Did You Know: This film probably got the MAXIMUM number of cuts from the Censor Board in the HISTORY of Bollywood, and it starred a woman-turned-man as the leading hero

By Fenil Seta -

April 22, 2022 - 6:00 PM IST

The relationship between Bollywood and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has always been a ‘love-hate’ one. There are times when the Censor members have been very lenient and large-hearted and have allowed films to escape their scissors. And then there are films that get butchered at the CBFC office. Some filmmakers accept it. A few of them, however, have fought and have managed to get their films certified with zero cuts or minimal cuts. The era of Pahlaj Nihalani’s chairmanship is quite known. He was known for his ‘sanskaari’ stand and is remembered for minutely looking for scenes or dialogues that can be removed from a film. His decision to cut the kiss by a few seconds in the James Bond film, Spectre (2015), and asking for an insane number of cuts in sex comedy Mastizaade (2016), the drugs drama Udta Punjab (2016) and ‘lady-oriented’ Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017) led to huge controversies.

Did You Know: This film probably got the MAXIMUM number of cuts from the Censor Board in the HISTORY of Bollywood, and it starred a woman-turned-man as the leading hero

Bollywood Hungama has now learnt about a film that probably got the maximum number of cuts in the history of Hindi cinema. The film in question is Duniya Ki Rangeen Raatein. It was released 25 years ago, that is, in the first half of 1997. As per trade analyst Komal Nahta’s Film Information magazine, this film was cleared after producer-director Mohan Sulibhavi agreed to delete 1233.49 meters or in other words, almost 45 to 50 minutes of the film! After this portion was deleted, the film’s length was 2286.43, that is, around 90 minutes. Hence, nearly 30% of the footage was cut at the Censor table!

Komal Nahta further says that these cuts were granted by the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT). As per the normal practice, a filmmaker approached the Examining Committee of the CBFC first. If he’s unsatisfied with the cuts asked by the EC, the filmmaker then goes to the Revising Committee. If this committee too doesn’t offer the desired result, the filmmaker then moves to the FCAT. As a result, it can be said that the Examining and Revising Committees must have asked for more cuts in Duniya Ki Rangeen Raatein!

We tried contacting Mohan Sulibhavi and others from the film’s team but failed to find anyone. The film has been uploaded on YouTube but gets stuck after 4 minutes. As a result, we were not able to watch this film that deserves to go down in history.

Interestingly, the opening credits mention the lead actor’s name as ‘Manish Chawla – the girl became boy’ (sic). One understands the meaning of it after the credits when Manish Chawla introduces himself to the viewers by breaking the fourth wall. He informs that he was born as a girl, named Manju Chawla, and that he underwent a sex-change surgery. The tagline on the film’s poster is ‘Girl becomes boy; boy becomes the hero (in this film)’!

As per the opening credits, Kavita Krishamurti and Suresh Wadkar have provided the playback singing to the songs in Duniya Ki Rangeen Raatein. The film is accessible on the Raj Rishi YouTube channel. When contacted, the owners of this channel also have no information about the whereabouts of the film’s makers.

Sadly, the only print available on YouTube doesn’t carry a censor certificate. However, we found out from the CBFC website that despite so many cuts, Duniya Ki Rangeen Raatein was passed with an ‘A’ certificate. Komal Nahta also mentioned in his post that Mohan Sulibhavi was a censor scriptwriter who used to assist producers with the censor process.

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