Smoking scenes of Kareena in Heroine to appear with statutory warning

It’s victory time for the Censor Board Of Film Certification (CBFC). Though the producers UTV of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine have approached the Mumbai High Court to protest against the new policy of a statutory-warning ticker whenever a smoking sequence is shown, the CBFC on Friday, passed the film with an ‘A’ certificate, with a clause that a statutory warning should be displayed in every scene showing Kareena Kapoor smoking in the film. And since Kareena is shown smoking for approximately 30 per cent of the film, it means audiences will get to see the statutory warning for about one-third of the film’s playing time. Explaining the decision, a source from the CBFC said, “Yes we’ve instructed the makers of heroine to put statutory warnings wherever the heroine is shown smoking. We’re just following the rule. In Raaz 3 as well, a statutory warning would come on screen whenever a character smokes on screen. We follow this even in Hollywood films. Whenever any characters smokes on screen, we ask for a display of the statutory warning at the bottom of the screen.” Cigarette smoking is not all that has proven injurious to the health of Madhur Bhandarkar’s much-anticipated film. Even scenes showing a brand of cigarette have been censored. Says the CBFC source, “A box of the same brand of cigarette has been shown in ten different places in Heroine. This amounted to endorsing a cigarette brand. We’ve asked the brand name to be blurred out in all the ten places.” Interestingly, the much-talked about love scenes in Heroine have been left intact. The decision to carry a statutory warning with every smoking scene has not gone down too well with the makers of Heroine. Someone from the core team said, “Way back in 1968, Nargis was shown smoking for a majority of the running time in Raat Aur Din. Are we moving forward or backward in time?” The team’s contention is that constant no-smoking warnings would distract the audience to which our source from the CBFC added, “After a while the audience wouldn’t even notice it.”