Kunal Kohli thinks there is not any real problem between the 2 Hindu and Muslim communities. In his new film Teri Meri Kahaani, he has played a delicious double-identity game whereby Shahid Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra switch religious identities in the course of the process the narration.
Explains Kohli, "There are three different pairs of characters played by Shahid and Priyanka. In two of them they play a Hindu and a Muslim character. But they swap religious identities within the two sections."
While within the first story situated in 1910, Shahid plays a Muslim lover-boy named Javed and Priyanka, a Hindu girl named Aradhana, within the second story that unfolds in 1960, Shahid stars as a struggling music composer named Govind while Priyanka plays a Muslim actress named Rukshar."
In this way, Kohli desires to show how the religious identity and the issues that ensure thereof are of no consequence to him as a moviemaker.
Argues Kohli, "Why can we consider it an issue? It's not! As a thinking Indian and a responsible filmmaker, it's my job to turn that the so-called differences are all a state of the mind. That's why I made the religious identity inter-changeable in my film. The 2 halves, the Hindu and the Muslim are changed within the two different segments of the film. I BELIEVE cinema must wean society clear of prejudices. And what better example of communal amity than the movie industry?"
Interestingly, Kohli has named Priyanka as 'Radha' after his daughter within the segment of his film set in 2012.
