Rachita Ram: It is wrong to target Darshan sir with edited video and audio clips

Kannada cinema’s Challenging Star Darshan has had a rather tumultuous relationship with the media in the last few years. In fact, currently the actor is on a media ban, with mainstream TV channels, in particular, staying away from promoting Darshan’s next film. They have not even been attending any of the film’s events. The reason cited is a viral audio clip of the Challenging Star abusing media with the choicest expletives. The clip, however, features only Darshan’s voice, which, his Kranti co-star Rachita Ram believes is part of a targeted attempt to malign him.

“Sending out an audio clip with only Darshan sir’s voice is just wrong. To date, no one has attempted to find out who, what and why caused Darshan sir to react in such a manner, wherein he abused the media. Targeting him with only negativity and creating an image about Darshan sir being vile is not right. People are reacting to the audio and video clip based only on one side of the story,” she said in an interview with Kannada Pichhar.

Rachita was also less than pleased about a video that was shot when the team was partying at a pub in Mysuru after the successful launch of the film’s first song, Dharani. Although the resto-pub’s management was willing to close down the venue and let the team party in peace, given that it was a Saturday and it would affect their business, Darshan had asked them to keep it open to the public too. The Kranti team was given one area of the venue, while the rest was open to other guests.

Around midnight, there was one guy who was taking pictures and videos of a girl, as well as of team Kranti members who were partying and dancing. The management apparently went up to him and told him that what he was doing was wrong and got him to delete the pictures and videos from his phone. Once Darshan got to know about the incident, he went to the DJ console and made a humble request to not disturb anyone’s peace by clicking pictures or making videos of any of the ladies at the venue. “None of that was recorded, but then the guy who started off the ruckus in the first place gestured something offensice, which irritated Darshan sir. Then, of course, he got angry and abused the guy, but up until that point he was respectfully asking people not to create trouble for anyone at the venue. Here also, the video that’s come out is only of Darshan sir abusing him. What happened prior to that, no one knows,” Rachita explains.