Indiana Jones throwback: When Amrish Puri was called ‘ANTI-NATIONAL’ for playing Mola Ram in The Temple Of Doom; the actor had thundered, “It’s really FOOLISH to take it so seriously”

By Fenil Seta -

June 28, 2023 - 11:30 AM IST

The much-awaited film, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, is all set to release in Indian cinemas tomorrow, that is, Thursday, June 29. It is the fifth and final part of the franchise and will feature 80-year-old Harrison Ford essaying the iconic character one last time. The first part, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, was released in 1981 and emerged as a cult classic and redefined the action-adventure genre. Many of the memorable adventure films that came in later like The Mummy, Tomb Raider, Jumanji etc. were all somewhere inspired or gave a déjà vu of the Indiana Jones films. Even Indian cinema has drawn inspiration as evident with the content and look of films like Naksha, Ram Setu etc. In fact, RRR director S S Rajamouli’s next with Mahesh Babu is also on the lines of the franchise. Rajamouli’s father and the film’s writer K V Vijayendra Prasad recently said, “It is along the lines of the Indiana Jones series. It will be an adventure-action drama, with lots of emotions, like Raiders Of The Lost Ark.”

Indiana Jones throwback: When Amrish Puri was called ‘ANTI-NATIONAL’ for playing Mola Ram in The Temple Of Doom; the actor had thundered, “It’s really FOOLISH to take it so seriously”

Interestingly, the second film of the series, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984), was set in India and horrified the countrymen with its content. It shows Dr Jones accidentally reaching India where desperate villagers ask him to find a mystical stone, stolen from their temple by a powerful man from a Thuggee cult practising child slavery, black magic and human sacrifice in honour of the goddess Kali. The principal antagonist was Mola Ram, played by Amrish Puri.

Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom showed several Indians as barbaric and uncivilized. In a dinner scene set in a palace, the men of royal blood are seen feasting on snakes, spiders and monkey brains! Mola Ram is seen pulling hearts from victims before sacrificing them in the most heinous way.

It was no wonder that Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom was banned by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Moreover, the government didn’t even permit the shoot in India as they had reservations about the plot points and also with the use of the word ‘Maharaja’. The makers then shot the India scenes in neighbouring Sri Lanka.

Though Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom was never released in India, word spread about its content and the depiction of Gods and it was perceived as demeaning. Amrish Puri, as expected, faced brickbats. He was even termed ‘anti-national’ and he reacted to this episode in his autobiography. He wrote, “It was a chance of a lifetime working with Steven Spielberg, and I don’t regret it even for a moment. I don’t think I did anything anti-national; it’s really foolish to take it so seriously and get worked up over it.”

Amrish further wrote, “It's based on an ancient cult that existed in India and was recreated like a fantasy. If you recall those imaginary places like Pankot Palace, starting with Shanghai, where the plane breaks down and the passengers use a raft to jump over it, slide down a hill and reach India, can this ever happen? But fantasies are fantasies, like our Panchatantra and folklore. I know we are sensitive about our cultural identity, but we do this to ourselves in our own films. It's only when some foreign directors do it that we start cribbing.”