Amitabh Bachchan: Embarrassing when foreigners call India ‘land of rapes’

After giving an astounding performance of a lawyer in Pink, Amitabh Bachchan has moved many souls.

The megastar spoke about women and the struggles that they face in their daily lives, at a press conference held in the capital.

Bachchan expressed his concern about the ever-increasing rapes and said that he feels embarrassed when he goes abroad and people call India the “land of rapes”.

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“It&’s very embarrassing when we visit abroad and people there say, ‘You are from India, the land of rapes’. I want that to go. I don’t like it when people call us a third world country or developing country. We all must work to make India a first world nation, a developed country,” he said.

Putting across that all parts of India should be safe for women, he said, “We should not say that Mumbai is safer than Delhi or vice versa. We are a country and women should be safe in every part. If an incident occurs in Delhi the whole nation feels bad and gets worried. The issue is about the whole nation or universal."

One of the most prominent scenes in the movie has Bachchan asking Taapsee’s character if she is a virgin or not?

Asked about the discrimination girls face about their sexuality, Bachchan said, "If girls are asked about their virginity, then boys should also be questioned. There should be no discrimination.

"If a girl is asked there is always a question mark, as if it is something very wrong, but when it comes to boys, there is an exclamation mark denoting that they have done something great."

The veteran actor believes that the issue raised in the film has been a talking point for many years.

"What the film is saying has been a point of discussion for the longest time in our society. We all think about it and the makers have presented it in the form of cinema. We make our films depending on the changes and developments in the society. And the topic raised in the film is already a part of discussion in society," he said.

Bachchan has some hard-hitting dialogues in the film and he is proud of the way the writers worked on his lines.

"I am really proud to be a part of the film. And every dialogue I have said in the film, if asked to say off camera I will say the same words without even thinking once. I mean them."

Produced by Shoojit Sircar and directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, the film also stars Taapsee Pannu, Kriti Kulhari, Angad Bedi, Andrea Tariang and Piyush Mishra.

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