>Arjun Rampal reels in the real sexual harassment

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Sudhir Mishra casts him as a corporate accused of sexual harassment by a colleague, inspired by a recent incident

Remember the much publicized case of an Indian editor of an international publishing firm accused of sexual harassment by a female colleague? Well, Sudhir Mishra is now making a film inspired by that incident.

The film will star Arjun Rampal as a powerful corporate type who gets sexually aggressive with a female colleague who refuses to play ball.

Reading up

The actor has already started reading up intensely on the subject. The director features Rampal as the sexual offender because of his good looks.

Says Mishra, “Arjun is a very handsome man. To cast him as someone who gets aggressive when turned down by a woman, adds to the intrigue factor. Good-looking people are never short of attention from the other sex.

Then why the aggression?” He continues, “The politics of sexual alliances has always intrigued me. What makes the subject of sexual harassment interesting for me is the power-dynamic.

The boss in an organization is all-powerful. Then why does he need to force his attentions on any woman or man?” The idea for the screenplay came from writer Manoj Tyagi who wrote Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3. Adds Sudhir, “It was Manoj who suggested a screenplay on the theme of sexual harassment.

We’re both writing the script.”

Prakash Jha will produce the film. Understandably, Sudhir denies the character has any resemblance to newspaper headlines. Who wants to get involved in libel?

When contacted Arjun Rampal said, “It’s too early to talk about it. Let Prakash Jha make the announcement.”

In Hollywood Oscar nominee North Country (2005), starring Charlize Theron as a working-class woman harassed sexually at the workplace is based on a real-life case as well.

It is a fictionalised account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States ” Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit