By Subhash K Jha

The era of lengthy epic tales with two intervals, one siesta-break and three meals are over. Filmmakers are now being forced to restrict their completed product's playing-time to 2 hours or less.

Prakash Jha who gave one of the biggest hits of 2010 Raajneeti, has been granted a 15 minute grace-period, considering his boxoffice standing. Nonethless Prakash too has been forced to comply by what Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra describes as the "multiplex samosa-sales pitch. "

After the 2-Hour-47-minute marathon Raajneeti Prakash Jha has been compelled to cut down the length of his new film Aarakshan to a much shorter playing-time of 2-hour-15-minutes.

Sighs the harried filmmakers, ‘It is the demand of the times...and of time. You can't afford to make your film longer than a certain length. It hampers the number of screenings in the multiplexes and restricts viewership as wel. Though I must add that the audience will be with you for as long as you want if the story is gripping. "

To make the playing-time of Aarakshan gripping Prakash Jha has ruthlessly cut down the length. "Yes, I have kept the length down to the minimum.

Nowadays a filmmaker can't afford to be emotional about the footage that he shoots. What had to go is gone in Aarakshan. I don't make a film only for my own satisfaction. I've to keep many considerations in mind. "

It's learnt that some of dramatic and emotional sequences featuring the Big B with Saif and Deepika Padukone had to go for the sake of brevity.

Ideally Prakash would have liked Aarakshan to have much more playing-time. "It's a complex story. I talk about the reservation issue that goes back to Rig Veda and then right up to Jayaprakash Narayan's student movement in the 1960s. A lot of back-projection was required. "

With the length being cut down to an austere 2 hours and 15 mins the film has to sacrifice the explanatory history.