Apurva Asrani calls out Kangana Ranaut’s “lie” about writing 'Simran' story

A new poster of Hansal Mehta’s ‘Simran’ credits Kangana Ranaut as the ‘additional story and dialogue writer’. This recent development has irked the writer of the film – Apurva Asrani. To add insult to injury, Kangana’s credit features before Apurva’s in the poster.
While Apurva does not mind Kangana being credited as the ‘additional dialogue writer’, he is not pleased that she is also sharing the credits as a co-writer of the film’s story.Furious and disheartened in equal measure over the recent turn of events, Apurva took to social media to “call out Kangana’s lie”.
In an elaborate Facebook post, he wrote how he is disappointed with the fact that Kangana has been claiming in her interviews that Hansal approached her with a one-line screenplay of the film. She further claimed that ‘Simran’ was a gritty thriller then and it was she who converted it into a light-hearted flick.

Contrary to Kangana’s claims, Apurva said that he developed the idea of the film after Hansal sent him a news article of a woman in the US who had crossed the line of law. Since he did not want to do a serious film after ‘Aligarh’, Apurva then developed it into an original story – one that had a light-hearted treatment to it. He also mentioned that he and Hansal then sat down for a narration with Kangana, who readily agreed to do the film after hearing the narration.
Apurva further elaborated on the amount of research and hard work that he put in while developing the script. He wrote nine drafts of the script and it took him over one-and-a-half year to complete it. In the post, Apurva reiterated that at no point during the 9 drafts was there any talk or communication that Kangana didn’t like the tone or direction of the script and that the actress used to “jump with glee” when he finished with his narrations.
Apurva also mentioned that when he sat down to edit the film, he was “thrilled to see that it was exactly the story and screenplay” that he had registered at the Film Writer’s Association, barring the improvisations that the actress had made to many dialogues. He also added that after he finished the first cut of the film, Hansal informed him that Kangana has demanded a co-writer credit. When he refused to give in to the demand, Hansal and his co-producer Shailesh Singh apparently “arm twisted” him into giving her the credit in question. Apurva ended the post by lamenting “why Kangana would snatch the hard earned work of a writer.”
Earlier, Apurva shared the poster of the film on Twitter, saying he has worked as the 'Story, Screenplay and Dialogue writer' in the film. Director Goldie Behl replied to Apurva’s tweet, writing, "Nice feel @Apurvasrani have heard of additional dialogues but can't understand 'additional story' a story is a story how can you have additional."
To which Apurva replied, "Thanks @GOLDIEBEHL. I think @mehtahansal is the best person to answer that question."
Further, in a series of tweets, Apurva revealed, "All I could do was fight for my credit to remain in the film; and I did that! If that had been tampered with I would go to the association (Film Writers' Association)." In another tweet, he wrote, "And yes, I am guilty of signing a contract that only protects the producer, because in this case I believed the producer to be my friend."