Eighteen years after his directorial debut with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, filmmaker Karan Johar has apologised for the “transformation” of Anjali (Kajol’s character in the film) from a tomboy to suit more conventional notions of how a woman ought to look, The Times of India reported.
In the movie- also starring Shah Rukh Khan Rani Mukerji- Anjali, a chilled-out tomboy with short hair, only gets the hero’s love years later after she transforms into a long-haired "traditional" beauty draped in monochrome saris with slippery pallus!
At an interactive session with Filmfare editor Jitesh Pillai, Johar said, “It was ridiculous of me to have done that. Shabana Azmi called me after she watched the movie and asked why was it that Anjali found only rejection when she had short hair and played basketball, and later, when she was shown as a sari-wearing, feminine woman with long hair, she finds love.”
“It was really stupid. I apologise," he added.
The apology came in response to a question posed by a 22-year-old Masters student of Mumbai University. “I was a tomboy and it bothered me to see that transformation,” Zohra Sayyed said.
Karan Johar also spoke of his own loneliness at the session, the report added. “I'm 44 and I've been single for a major part of life. When people say go and put yourself out there, I don't know what `there' is! Where is it? I can't put myself anymore out there... People say, in your position, you can find anyone. I don't know which position that is, I have tried every position!”
Even when being surrounded by people, one could still feel lonely, he said: “It's a state of mind. I have a very loving family and lots of friends. But as an individual, I have experienced loneliness.”
He admitted that filmmaking has given him the space to live a life that he wished he had. “All the dance steps I cannot do, all the clothes I cannot wear, all the men and women I want to be with- it is all out there on celluloid.”