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Saturday December 1, 2007

2 Indian states ban Madhuri Dixit's comeback film because of lyrics


NEW DELHI (AP) - The much anticipated comeback film for Bollywood leading lady Madhuri Dixit ran into trouble in its opening weekend when two Indian states banned the movie for offensive lyrics, officials said Saturday.

The film, "Aaja Nachle,'' or "Come Let's Dance,'' was banned Friday in the state of Uttar Pradhesh, and the Punjab followed suit Saturday after complaints that a line in one of the songs was offensive to India's "untouchables,'' who occupy the lowest rung of the complex social system.

Punjab made the decision "after consideration of safety of life and property of the people of the state,'' said Harshan Bains, a spokesman for Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Film director Anil Mehta apologized, but said those who were offended had taken the line out of context. The line would be replaced in the film, The Press Trust of India news agency quoted him as saying.

In the movie, Dixit plays a choreographer who after a decade in New York returns to India to save her dance teacher's school from being razed for a more lucrative development.

Dixit, 42, was last seen on the big screen in 2002, when she played a courtesan in a saga of doomed love, "Devdas.'' After that, she took a break from acting to raise her two sons with husband Shriram Nene, a surgeon, in Denver, Colorado. - AP

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