Recently, when actress Neetu Chandra (of Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! fame) agreed to do a bold photo shoot for a men’s magazine, she hardly realised it would spark controversy and outrage from political affiliates.
Neetu, who had agreed to do the hot and sexy cover for ‘The Man’ magazine, was shooting along with model Krishikha Gupta outside the lobby of a 3-star hotel, when a group of the hotel’s regular male customers watching it by the pool, suddenly started raising strong objections, by indiscriminately shouting at her and the magazine crew. But only when things spiralled into an ugly argument and the group started screaming “Jai Maharashtra” at the top of their lungs, did the magazine’s team and Neetu realise that things were out of their control.
Alleging that the shoot was promoting lesbianism, the group began getting aggressive and tried to physically harm the shooting crew. They claimed to have connections with Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and threatened an agitation. They even tried to confiscate the camera, resulting in the shoot having to be abruptly called off.
“Though the concept about two girls getting very intimate was a bit outrageous, we were doing it very aesthetically. But these men were a frustrated lot and couldn’t take the heat. They only saw nudity in our concept,” fires Neetu Chandra.
The actress explains, “First they tried to seek my attention with smiles and stares, so I acknowledged them. But as I went on with my work, the whole group of men suddenly started feeling ignored and began creating a scene. They did manage to scare me when they started to politicise the issue and scream communal slogans. That was when we had to stop the shoot.”
But now ‘The Man’ has decided to go ahead with the images they managed before the ruckus at the hotel began, raising speculation whether these sensational images will cause further problems when the magazine’s next issue hits the stands in a couple of days.
