Adipurush: Manoj Muntashir Defends Hanuman's 'Tel Tere Baap Ka' Line, Says 'Has Been Used by Saints'

Om Raut’s film Adipurush hit theatres on Friday. It featuring Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan, Sunny Singh, and Devdatta Nage in lead roles. However, the film has faced criticism on social media for its clumsy VFX and dialogues. The dialogues of Hanuman received backlash for sounding overly colloquial, offending the audience. In defense of the dialogues, dialogue writer Manoj Muntashir, who has been a recipient of three National Film Awards, explained that a meticulous thought process was involved in crafting the dialogues for Bajrangbali.

During an interview with Republic World, Muntashir was asked whether oversimplifying Hanuman’s dialogues in Adipurush was an error or a deliberate choice to connect with a broader audience. He said, “A very meticulous thought process that has gone into writing the dialogues for Bajrangbali. We have made it simple because we have to understand one thing (that) if there are multiple characters in a film, all of them can’t speak the language. There has to be a kind of diversion, a division.”

When asked about Hanuman’s dialogue in the “Lanka dahan” sequence, where he says, When asked about Hanuman’s dialogue in the “Lanka dahan” sequence, where he says, “Tel tere baap ka. Aag bhi tere baap ki. Toh jalegi bhi tere baap ki,” Muntashir said, “How do we all know the Ramayana? We have the tradition of katha vaachan, we read also but there is a vaachan parampara. Ramayan is the kind of granth (book) which we have heard from our very childhood, there is Akhand Ramayan, paath and many other things. I come from a small village where our grandmothers used to tell us stories from Ramayan in this language. One more thing, the dialogue that you just mentioned, it has been used by the greatest saints, storytellers in our country in the same manner as I have written it in Adipurush. I am not the first one to write this dialogue, it is already there.”

Adipurush received mixed reviews from the audience.