Ram Leela gets a 'UA' from Censorboard; a first for SLB

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s eagerly-awaited Ram Leela was cleared on Friday by the Censorboard Of Film Certification without any verbal or visual cuts. But with a ‘UA’ certificate. That is to say, children can only watch Ram Leela accompanied by grownups. All of SLB’s earlier films Khamoshi: The Musical, Hum...Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas, Saawariya barring Guzaarish have been granted ‘U’ certificates. Says a source from Sanjay Bhansali Productions, “Sanjay Sir expected a ‘UA’ for Ram Leela. The basic storyline is violent and there are lots of guns in the film. Having said that the censor board has been extremely liberal with the aggressive language and the violence. They understood the context and completely empathized with SLB’s need to turn aggressive in Ram Leela.” Incidentally Sanjay Bhansali was busy with the censoring on Friday and therefore skipped a promotional event with Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone at Mehboob studios. “There was no big mysterious fight or tension. Sanjay was looking into the censoring of Ram Leela. That’s why he cancelled the event at Mehboob,” says a member of the Ram Leela team.