Dulquer Salmaan apologises for ‘Prabhakara’ joke in ‘Varane Avashyamund’

A seemingly harmless joke in the recent Malayalam film was misconstrued as a direct attack against Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, forcing Dulquer Salmaan to intervene and apologise for the same

Dulquer Salmaan

Dulquer Salmaan-starrer Varane Avashyamund , which opened to favourable reviews earlier this year, landed on Netflix last week and has since become the topic of contention on social media, as it has left the Tamil audience divided.

While the movie received lots of love for a heart-warming portrayal of Chennai and its people, it also left a section of Tamil viewers miffed for a funny ‘Prabhakaran’ joke, which was widely misconstrued as a jibe at the Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. According to reports, the scene in question has actor Suresh Gopi calling a dog ‘Prabhakara’, a reference to the popular dialogue from Pattanapravesham(1988) . But the joke spawned extreme reactions from viewers, who made personal attacks against Dulquer Salmaan and director Anoop Sathyan for being insensitive towards Tamil sentiments and demanded that they apologise.

 

Clearing the air around the supposedly controversial dialogue, Dulquer Salmaan took to Twitter to issue a clarification. Stating that it wasn’t intentional from their part, Dulquer said, “A lot of people have brought to my notice that the Prabhakaran joke in Varane Avashyamund is insulting to the Tamizh people. It was not intentional. The joke is a reference to an older Malayalam film Pattanapravesham and is a common Meme in Kerala. It is a common name in Kerala as well so it wasn’t directed at any person living or dead as our disclaimer mentions in the beginning of the film.”

To all those who were offended. I apologise. And I also apologise on behalf of #VaraneAvashyamund and @DQsWayfarerFilm ! pic.twitter.com/erbjftlNbj

— dulquer salmaan (@dulQuer) April 26, 2020

 

Reacting to the abuses and hate messages thrown at him and Anoop Sathyan, the actor said, “Hating on me and my director Anoop we can accept. Kindly keep it to us and not our fathers or senior actors from the film. I apologise to all of the good and kind Tamizh people who felt offended. I have never intended to offend anyone through my films or my words. It’s genuinely a misunderstanding.”

Dulquer further shared a clip from Pattanapravesham , from which the dialogue was taken. Also starring Kalyani Priyadarshan, Shobana, Suresh Gopi and Urvashi, Varane Avashyamund is produced by Dulquer Salmaan and has music by Alphons Joseph.