Criticism from some of Bollywood's biggest names has left Gajendra Chauhan, the controversial new chairman of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India or FTII, totally unfazed. In response to the many questions raised on his appointment, he has one of his own.
"Who are Anupam Kher and Rishi Kapoor?" asked Mr Chauhan when NDTV contacted him on phone for his reaction to the escalation in protests against him being chosen to head India's top film institute.
This morning, top actor Rishi Kapoor, had tweeted,
Mr Chauhan is not taking the senior actor's advice. "I won't give up the FTII chairmanship," he emphasised, not for the first time.
On Thursday, actor and former Censor Board chief Anupam Kher had said he did not find Gajendra Chauhan adequately qualified for the job. FTII, he said, "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."
NDTV has learnt that the government ignored the name of Mr Kher and five other leading film personalities, including Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan and Shyam Bengal, before settling on Mr Chauhan, whose claim to fame is the role of Pandava king Yudhishthira on a long-running TV version of the epic "Mahabharata."
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."
FTII students have been boycotting classes alleging Mr Chauhan lacks "stature and vision" and former students, some now big names in film like Oscar-winning sound engineer Resul Pookutty and director Sayeed Mirza, have also protested.
They 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.
Rishi Kapoor said today, "There must be some government agenda in appointing him, I'm only looking at this from the students' perspective."