Would Aamir rethink about Peepli Live marketing and promotion?

By Bollywood Hungama News Network -

June 25, 2010 - 2:30 PM IST

It is a known fact that Aamir Khan is a master strategist. Another fact which is known to one and all (especially the ones associated with Aamir's films) is that once on board; you are totally attached to the film. Personal lives are forgotten, other projects take backstage and interaction with the outside world, especially on the records, is not quite encouraged.

Would Aamir rethink about Peepli Live marketing and promotion?

This is expected from big as well as small movies and it can be called as nothing but sacrilege if there was any such act committed, on or off the sets, which could have harmed the prospects of a film. Especially so when the film was being produced by Aamir Khan himself.

However, one wonders if a certain Raghveer Yadav was cognizant of this fact when an ugly story from his past was unearthed very recently. One of the two principal characters (other than first timer Omkar Das Manikpuri) in Aamir's production Peepli Live, Raghuvir Yadav found himself in a red spot earlier this month when he was arrested by Mumbai Police in response to a complained filed by his ex-wife Purnima.

To go a little back into history, Raghuveer Yadav was once married (1988) and then divorced (1996) from Purnima. He was required to pay a certain amount as alimony per month. However, when that didn't quite happen for years in succession, Purnima launched a complaint against him. Instead of paying the required amount, Raghveer went into hiding late last year and was absconding ever since then. After months of evading arrest, he was finally spotted in a train by Purnima and was arrested by the cops after she made a quick call to them.

"This is indeed an embarrassing situation for the team of Peepli Live, especially Aamir Khan since he has maintained a clean record when it comes to people associated with his films", says an industry observer, "While his films are meant for family audiences, he has rightly dissuaded actors from indulging into anything that could be counter productive to his film. He gives his heart, body and soul to his films and the last thing he would want is his lead actor to be involved in a messy legal situation. That is totally unpardonable."

In addition, the film has been in news for other reasons as well. As per reports, there were some issues from Censors as well since they wanted to grant an 'A' certificate due to the usage of objectionable language in the film. The choice before Aamir was to either delete the sequences where unsavoury language was on display or accept the 'A' certificate. Being someone who has never allowed commercial aspects to rule over the authenticity factor, Aamir chose to go with the 'A' certificate, hence resulting in restricted audience for the film.

As things stand today, Raghuveer, who has worked with Aamir earlier in films like 1947 Earth and Lagaan, has been released by the police after he managed to cough up half the alimony amount to his wife. Still, the sword of arrest continues to be hanging over his neck since he is required to pay the remaining half this month itself before cops arrive at his door step all over again.

When contacted, Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures (which is co-producing the film along with Aamir Khan) chose to keep mum on the entire imbroglio surrounding Raghuveer Yadav's arrest. He says, "I wouldn't like to comment on that as of now. This is something that happened just a few days ago and it would be too early to say anything around whether that would affect the marketing and promotional plans for Peepli Live", he says.

With just 50 odd days remaining for the film's promotion (Peepli Live is all set for 13th August release), one wonders whether there is some rethinking that Aamir Khan would be getting into from the marketing and promotional perspective.