Santa’s A1 dragged into controversy
After moral policing several actors and Carnatic musicians, Hindu Tamizhar Katchi, a fringe group and styled patrons of Hindu culture and traditions, is after actor Santhanam now. The HTK has approached the Commissioner of police petitioning to ban Santha’s upcoming flick A1 - Accused No 1, as the trailer, which was released recently project women belonging to Brahmin community in bad light.
A1 -Accused No 1, directed by debutant Johnson, has Santhanam playing a guy from North Chennai speaking the lingo and B’town girl Tara Alisha Berry as his romantic interest.
Rama Ravikumar of HTK alleges that some dialogues in the trailer apparently degrade and hurt the lifestyle and sentiment of an upper caste community and hence requested CoP to ban the film as well as take action against Santhanam and the crew members. Dialougues like, “Half boiled saapittutu than kadhalai therivikkum agraharathu mami”, referring to a vegetarian uppercaste lady eating an egg to prove her love, could have been the trigger.
However, when DC contacted producer of the film Rajnarayanan, he said, “It’s a love story of a local boy Saravanan played by Santha and a Brahmin girl (Tara) and the first half is a romantic comedy with a dark second half. These dialogues are passing references and when you watch the film, you will know there are no such visual scenes. And, the Censor Board has given a clean chit in a ‘U’ Certificate for the film. Moreover, I haven’t received any notification from the police.”