Singer Mihir Joshi, who recently lashed out at the Censor Board for beeping out the word 'Bombay' in the song "Sorry" in his debut album "Mumbai Blues", says his outburst is not a "publicity stunt."
On 31 January, Mihir Joshi took to his Twitter handle to criticise the Censor Board. The singer tweeted: "Oh by the way, if you're wondering what word our great censor board thought needed to be bleeped out of "Sorry" for TV...it is "Bombay"! :D I kid you not. In the line "It's the same thing no matter what you read. From Delhi to Bombay". They asked us to bleep out BOMBAY! :D heh. (sic)"
On Monday, the singer posted photos of the Board's certificate on Twitter; the certificate directs that the word 'Bombay' has been muted. He claimed he got to know that the word 'Bombay' was beeped out only when he heard the song on a music channel on Sunday.
One of his many tweets read: "It bothers me tremendously that they had a problem with the word "Bombay". It's a historic word. It exists. It's not a bad word Nor is it an expletive or a racial slang or anything like that. Why did "Bombay" bother the censor board so much? Why so much that they had to have it taken out? How is #Bombay that wrong? Can someone explain it to me? Who is it offending?"
On 1 February, Mihir Joshi further wrote: "Just out of curiosity...is there ANYONE here who thinks it was right? Removing "Bombay" from a song for TV? #Censor board #MumbaiBlues." He got overwhelming support from music lovers, but some described his act as publicity gimmick. In a series of tweets, he denied the critics' claims.
On allegations that his outburst was a publicity stunt, Mihir Joshi tweeted: "The album was released in May 2014. If I wanted to do a "publicity stunt" THAT would have been a great time to do it."
He continued: "For me...the song...the message of the song is MUCH bigger than one word. So I said...do whatever it takes...just get it on TV soon. The song is about injustice to women in our country just in case you were wondering...NOT ABOUT BOMBAY or MUMBAI!! That being said, the certificate was issued and Times Music sent out the song to the channels."
