‘Adipurush’: Here's what writer Manoj Muntashir has to say about Hanuman’s dialogues in the film

‘Adipurush’s release on June 16 has triggered a lot of criticism online for its poor VFX and cringe dialogue. Many viewers said that the dialogues of Lord Hanuman could hurt the sentiments of the audience.Now, in a recent interview, writer Manoj Muntashir has defended the dialogues in the film.

Muntashir, who is a recipient of three National Film Awards, in a chat with Republic World, was asked whether it was an error from his side that he oversimplified the dialogues so a larger audience could connect. He responded, ‘It is not an error.’

He added, ‘A very meticulous thought process that has gone into writing the dialogues for Bajrangbali. We have made it simple because we have to understand one thing (that) if there are multiple characters in a film, all of them can’t speak the language. There has to be a kind of diversion, a division.’

When he was asked about Hanuman’s dialogue during the Lanka Dahan sequence, where he said, ‘Tel tere baap ka. Aag bhi tere baap ki. Toh jalegi bhi tere baap ki,’ Muntashir said, ‘How do we all know the Ramayana? We have the tradition of katha vaachan (storytelling), we read also but there is a vaachan parampara (the tradition of storytelling). Ramayan is the kind of granth (book) which we have heard from our very childhood, there is Akhand Ramayan, paath and many other things. I come from a small village where our grandmothers used to tell us stories from Ramayan in this language. One more thing, the dialogue that you just mentioned, it has been used by the greatest saints, storytellers in our country in the same manner as I have written it (in Adipurush). I am not the first one to write this dialogue, it is already there.’