Mumbai, Mar 18 (PTI) Actor Nora Fatehi on Wednesday distanced herself from the controversy surrounding the sexually explicit lyrics of “Sarke Chunar”, saying she had shot the song in Kannada language three years ago and was shocked by its Hindi version like everyone else.
The song, which features in the upcoming Kannada movie “KD The Devil”, was released on YouTube two days ago and quickly went viral for its shock value and lyrics that almost describe a sexual act.
In a post on Instagram alongside a long video, Fatehi said she was thankful for the backlash as it pushed the makers to finally remove the song from the social media. She said she had already flagged that Hindi lyrics were problematic.
“I’d also request everyone to stop sharing the song because you’re just giving it a platform unnecessarily. On a side note, I see some of you guys trying to use this as an opportunity to attack my character, it’s unfortunate,” Fatehi said, adding that she and her team will be more careful in future.
“However, I do want to reiterate that I had no idea about this Hindi song, I did not perform it and there was no permission taken to use it with my image,” she said in the caption.
In her video, Fatehi said she agreed to do the song as it was part of a big film and with a star like Sanjay Dutt. And she thought it was a remake of “Layak Nahi Khalnayak Hoon Main”.
“I shot this song three years ago in a language called Kannada, which is a part of a different industry called Sandalwood… When I’m on set shooting for this song, I’m relying on the filmmakers to translate the song, and that is what I go by, okay? When they’re translating the song, nothing seemed inappropriate or vulgar when they were translating the song to me,” she said in a video posted on Instagram.
Fatehi, known for her special dance numbers such as “Naach Meri Raani”, “O Saki”, “Dilbar” and “Kamariya”, said she does not understand Kannada and relied on the makers to translate it to her.
“Whatever they’ve done right now, which is creating a Hindi version and dubbing the voice in Hindi and having those lyrics, which are very inappropriate, I had no idea about that. They didn’t take any approvals, they didn’t take any permission from me,” she said.
The original Kannada version is penned by the movie’s director Prem. Raqeeb Alam is credited for the Hindi version, which has been pulled down after backlash on social media. The music is by Arjun Janya.
According to the actor, an image showing her sitting on Sanjay Dutt’s lap, which appears on posters of the song’s various language versions, is actually AI-generated.
Fatehi said as someone who is not a “nepo baby”, she does not have any kind of backing and has to be respectful to opportunities that come her way.
“When they played the Hindi version, I knew it was a wrap. I knew we were going to have issues because at least I understand Hindi. I told the director, this is not going to be okay. This is going to get a lot of backlash. I disassociated myself with the project. As you can see, I didn’t promote it at all. I again flagged it to the director. I said, my image and reputation is on the line.
“We’re not nepo kids. We don’t come with a certain power behind us. It’s just us.
We’re just individuals and the audience which is behind us. We have little power. We have little control,” she said.
The actor said the media should hold filmmakers accountable and use their name and image instead of the artist.
“It’s counterproductive because we don’t have control of such scenarios. If you guys really really really want to find a solution, then you need to start holding the filmmakers and the people behind the content accountable.” On Tuesday, Alam had dissociated himself from “Sarke Chunar”, saying the track was a translation from the original Kannada and he had initially refused to do it.
“I have not written these lyrics. They were written by the film’s director Prem in Kannada. When I was asked to write all this, I refused, saying such songs won’t work, and will be censored too. They told me to only literally translate the Kannada version and give it to them… they will set it to the song’s meter,” Alam told HT City.
“At the end they say the entire song is about an alcohol bottle. But before that everything is so dirty. I had refused. Why would I need to write such songs?” he added. PTI BK RB RB
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