“Sushant’s last film releases this week. I want to tell the snob and elitist critics right now, write sensibly. Don’t act oversmart. Don’t write rubbish. Be fair and sensible. Don’t try your dirty tricks. You have ruined enough lives. Now stop. We’ll be watching,” wrote Chetan Bhagat on Twitter.

What followed was a shocking accusation leveled by the author against filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra who was the producer of the Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan starrer, 3 Idiots. The film was based on Bhagat’s book, Five Point Someone.

Following Bhagat’s tweet, veteran film critic Anupama Chopra responded by saying: “Each time you think the discourse can’t get lower, it does.”

Bhagat responded to Chopra and alleged that her husband had “publicly bullied” him and drove him “close to suicide”.

“Ma’am, when your husband publicly bullied me, shamelessly collected all the best story awards, tried denying me credit for my story, and drove me close to suicide, and you just watched, where was your discourse? (sic),” read Bhagat’s tweet.

Bhagat was responding to the credits controversy surrounding the 2009 movie where the author and his book were credited in the end credits but he wasn’t too happy about it.

“It’s fine that they’ve given me credit in the rolling credits, but how can they not give me credit for the story? The film is based on my book, they have to give me [credit],” Bhagat had said in a 2010 interview, according to India Today.

“According to the contract, it clearly says that Chetan will be given credit in the rolling credit, which comes at the end of the film. He is lying when he says that his name comes after the junior artists, his name is after the main artists of the movie. See the movie to believe me,” Rajkumar Hirani, the director of the movie had said back then.

(Header credits: Wikimedia Commons)