A few days back, I along with my office colleagues went to watch the Telugu version of ‘Baahubali’. None of the screens in Hyderabad was running the Hindi dubbed print, so in spite being a non-Telugu majority, out exuberant team decided to watch the Telugu version. We, fortunately, had a Telugu speaking colleague with us who not only tolerated our homonyms, but also translated the movie to us at regular intervals. We consumed popcorns, slurped cold-drinks, enjoyed our puns and returned with minds relieved of the office stress. Baahubali has a very average script with sets incongruently changing in different parts of the movie, but it was certainly a visual delight. SS. Rajamouli has successfully established a grandeur which can inspire many cinema makers who create period movies.
The earning stats of Baahubali were very exciting, so after returning home, I glanced through movie review on the internet. Sadly, my excitement to read about Baahubali soon changed into frustration after reading a few articles. In an absurd vindictive article ‘SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali now has a religion and it is decidedly Hindu‘ published on FirstPost, the vitriol filled editor picked some random tweets, plugged-in some muddled references of Mohammad Rafi and Naushad. In fact, by the time I finished the ‘movie’ article, I was confused whether Sandipan Sharma wrote a report, preached sermons, spread hatred or wrote a Hindutva article in haste.
It has become a fashion among left-liberals to smother movie reviews with words like “Saffronization of Cinema”, “Hindutva” and “Indian Male”. Within 2 days, another bigoted editor of First Post, Deepanjana Pal, wrote an insidious piece on ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’. Deepanjana is so full of loath that she got distressed to see people enjoying the movie, and concluded it as a message from RSS and Hindutva brigade. The writer appears ridiculously pitiable in the sections where she tried to scratch the past present and future of Bollywood. She exposes her stupidity and naiveté when she writes:
It’s almost as though Bollywood is subtly sticking its tongue out to those who want to censor Indian culture and popular entertainment. If all the right-wing wants are paeans to its awesomeness, Bollywood will deliver with heroes like Pavan and Prem, who get the girl and the audience’s sympathies, who are undeniably heroic; but who are equally undeniably, absolute idiots.
Either Deepanjana watched her first Bollywood masala movie, or she is an idiot of such an order that after watching a routine masala movie, she generalized the movie as a message:
The message is clear: the women of North India are suckers for pecs and abs, and the shakha produces men who are studly, loyal and idiots. Eid Mubarak, bhakts.
In her concluding paragraphs, Deepanjana spews out all her mask-hidden communal bile. After writing “Bhakts”, “Hindutva” and “Jai Shri Ram” for multiple times, she writes, “The India of Bajrangi Bhaijaan isn’t a multi-cultural, secular nation.” Her deep-seeded hatred, class based mindset and bias against Hindus speaking “Jai Shri Ram” is quite evident in the whole article, but what disturbed me the most was her malicious attempt to create rift between Muslims and Hindus. I unfollowed FirstPost on twitter after reading this thrice:
After a moulvi helps Pavan out of a tricky situation, he says, “Khudahafiz” to Pavan. Pavan is thankful, but he has no words to wish the moulvi a safe journey as the moulvi returns to a potentially dangerous situation. Because hello, Pavan is Hindu. He can’t say “khudahafiz” back even though that’s exactly what he wants to say. Maybe “Hanumanhafiz”…?
Such articles are nothing, but mirror images of views of opportunists in VHP, Bajrang Dal, etc., who can only see politics and religion in a movie.
