Mumbai: Sanjay Jha, director of the forthcoming film, Strings: Bound By Faith is angry. His film to be released on Friday has been dragged into a controversy. Sadhus of Allahabad have registered a PIL against the song, Mantra.

An agitated Jha says, “The song, Mantra was originally a poem written by Poet laureate Baba Nagarjun in 1969. The poem was banned for sometime in 1977. But, infact, many people have done their Phd on this poem. It is an important piece of literature.” The director feels the PIL is unjustified. ” Strings is not a mainstream or a Aamir Khan film. It belongs to the independent cinema genre,” he says.

Talking about the lyrics of the controversial song, Mantra, he says, “The lyrics of the songs are so meaningful and interesting. My hot picturisation of the song has taken it 10 notches ahead. The poet had written this song to express his discomfort with the society. The lyrics “Om is dollar, Om is pound,” is so very contemporary even today considering the way our sadhus are selling “Om”.”

So will he remove the controversial song from the film to avoid further hassles? “The censor board has given it a U/A certificate. I will NOT remove the song from my film, come what may”, concludes the Jha.

The music of the film has been done by Zubin Garg, who recently won accolades for his rendition of the song, Ya Ali in Gangster.