Actor Urmila Matondkar has responded to Kangana Ranaut’s comments against her. Kangana on Wednesday had said that Urmila is a ‘soft porn actor’ who is ‘not known for her acting’. Urmila said that she is willing to change her name if anybody can prove that she spoke about Kangana’s intentions of wanting a BJP ticket in any interview.
The actors’ spat began when Urmila in an interview asked Kangana to introspect about the drug culture in her home state of Himachal Pradesh before levelling allegations against Maharashtra and Mumbai’s film industry. Kangana had previously said that 99% of the film industry has been exposed to drugs.
In an interview to journalist Barkha Dutt, Urmila noted that while Kangana was making the slanderous remarks against her, the news anchor interviewing her smiled ‘with a glee in her eyes’. She said, “In all my interviews, I have complimented her on the actor she has been, a wonderful actor, a woman who has come from a small town. I have only complimented her and acknowledged all her achievements.”
She continued, “It just goes to show where we stand, and that is precisely what I have been trying to say, that if you have a viewpoint, by all means, you have a right to express it. But it just that the way you express it and how you express it does matter.”
Urmila made a reference to the slur that was used against Kangana by a Shiv Sena leader in the recent past, and how appalled she was when that happened. “Today, as I am spoken about like this by another woman, which level should that be going to? It really fails me,” she said, asking if those who opposed the slurs used for Kangana also condemn the actor’s comment.
Previously, Urmila had also criticised Kangana’s comments on the veteran actor and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan. She had written in a tweet, “Which girl from a civilised cultured house would use this kind of language? Like ‘kya ukhaad loge’, ‘kiska baap ka kya hai’, speaking about Jaya ji the way she did.”
Kangana had launched a personal attack on Urmila on Wednesday, in an interview to Times Now. She had called her a ‘soft porn actor’, a comment which was massively criticised by several prominent Bollywood personalities. Urmila said that she was ‘deeply touched’ by the kind of response that ‘the people of this country’ gave her. “They are aghast and completely in shock as to what has happened,” Urmila said about the response she received, adding that she is waiting for the National Commission for Women to take a stand.
“It is very disheartening to see someone talking not only about little old me, but also Jaya ji, who has been an MP for so many years and has raised her voice or so many issues. Someone like her being spoken to like that, her career, her children…” she said, adding that she would like to bring people’s attention to the fact that India has crossed the five million Covid-19 cases mark. “That’s what I was I was talking about, I had no interest in making comments about Kangana,” she said.
Source: Hindustan Times
