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Toilet Ek Prem Katha Gets Overwhelming Response

Mumbai (August 11, 2017): Trade pundits keep talking about the market value of the three Khans, but they fail too, and quite regularly in case of Shah Rukh Khan. Even Salman Khan’s much hyped Eid release Tubelight bit the dust.

Aamir Khan is the reigning king and the only other actor who can come close to him, in terms of box office numbers, is Akshay Kumar.

Akshay Kumar has discovered a unique brand of cinema that’s patriotic, commercial and totally consumable for traditional Indian families. His new film Toilet Ek Prem Katha is another film that perfectly blends all these aspects.

Toilet Ek Prem Katha begins when a ‘maanglik’ guy is married to a buffalo to get his stars in the right position. Then, Keshav (Akshay Kumar) meets a college topper Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar) and falls for her.

Akshay Kumar’s comic timing is spot on and his jokes with Divyendu Sharma are hilarious in the beginning. It’s a film in which Akshay Kumar is not afraid of going out of his comfort zone.

The actor knows his fans and caters to them as Keshav, a cycle store proprietor. He begins in his usual way by cracking jokes with rural connotations. Director Shree Narayan Singh knows his milieu and he unfolds the heartland story in an ordinary way where things like open defecation are a part of life.

Keshav’s life seems to be on the right path as he gets married to Jaya, a meritorious student, but Jaya’s life turns upside down when she discovers that Keshav’s house has no toilet. And he can’t build one because of the prevalent religious beliefs.

A lot depends on his father, played by an excellent Sudhir Pandey, who refuses to budge from his stand to not have a toilet in his home. This prompts Keshav to rebel against the society and he has an uphill task on his hand. He, however, is willing to go all the way for his love for Jaya.

“Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” (“Toilet: A love story”) is inspired by the true-life tale of one man´s battle to build toilets in his village in rural India.

He wanted to win back his new wife, whose refusal to live in a house without a toilet won her plaudits in India.

The political partisanship on show here is unprecedented for a Mumbai mainstream flick. When the text of the film refers to a big toilet scam, it quickly points out that all of it happened four years ago. It also grabs the opportunity to slip in a laudatory reference to demonetization. In doing so, the film’s makers completely expose their leanings.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made building more toilets a key priority in the country of 1.25 billion people, around half of whom still have to go into the fields to answer the call of nature.

Campaigners estimate that nearly 200,000 infants die every year due to infections spread through open defecation, which they say also puts women at risk of sexual assault.

 

Script writers Siddharth Singh and Garima Wahal told AFP they hoped the movie, featuring one of Bollywood´s biggest stars Akshay Kumar, would have a “tangible impact” on Indian society.

“This happened in a village in Madhya Pradesh, and we thought that was a strong statement,” said Singh, referring to one of India´s most rural states.

The writers said they came across numerous stories of women being assaulted when they went into the fields late at night in the process of researching the movie.

“But defecating in the open is not only unhealthy it is also dangerous,” said Garima.

“While we were doing our research we heard of three incidents of molestation. Crimes against women have increased owing to their vulnerability when they are out in the fields, alone in the dark..”

Garima said it was hypocritical for Indian society to insist that women cover up on the one hand, while on the other forcing them to “expose themselves owing to a lack of sanitary and bathroom facilities”.

Kumar, one of the world´s highest paid actors with an income of $31.5 million according to a Forbes ranking published last year, recently released a “Toilet Anthem” to promote the cause.

“While mankind has progressed far enough to journey to Mars and scale Mount Everest, 54 percent of India defecates in the open,” says the song.

Modi has called for every household in India to have a toilet.

Last year, he announced that his government had already built more than 20 million toilets since coming to power in 2014.

Around two-thirds of homes in the village that the movie is based on now have toilets, according to media reports.

With its release today, actors are spreading affection towards the film and praising Akshay Kumar with their adorable tweets.

Actors, producers including, Dia Mirza, Atul Kasbekar, Ileana D’Cruz, Warda S Nadiadwala, Ayushmann Khurana, Abhishek Kapoor, Divya Khosla Kumar, Sonal Kalra, Pmung Kumar and Rahul Sharma have admired Akshay for his performance and the message being put into light through it.

 

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