Top 100 Bollywood Movies Of All Time: No.82 - "Lajja", The Controversies Around One Of The Best Women-Centric Films

Maanyata Thu |Jul 10, 2019

Lajja captured the number 82 spot on the list of Top 100 Bollywood Movies Of All Time. Here are some controversies around the film!

The Rajkumar Santoshi directorial Lajja captured the number 82 spot on the list of Top 100 Bollywood Movies Of All Time. The movie takes a satiric look at the male-dominated society in India through the lives of four women, whose names (Maithili, Janki, Ramdulaari, and Vaidehi) are all the versions of Sita, the ideal Hindu woman name.

The film featured one of the leading actresses in Bollywood at that time, Manisha Koirala, Mahima Chowdhury, Madhuri Dixit and Rekha in the leads.

While the film failed to perform well at the domestic box office, it tasted success overseas. It was said that the high budget, distribution price and controversies around the film were some of the reasons behind its failure at the domestic box office.

According to the reports, a Chennai court stayed the release date of Lajja all over India and overseas until 3rd September because the markers of the film failed to settle the commitment loan of Rs 1.5 crore to some companies in Chennai. The film was earlier set to hit the big screens on 31^st August.

Talking about the stay order, the director of the film Rajkumar Santoshi claimed that this was "all pressure tactics to jeopardize the movie’s prospects"

In addition, Rajkumar Santoshi'sLajja, which reportedly took the inspiration from the Bhawanipur murder case, ran into legal trouble once again when an accused in the incident named Ram Swaroop filed a complaint to the Bombay High Court against director Rajkumar Santoshi and all the film’s stars namely Madhuri Dixit, Rekha, Mahima Chaudhry, Sonali Bendre, Ajay Devgan, Anil Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff for "making a film on the case when the trial was still in progress".

In spite of all these controversies, Lajja still deserves to grab a place on the list of Top 100 Bollywood Movies Of All Time because it was one of the few Bollywood films that were able to reflect the actuality of the Indian society at that time as well as valued the women’s rights.