Karan Johar’s past experiences as an ‘effeminate’ man who was ‘laughed at’ for body language inspired Tota Roy Chowdhury’s character in Rocky Aur Rani

He said, “(The idea was) to subvert it, because it’s also about the things I believe in personally. As a child, I was very effeminate, and I used to dance in my own room to Hindi film songs, to Lata ji’s songs. My dad thought it was great. My father used to watch me dance to Jaya Prada’s parts in ‘Dafli Wale’ and clap. Every time his friends came over, he would put on the song and ask me to dance for everybody. And no one told me there was anything wrong with that. I grew up thinking this is fine.”

But things changed when Karan went to college. “People look at you and laugh. You’re called all kinds of things. There are terms used. And it stayed in my heart. I grew up with the feeling that I was laughed at for my body language and for my way of being. Somewhere, Tota’s character is borrowed from my childhood. So, when he says ‘hunar ka koi gender nahi hota’, I believe that.”

This is why, Karan said, it was important for Ranveer Singh’s deeply patriarchal Rocky to come around. “People who are not culturally inclined or don’t know better. They do that. They laugh. They find the ‘effeminism’ funny, instead of appreciating it as an art form,” he said. Karan also revealed that Tota Roy Chowdhury isn’t actually a dancer, and that he worked tirelessly every day for six months to learn kathak. Ranveer himself rehearsed for over a month for his brief kathak sequence in the film.

Also starring Dharmendra, Shabana Azmi, Aamir Bashir and Jaya Bachchan, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani has made more than Rs 50 crore in India in four days. The film has received positive reviews, which Karan said left him surprised.