Thanks to affordable internet and the surge of social media, information travels faster than ever. The flip side, however, is that fake news and disinformation also have the potential to spread like wildfire. Prominent actress Anupria Goenka experienced this last week when an Instagram handle called ‘Sarcastic Tube’ put up a post attributing a quote to her. The alleged quote claimed that an actor lost control and crossed all limits while shooting an intimate scene with her. The post further claimed that Anupria couldn’t understand what was happening during the scene. The shocking part is that Anupria never made any such statement. She immediately called out the mischief-monger page on her Instagram story and slammed them for their behaviour. It’s been seven days since the controversial post was uploaded, and it continues to remain on the page. At the time of publishing this article, the post could still be seen on the Instagram handle and had not been deleted despite the actress tagging the page and making it clear that she never gave any such quote.
Anupria Goenka recently spoke to Bollywood Hungama exclusively for IIZ: Indian Institute Of Zombies. When asked about this controversial post and whether she plans to take legal action against the handle, Anupria said, “I don’t want to, as I don’t want to give that much energy to it. I don’t even know why and where it has come from. I had said something regarding intimate scenes 2 years back in an interview. Even then, I was misquoted. If you pick out one line in isolation from an interview and make it into a headline, it sounds very different from my entire intention behind the conversation.”
She continued, “Even in that interview, I had clearly stated that, for the most part, I have had very comfortable co-actors. The journalist kept prodding me about it, and I said that there was one instance where I had an issue and communicated to the person that I was not comfortable. Otherwise, on our sets, it has been a very safe environment, at least as per my experience. When you say something, the other person will definitely listen and understand whether you’re comfortable or not. Most directors are very, very sensitive, and so are the co-actors.”
She added, “The idea was to put the attention on agency, that is, being aware of what you want to do and don’t want to do, being very open about it, and not feeling pressured to do something that you are not comfortable with. But it was communicated as if someone had taken advantage of me. It’s so bizarre. I didn’t talk like that. Even then, it didn’t sound as bad as it did in that Instagram post. This one said, ‘He crossed all boundaries.’ Who would cross all boundaries? And why would I say, ‘I didn’t know what was happening?’ I have a mind of my own; why would I not know what was happening? Who talks like that?”
Anupria remarked, “It paints such a feeble picture of a woman, that ‘I am so weak, someone could come and take advantage of me, I could do nothing and now I feel sorry about it’. I’ll neither talk like nor will I ever promote it in the media. I don’t know where it's coming from. I have done no interview in the recent past.”
She concluded by saying, “I am not planning to take any action. I said what I had to say.”
Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Anupria Goenka opens up on her IIZ: Indian Institute Of Zombies role: “Many times, a sexy woman becomes eye candy; very seldom do we see her as intelligent and desirable at the same time”
