Maharaj director defends Shalini Pandey's transformation from a fanatic to someone who realises within a scene that she was raped by a sex offender: 'It's a film'

Maharaj director Siddharth P. Malhotra said he had to move on to other plot points and hence could not spend time with the female protagonist of the story and develop her personality.

Shalini Pandey in a still from Maharaj. Shalini Pandey in a still from Maharaj.

Maharaj, starring Junaid Khan, Shalini Pandey and Jaideep Ahlawat, was recently released on Netflix after several delays. The film received mixed reviews because its protagonist fights for women’s rights in the 1860s but also shames his fiancée Kishori, played by Shalini Pandey, for her orthodox beliefs. which leads to their death by suicide. In a new interview, director Siddharth P Malhotra was asked about Kishori’s rapid transformation, which takes place in just one scene and therefore seems abrupt and quick.

Kishori’s character went from being a blind follower of Maharaj, the self-proclaimed god played by Jaideep Ahlawat, to someone who realises he is raping naive women in a single scene. When asked about his decision to capture their disillusionment in a few seconds, Malhotra defended his decision by saying, “It’s a film.” He told Zoom, “If I don’t move the story forward, people will say the film is slow. If I don’t show those moments in the film and there were additional moments that supported it, if I don’t keep those, how do I get a defamation suit?”

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He further said, “In a human story, she would have had to process it, take time to understand where things are going. In terms of the visuals, for Shalini, if I had more time, I would have gone through more scenes to feel that empathy and understanding of what was happening to her whole belief system. But in a two-hour film, you have to go from one point to the next to… there’s so much to say that you have no choice but to just move the story forward.”

Kishori’s character freaks out when she sees the self-proclaimed god-man trying to rape her sister, but she commits suicide shortly afterward.

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First uploaded on: 02-07-2024 at 11:18 IST

Maharaj director Siddharth P. Malhotra said he had to move on to other plot points and hence could not spend time with the female protagonist of the story and develop her personality.

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