In light of the massive social media storm surrounding Sony TV show Pehredaar Piya Ki which accuses this show of supporting totally wrong practices i.e. marriage of a 9 year old Ratan (Afaan Khan) with a 18 year old Diya (Tejaswi Prakash Wayangankar).
Today show Producers Shashi Sumeet Productions called for a press conference wherein they tried to give their side of the story. Interestingly there was no spokesperson from the channel to give its version as well, which was important given the fact that the matter has now been referred to the Broadcast Council by the Information and Broadcasting ministry in the wake of online petitions asking the show to be banned.
Throughout the nearly hour long presser, the husband wife (Sumeet Mittal and Shashi Mittal) duo kept maintaining one line that those who oppose the show have not watched it. They also blamed a few media outlets for taking their comments out of context and also presenting half truth visuals.
Sumeet here said that, “Karan Wahi should have not said what he did being a responsible member of the fraternity, without checking out the facts.” Karan’s caustic tweet had first set the cat among the pigeons.
“We are not propagating child marriage, please understand the root of our story. Here the father of Rattan, Dada Hukum (Parmeet Sethi) had earlier saved Diya’s life; hence she was indebted to him. He in a way selfishly asked her hand in marriage for Ratan to protect his son. Agreed there could have been other relationships to protect, but this is our story.”
They then turned attention to the suhaag raat scene which has attracted the ire of many.”hey played the AV which showed the cousin sisters of Ratan prepare the bedroom for the first night and deride Diya again for marrying a kid.
Here both stressed, “that we have shown nothing inappropriate.” And to those who say suhaag raat talk will encourage young kids to get married, they said, “All households where marriages take place have first night /honey moon talk, do kids there get inspired to get married early?”
They also refused to buy the theory that they had planned the entire controversy to get higher numbers. “We are just telling a story”, and they don’t think that the higher numbers are the result of the noise. “Had that been the case, we would have rated much higher. Our current good numbers are the result of our storyline. We are flooded with messages from fans who watch the show saying they don’t find anything wrong.”
They also refused to change the storyline saying “We can’t, for this is our theme and I don’t think we are doing anything wrong in the first place.” Having said that, they did not rule out a leap. “That would then be a progressive story right of romance between a 30 year woman and 21 year old man.”
In closing Sumeet was hopeful that “the Broadcast Council will look into all the relevant facts and give justice.” Will you guys take legal recourse if banned, we asked and to this he said, “We don’t think that far.”
Let’s see if this clarification coming from the Producer calms down proceedings!!
