'Nalini' director to delete one scene from film on Tagore

Ujjwal Chatterjee, who is set to direct bi-lingual film "Nalini" based on the platonic relationship between teenage Rabindranath Tagore and Marathi girl Annapurna Turkhud, today said he was ready to delete one scene from the final script.
Visva Bharati University had over a week ago set up a committee to examine the script of "Nalini", a Marathi-Bengali biopic which is being produced by Priyanka Chopra's Purple Pebble Pictures.
"We have decided to delete one scene in which Annapurna, affectionately named as Nalini by Tagore, kisses him on the cheek. We are aware about the sentiments involving Tagore and the sanctity of his dream place Visva Bharati where we intend to shoot some sequences," Chatterjee, who earlier directed "Escape from Taliban", told PTI from Mumbai.

"However, we have not thought about removing the other scene where Nalini kisses her fiance in the presence of Tagore. Actually we had worked on the script based on research and documentary references and we have evidences about such a situation," he said.
Chatterjee had earlier said the scenes in the film will be based on written documents and will be platonic and that extensive research had been done on the then 17-year-old Tagore's relationship with Annapurna Turkhad in 1878-79.
Annapurna was the daughter of a family friend of the Tagore family living in Maharashtra. She had introduced young Rabindranath to western culture before his trip to the UK.

When contacted, Visva Bharati Vice-chancellor Swapan Kumar Datta said, "We have asked for a final script from the producers and they have agreed. Whatever decision we will take will take into consideration the public sentiment about Tagore and ashramites (at Santiniketan)."
The Visva Bharati eight-member committee is headed by the VC and has Jnanpith award winning poet Sankha Ghosh, who is an authority on Tagore, among its members.
"I will appreciate if there is no effort to sensationalise and fictionalise certain period of Tagore's life in isolation. Rather, there should be a bid to explore Gurudev and his gamut of works, philosophy in its entirety," the VC had said.