FILE photo: FTII chief Gajendra Chauhan
Criticism from some of Bollywood's biggest names - as well as a strike by students from the film institute that he has been named chairman of - has left former Mahabharata actor Gajendra Chauhan totally unfazed. In response to the many questions raised on his appointment to the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India or FTII in Pune, he had a query of his own this morning.
"Who are Anupam Kher and Rishi Kapoor?" asked Mr Chouhan when NDTV contacted him.
Some time before that, top actor Rishi Kapoor had tweeted:
Critics allege that his is a political appointment - Mr Chauhan is a member of the ruling BJP and had campaigned prominently for the party in last year's national elections. "There must be some government agenda in appointing him, I'm only looking at this from the students' perspective," Rishi Kapoor said today.
"I won't give up the FTII chairmanship," said Mr Chauhan, not for the first time. On Thursday, actor and former Censor Board chief Anupam Kher had said the film institute in Pune, "does certainly need a person having a great body of work which means he is supposed to know world cinema, he is supposed to know the present state of cinema like editing...FTII needs somebody who is much more qualified than whatever Gajendra ji's qualifications are coming across."
Mr Chauhan's claim to fame is the role of Pandava king Yudhishthira on a long-running TV version of the epic "Mahabharata" many years ago. He also acted in what have been described as "soft-porn" movies by his critics, but Mr Chauhan has said that those were "certified adult films."