Ramu adds dummy corpse to Agyaat hoardings

Hours after all hell broke lose, Ram Gopal Varma is unapologetic about the 'corpses' appended to hoardings of his on-release film Agyaat. "It was meant to create curiosity and it succeeded to that extent," says Ram Gopal Varma. "Agyaat is a horror film and the entire concept of an invisible force killing people hinges on brutal and gruesome deaths. We thought the idea of putting a dummy-corpse on the hoardings would attract eyeballs. And we succeeded."

Now Ramu doesn't mind getting those supposedly offensive dummy-corpses off the hoardings. "But I can't understand why a hard-hitting poster designed specifically for a horror film should be offensive when there are so many other issues that openly mock at our sense of aesthetics."

Interestingly, Ramu's films known to portray women super-sensuously never depict the fair sex in a crude and vulgar light. "You won't even come across the word 'prostitute' in my films. I've an inbuilt censorship and I go by it. Why don't people concentrate on larger issues that plague cinema, like the way women are often shown in our films? I don't think dummy-corpses on hoardings indicate any sense of social irresponsibility on my part. It's not as if I've actually killed anyone."

About the hoardings being a traffic hazard, Ramu scoffs, "We made sure the hoardings were in secluded spots, so no one gets alarmed and distracted. Whether it's the National Anthem or a civic sense, I think I'm a responsible citizen, even if some people accuse me of being an irresponsible filmmaker."