Is Karan Johar directing a film on the life of Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role? A poster doing the rounds on the internet, and especially pages run and populated by Bengalis on Facebook, seemed to be insinuating as much.
Now, Satyajit Ray is a sensitive topic for a lot of Bengalis — something that critically acclaimed director Qaushiq Mukherjee got a taste of after it was announced that he would portray the polyglot polymath in a film about the making of Pather Panchali, the iconic flick that catapulted Ray to the forefront of world cinema.
Mukherjee — who popularly credits himself as just Q in his films — had up until that point had several controversial films to his credit, and had seen the screening of one such film, which was titled after a common streetside expletive, being canceled in Mumbai. The announcement that he would play Ray was met with indignation, to say the least, and the project had to be shelved.
Now, with this new poster, the old indignation is back, with people all but foaming at the mouth at the possible double sacrilege — Shah Rukh Khan portraying Ray and Karan Johar directing it.
