Recently released DIL DOSTI ETC. has Shreyas Talpade playing a college student leader. He narrates what he feels about college elections in different parts of the country.
Over to Shreyas.
"College election is not such a big thing in Mumbai.
Well there are many things which really don't make sense. When I say they don't make sense, it's like we shouldn't be making such a big deal out of college elections. I mean you know you tend to mix national politics with college politics which is really silly. You have different parties supporting certain colleges groups. Now that's not what we expect and definitely not what the whole idea is.
This is not really the case in Mumbai but I have heard a lot about such things happening in interior Maharashtra to a certain extent, and more in Delhi and North Indian states. I have not seen so much in the South though.
In fact when I first heard of such kind of fight and politics, I couldn't believe it. I had conversations with Mr. Prakash Jha (producer) and Manish Tiwary (director) and also Alankrita, and they told me that it was nothing that we saw. In reality, Delhi University colleges usually had such happenings.
When eventually we were shooting there the kind of experience that I had and the kind of stories that I heard from people over there from students made me feel that yeah, it's pretty common and routine for anyone to get hold of one 'katta' and go and shoot the other person.
I was shocked since we have not heard about such things happening in Mumbai. We were all surprised.
But then when you are playing the character, you have to be convinced that he would do such things with anyone."