Kartik Aaryan starrer film Pati Patni Aur Woh created quite a flutter on social media after a controversial line from monologue by a character in the movie Abhinav Tyagi (played by Kartik Aaryan) appeared to normalise marital rape. The film and Kartik faced a lot of backlash on social media after the trailer was released online earlier this week.
As a consequence, the makers of the movie have decided to edit out the offensive line from the monologue. According to a report in Bollywood Hungama, the makers ‘got carried away’ when they decided to include a “joke” on marital rape.
“Since Kartik Aaryan’s monologue in Pyaar Ka Punchnaama was a hit they thought of doing another one this time and got carried away. The offensive monologue will be edited out of the film,” the source said.
Incidentally, Kartik Aaryan’s earlier movies Pyaar Ka Punchnaama 1 and 2 both had several monologues which can only be called rants against women. The long tirade against women in these two movies seems to have only one agenda, to bash women who had been generalised in the films as weak, spoilt and constantly requiring attention, whereas portraying the men as “unfortunate” and “trapped” who have nowhere to go but to face the wrath of their woman.
Nevertheless, this film, which releases on 6th December, talks about Abhinav Tyagi, who followed his father’s wishes and got married to Vedika Tripathi (Bhumi Pednekar) as per his wishes as well. Except, now he has a colleague, Tapasya Singh (Ananya Panday) and feels like he is ‘jailed’ in his married life.
Abhinav Tyagi dabbles through his wife at home, who he’s perhaps bored of, and this new colleague, who he lusts after. At around 1 minute 10 second into the trailer, Kartik Aryan playing the role of Abhinav Tyagi has another monologue with a few innuendos. It goes something like this:
“Biwi se sex maange toh bhikhari, biwi ko sex na dein to hum atyachari. Aur kisi tarah jugaad laga ke sex haansil kar le na toh balatkari bhi hum hai. Apni khushi apne haath mein hoti hai (makes a fist), Rizvi”. Which translates as ‘If I ask my wife for sex, I am a beggar and if we deny sex to wife, we are cruel. If somehow we manage to have sex despite this, then we are also accused of being rapists. Our happiness is in our own hands, Rizvi.’
Rizvi replies that this ‘happiness in own hands’ (a reference to masturbation) is something that is valid only before one gets married.
While adultery remains one of the safest topics for filmmakers to spin a comic story to woo the audience, this monologue in the film hasn’t gone down too well with people. It has irked many who believe that cracking jokes on marital rape isn’t a cool way to move forward. From questioning Kartik Aaryan’s choice of films to questioning filmmakers’ intent of making such a regressive film, several Twitter users expressed shock and disgust, calling the film and its makers, sexist and insensitive. Facing severe resentment, source from the production team feels the dialogue will have to go.
