Writer-Editor Apurva Asrani and Hansal Mehta, who first collaborated with director Hansal Mehta with Chhal (2002) and went on to collaborate over many critically acclaimed films like Shahid and Aligarh. Now, it seems, their partnership of many years has seemingly ended. According to Mumbai Mirror, the reason is apparently the shared credit given to Kangana Ranaut for writing Simran. In an interview given to the paper, Asrani doesn’t say it out loud but reading between the lines, one can very well make out the real cause. That’s what he says about Kananga’s inclusion in the writing credits: “About the additional dialogue credit, Kangana totally deserves it. She improvised on many of the dialogues and did a remarkable job.” So far, so good but this is what he adds further, “I’d often joke with Hansal that you can’t call Kangana a co-writer as she has never actually collaborated with the writer. Her improvisations happened on set, so she deserves to be called a co-director.” The only hint of a tiff comes at the end where he admits he wasn’t aware Kangana would be sharing the writing credits, “I didn’t know that Hansal had promised Kangana part of the writing credit till I had finished the edit. By the time I got to know, the announcement had been made.”
