Since the time Tanushree Dutta came out with details of harassment she faced on the sets of a 2008 film, Horn OK Pleassss, at the hands of veteran actor Nana Patekar, scores of women have spoken up in what is being seen as India’s #MeToo.
And now, another one who shared her Me Too story is Tanya Paul Singh. Tanya was a script and continuity supervisor on the set of Ajay Devgn and Tabu’s ‘De De Pyaar De’. In a long post, she shared her ordeal of how Ajay Devgn’s make-up artist Harish Wadhone harassed her during the shoot of the film.
She wrote, “As an assistant director at the monitor with headphones when the first AD announced roll sound, I felt hands on my shoulder. Since I’m wired and already with a lot of continuity files in my hand, it’s almost impossible to look behind who it was. I could tell it was a man. He began to give me a very strong massage from head to tailbone. The touch did not seem right. In the middle of the shot, I couldn’t say anything. He picked a good time to victimize.”
“The director said the shot was okay, but it had a continuity jerk, so, after ‘cut’, I had to run to inform them about the potential mistake. I had no time to respond to him. When I returned to the monitor, he said I should thank him for the massage. His presence made me extremely uncomfortable.” she added.
Narrating the second incident, she wrote, “He would lean on the chair on the excuse of watching a close-up shot of Ajay Devgn. I felt his fingers on my back again. I informed, rather ordered, one of the interns to stand by my chair and not let anyone lean over to watch the Shogun. The make-up guy had the balls to move the intern physically so he could lean on me.”
Tanya Paul Singh confessed the matter to a colleague who informed the creative team. It was then that Luv Ranjan called her personally and said she should have reported the matter earlier. He also said that he won’t tolerate any such behaviour on the set. Tanya says, Luv had a word with Ajay Devgn and fired Wadhone from the film.
@ajaydevgn #tabu #iftda @ashokepandit @KajolAtUN @Rakulpreet @meghnagulzar @alankrita601 @ektaravikapoor @konkonas @luv_ranjan @Luv_Films @RajeevMasand @anupamachopra #MeTooIndia #MeToo @PedestrianPoet pic.twitter.com/Cy3PHXFwmz
— Tanya Paul Singh (@tansunip) October 19, 2018
Harish has served Devgn since nearly 20 years on most of his films- and the general feeling on the set was that he might get away with a lighter punishment. “But it was good to see that Devgn sir and Ranjan treated this as a serious matter,” Tanya concluded. Post Harish’s exit, Ajay was getting his make-up done on the sets of De De Pyaar De from Tabu’s make-up artist Vicky.