Anurag Basu couldn’t have selected a more beautiful place to shoot thanDarjeelingfor his next movie Barfee. The movie is a romantic thriller and will star Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and will be the debut for the southern star Ileana D’Cruz.
Just when everything seemed well in the Barfee camp, the over enthusiastic crowds resulted in the canceling of the shooting.
It all started with a bunch of school children trying to cross the ropes put around by Barfee crew. One of the crew members asked his colleague to keep a better watch as people were crossing the ropes. This was misunderstood by a lady and an ugly situation emerged.
“A lady misunderstood it and thought that the crew member had abused her. She immediately started reacting aggressively and some others in the crowd joined in” said Mahendra Thami a local resident.
The crowd demanded an apology from the director and the crew members. Even when Anurag Basu tried to sort things out, it dint work. The crowd got more and more agitated and finally Anurag sort the help of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) President Bimal Gurung, to manage the crowds.
Talking about this Basu says, “I was directing my crew members to allow the school students to pass when a section of the crowd started demanding for apologies. Even after I explained matters, they failed to see reason.”
“It has left a little bad taste in my mouth. I could have shot the film in any hill station inIndiabut I preferred to come to Darjeeling as I have an emotional bonding with this place and I love the place. I have written many scripts here. I had conceptualized Barfee in Darjeeling”, added the frustrated director.
He though also said that these kind of incidents aren’t unheard of and these things happen when big stars are involved. He said the fate of the shooting will be decided in the next 3 days.
“I will return in September for the next schedule of the shoot. This is no issue” said Anurag Basu saying that this won’t keep him away from Darjeeling.
When contacted the Binay Tamang, Assistant Secretary, GJM, he said, “We want to reinstate the past glory of Darjeeling. Some anti social elements tried to disrupt the shoot. We have taken the matter very seriously and will ensure that there is no reoccurrence of such incidents. They are our guests and we apologize. We will even deploy the Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP) to assist in crowd control.”
“We have asked the film unit to lodge a formal complaint and we will take legal action against the trouble makers. The process of identification of the trouble makers has already begun” said Kunal Agarwal, Additional Superintendent of Police, Darjeeling.