Vishal Punjabi, aka The Wedding Filmer, worked with Shah Rukh Khan at Red Chillies Entertainment before becoming the country's foremost wedding videographer. During this time, Shah Rukh played a key role in ensuring that his visa difficulties were ironed out after he was deported from India for overstaying his welcome as a Ghanaian citizen. Working with Shah Rukh also taught him to take care of the crew and navigate budgets, but more than anything else, he learned the importance of inclusivity. In an interview, Vishal said that the hate he gets for featuring interfaith couples has increased in the last 15 years, and that he working with Shah Rukh and his wife, Gauri Khan, taught him how important it is to overcome such 'uneducated' notions. Appearing on Adhunika Singh's YouTube channel, Vishal was asked about his experiences with Shah Rukh and what he has retained from that period in his life. He said that after releasing his first same-sex wedding film, he received a lot of abuse online, and lost a lot of followers. But he said that he will only promote inclusivity, because that's what he believes in. Asked about working on interfaith weddings, Vishal said, "This world is not what it used to be 15 years ago. Whenever we've done interfaith weddings, we get heavily trolled now. There's a lot of abuse, there are a lot of uneducated points of view. I married a Muslim, and I was hated for it, but I have no regrets. My marriage didn't work not because she's a Muslim, but because we couldn't live together." Also read - Shah Rukh Khan’s sets would be targeted by ‘anti-Muslim’ unions, crew would be ‘harassed’: Wedding Filmer recalls how SRK helped him return to India after deportation Vishal said that he comes from a multi-faith background himself, with a Christian mother and a Hindu father. "I personally love interfaith weddings. There's nothing more beautiful. This is something I learned from Shah Rukh as well. He used to celebrate Diwali and Eid, and if he can do it, I can do it, the world can do it. It's not wrong to respect someone's religion." Sharing more details from his time with Shah Rukh, Vishal said, "Red Chillies, at that time, was a ragtag team of young people who'd come from all over the country. He used to pay very close attention to how his crew was treated. I still remember, we used to get free lunches in the studio. It would really help us, because it would save us time and money. To provide for your crew, to make sure they're paid well, to make sure they're creatively motivated, is something I've learned from him. In an earlier interview on the Brown Game Strong YouTube channel, Vishal recalled how Shah Rukh came to his help when he got deported. “I got deported, and there was nothing anybody could do. The fact that I worked with Shah Rukh made my case worse because he was under scrutiny. For some reason, governments aren’t very kind to him, I think it has to do with his religion. It was heartbreaking for him as well because I was in charge of a lot of big projects for him. He tried everything that he could to see me come back… I went through a very hard time, but he worked tirelessly to get me back…”
