The interview that is making noise: Sandeep Reddy Vanga

Shahid Kapoor’s ‘Kabir Singh’ is on its way to be his first ever 250 crore film. Forget his first 100 crore, which was what this film was going to be! So the question is, despite the many criticisms from the audience and the critics, WHO is going out to watch this film over and over again?

Two days back, Anupama Chopra interviewed the director of ‘Kabir Singh’, Sandeep Reddy Vanga. You HAVE to see this interview! We only now saw it and, wow! Just wow…

This man is saying all this so calm and so freely, like if this is normal for him, which makes this interview even scarier!

First of all, this guy IS Arjun Reddy. We thought people knew that, so when most were amazed at how he saw things, we were surprised. Because Arjun Reddy is his vision, it meant a lot to him. So, clearly somewhere he identified deeply with this character. You can see it in the interview how hurt he is, how pissed off he is at Rajeev Masand (Please call Sandeep, he’s a big fan (wink-wink)!) and the other critics (which he pretends to forget their names but then he remembers clearly their full name and their other reviews). Basically, he calls the critics who hated his film “pseudo”! Well, they are probably calling him “psycho” now!

Poor Sandeep! (?)

This interview gave the world a couple of quotes directly from the mouth of Sandeep, even though now he claims he has been misquoted.

#1: When you are deeply in love and deeply connected with a woman, and vice versa, there’s a lot of honesty in it. If you don’t have that physical demonstration… you don’t have the liberty of slapping each other, then I don’t see anything there.

#2: She slapped him without a reason. At least Kabir had a reason to slap her. If you can’t slap, if you can’t touch your woman wherever you want, if you can’t kiss, I don’t see emotion there.

#3 (referring about women who were uncomfortable watching the film): I feel that they were never in love, probably they’ve never experienced it in the right way.

Secondly, this kind of hero behavior is normal in Telugu and Tamil films and also in Hindi films. Hero stalks the girl and she eventually starts to like him. But in real life, if this was to happen to you…

Third, what this man is saying…Many women went through and still go through the same experience because their men think it’s normal. A lot of women live in that situation where the men feel they are entitled to raise their hand on women.

The fact that Sandeep said what he said so freely, like if it’s normal, shows the type of society that we live in.

It’s good that most people got so pissed off and appalled at what he said. It shows that they don’t tolerate this kind of behavior. You always have a choice, remember!

You know when the film released the week before, many fans of Arjun Reddy and others were saying how Kabir Singh is just a film, it’s not real it’s art! Yeah, it was until its director basically confirmed that the film is not art but real.

The worst thing is, the people who made Arjun Reddy a cult film have been supporting Sandeep left, right and centre. Unbelievable! Well, not so…To be fair, there were even readers here who really enjoyed the original and called it a “cult” film.

It’s sad to see this happening when we should move on from this kind of behavior. The kind of support that Sandeep is getting is scary as it shows the mindset of these people.

Seeing domestic abuse from up close, we have to say that this is not love by any means. Not that you don’t know that, but sometimes people in this kind of relationship fool themselves into thinking or rather, making up excuses on why they were slapped! Leave because it does not get any better nor does it stop. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he has had a bad day and it will never happen again. Once that hand is raised on you, leave!

When we were in school, there was this teacher who told us: Never let a man raise his hand on you. Never tolerate this behavior. My father told me if your husband raises his hand on you, leave him and come back to my house. My father told my brothers never to raise their hand on their wife!

We can’t remember why she started this conversation, but we remember thinking: Her father must love her a lot!

A few years ago, this colleague of ours was telling this story in a very normal way like if this has happened before: My boyfriend fell asleep yesterday and was talking in his sleep. When he woke up, I decided to play a joke on him and told him, who was this girl you are murmuring in your sleep? He got so angry, slapped me and then told me never to say the same again!

She was young at that time, but older than us and still it was so strange how she said it in a very normal way like if her boyfriend slapping her is normal.

 

There are two kinds of people, who like to get physically aggressive. 2 kinds of men, who raise their hand on women. One is, those who have been physically abused themselves hence this is the only way they think is right. Second is, they have never been physically assaulted or even slapped their whole life so they don’t know how it feels to be at the receiving end of that.

In both cases, they think they are the victims because it’s all about them!

Back to Kabir Singh’s success, we think since sooo many supporters of Sandeep are coming out to defend, they are the ones who went over and over again to support his vision because they enjoyed it the original so why not this one. This is not Shahid’s win, this is Sandeep’s success. With the Tamil version, you will get to see the difference because that one is not directed by Sandeep, but he will publicly support it since his first AD is the one directing it.