his reputation of a misogynist filmmaker.
Defending the violence shown between the lovers in Arjun Reddy, director Sandeep Vanga in an interview to Subhash K Jha had said, “I never said one “needs” to slap . All I meant was, one needs to be fully honest in a committed relationship. And that honesty can take on a violent form. And why is only Kabir slapping his girlfriend Preeti being talked about? What about the fact that she too slaps him back? It works both ways. How they express their love is their choice. Why are some people judging them? And judging me for the way the characters behaviour? My point is, in a true relationship the emotions can get raw and violent.”
So would Vanga resort to violence with his own partner? “I would do anything and everything with my partner to make sure I am my real self. I would drop all defences, pull down all my guards. For me the essence of a strong relationship is honesty. I wouldn’t say I’d slap my partner. Even in the film… how do I explain to the idiots that , ‘Preeti ne pehle mari hai, phir Kabir ne maara’. It’s pointless to harp on the slap.”
Let time resolve the differences for Vanga!!