Aarti Chhabria didn't know what hit her when her sizzler 'Hari Om Hari Om' which has been on the air for one month now turned into 'Jale Mome Jale Mome' when the film Dhoom Dadakka released on Friday. Not only that, huge chunks of the song had to be dropped because they apparently would've offended religious sensibilities. "Gaane ki to 'banned' baja di. I gave in immediately because I had no time to fight back. I find it very strange. So many songs suggesting so many things are freely being played on radio. My number's promo has been playing for a month. What sense does it make to censor it when everybody has already heard it?" says the livid producer-director, Shashi Ranjan. Interestingly, the censor board had no objection to Akshay Kumar cavorting with a group of extremely religious bikini-clad women singing Hare Ram Hare Krishna in Bhool Bhulaiyaa just months back. "I don't know what the censorial yardstick is. A few members of the censor board objected to my song. They feared PILs against the words and the visuals. I had no choice but to change the words. What I want to ask is, what is the validity of the censor board if they're so scared of people going to the court? Let us filmmakers directly fight the PILs straight in the courts instead of going through the censor board," sighs Ranjan. Shashi Ranjan says, "If you remember I was the president of the BJP's film cell. I had intervened when Bandit Queen got into trouble. I've constantly fought to discipline vulgar songs. But my song in Dhoom Dadakka is by no means vulgar. And then to subject me to this. Eight days before release I was told to make the deletions and changes. It was a nightmare." ... read more »