"Muslim audiences were angry at Mani Ratnam's film, not just for showing a Muslim girl falling in love with a Hindu (the Muslim philosophy about this, firmly established in the Sharia, is that 'our girls are ours, yours are up for grabs'), but also for not confirming them in the victim role which they had appropriated in connection with the Bombay riots. Mani Ratnam had a miraculous escape when a bomb was hurled at his residence in Madras."... Local authorities banned the film under Islamicist pressure or threats."