It`s post noon on a Wednesday, when we manage to connect with director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri. By then, it has been five days since the release of his controversial film, The Kashmir Files, based on the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley following violent processions by Kashmiri Muslims who wanted an Islamist state. On day eight, its box office collections cross R116 crore. But, Agnihotri who describes himself as a “free thinker”on Twitter, an account which he deactivated briefly last month after he claimed to have received threatening messages to stop the release of this film, is drawing mixed reactions.

The emotions are raw, like in the videos of Kashmiri Pandit viewers crying inside theatres, as they sink in the torment that Anupam Kher’s Pushkar Nath experiences in the film. In a rare moment for the leader of a country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded The Kashmir Files, and chose to meet the director and his actor wife, Pallavi Joshi, who plays JNU Professor Radhika Menon in the film. “His endorsement has come as a surprise. When the highest office has put faith in your work, it makes you even more responsible,” Joshi later told this writer.