Rajkot:
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali on Thursday agreed to the demands of Kshatriya community by changing certain "provocative" words in his film "Golion Ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela", which is releasing on Friday.
An advertisement published in local newspapers by Bhansali Production today said "the words 'Jadeja' and 'Rabari' have been changed to 'Sanedo' and 'Rajri' as per the community's demand".
"If by mistake I have hurt sentiments of Kshatriya community, as alleged by the community president P T Jadeja, I apologise to the entire Kshatriya community by publishing advertisement in news papers," the advertisement quoted Bhansali as saying.
Taking strong exception to the purported portrayal of the community and usage of words, the members of Kshatriya community had earlier organised a protest rally here and also burnt down posters of the film, set to release on Friday.
The community members had alleged that Bhansali and producer Kishore Lulla have shown total "disregard" not only to the Darbar community but to the Hindu religion as whole.
The community had earlier demanded the movie be banned in Gujarat as it is "hurting to the sentiments of Hindus for promoting vulgarity".
According to protesters, the portrayal of enmity of over 500 years between 'Rabari' and 'Darbar' communities in the film and the daughter of Jadeja family (Darbar)- the character played by Deepika Padukone- falling in love with a Rabari boy--played by Ranveer Singh-- is the distortion of reality.
'Darbar' (Kshatriya) and 'Rabari' are two different communities holding their respectful position in the State of Gujarat, they said.
"The sequence of events shown in the film may result into provocation or instigation to fight between the two communities," the community members had alleged earlier and asked Bhansali to change the names of the communities before the release of the film.
Kshatriya leader P T Jadeja said that he met Bhansali in Mumbai yesterday and "convinced" the director to change certain words used in the film.
