The usually reticent Saif Ali Khan spoke up recently to effectively silence a controversy that threatened to shatter the peace of his web outing Tandav, which is currently on the floors. Tandav is Saif’s next web series after the hugely successful Sacred Games.
Gaurav Solanki is the writer of the show, while successful Bollywood director Ali Abbas Zafar is helming Tandav. Gaurav Solanki had earlier written 2019’s sleeper hit, Article 15.
It so happened that writer Gaurav Solanki was disgruntled over not being included in the shooting process of Tandav. He had expected to be present on the sets when the show would be shot, including giving his creative inputs to director Ali Abbas Zafar. But nothing of the sort happened.
A dejected Solanki gave an outrageous statement to the newspaper Mid-Day, where he said, “It’s ironic and unfortunate that after writing the script, I haven’t been part of the shooting. What’s new for me because I have usually been involved in the entire process. It’s like giving your baby to someone else, having them grow up in your absence and seeing them after they have grown up in a certain way.”
Gaurav’s statement did not go down well with Saif. In the midst of the promotions of his upcoming movie, Jawaani Jaaneman, he said in an interview with Mid-day, “It’s not a writer’s place to be on set and direct. What a director decides to do with the source material is up to him; he can chuck it or burn it. He can respect it or disrespect it as he deems fit for the story he is trying to tell.”
Saif shut down the controversy once and for all, by adding, “Neither Solanki nor I can tell a director what to do. He is the boss. If Ali decides to say, please walk into the room backward, it’s your job to do it. Unless he feels that the material has been tampered with, this shouldn’t even be a conversation.”
Ali Abbas Zafar, who’s directed Bollywood hits such as Gunday, Tiger Zinda Hai, Bharat, among others, hasn’t said anything about Gaurav Solanki’s grouse with him.
Tandav is supposedly modeled along the lines of the Netflix hit, House of Cards.
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