Moving beyond India, Alia Bhatt starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi has been making waves around the world. While it has been tugging at people’s heartstrings by showing the struggles of sex workers, a restaurant chain in Pakistan used the same context to attract customers. As many urged the restaurant to apologise, it doubled down with a “Movie kare tou aag, restaurant kare tou paap” quip.
Introducing a special offer just for men, a Karachi-based restaurant chain called Swing used a heartbreaking scene from the film where an innocent Gangu, played by Bhatt, gestured to get her first customer. “Aja na Raja – what are you waiting for?” the restaurant chain wrote, “calling out all the Raja’s out there.”
Morphing the Bollywood film’s footage, the ad showed Bhatt standing at the door and a big billboard promoting “25% off on Men’s Monday”. Soon, Swing started drawing flak online for the ad, which many found to be “insensitive”.
As the video started making the rounds on the internet, many thought the ad was in bad taste and asked it to be taken down. However, instead of deleting it, Swing came up with a clarification that many thought was “tone-deaf”.
The restaurant chain shared a mock newspaper where a headline read, “Aray logon, itna dil pe kyun leliya? (why did you take this to your heart so much?)”. Another headline in the paper read, “Movie kare tou aag, restaurant kare tou paap (if a movie does it, it’s hot; if a restaurant does it, it’s a sin).”
In its caption, the restaurant defended the move, saying, “Just a concept. We didn’t mean to hurt the sentiments of anyone. The movie and this post is based on a concept.”
Despite the uproar online, the restaurant brand said it was open and later posted Instagram stories to show it was “housefull”.
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PremiumFor the uninitiated, the Sanjay Leela Bhansali film centres on the life of Gangubai, who was duped by her boyfriend and sold off in the red-light area of Mumbai’s Kamathipura. However, she later emerged as a mafia queen fighting for the sex workers’ rights.
