Is Mr Perfectionist palpitating? Wonder why. Considering he is known to invest time, energy and immense research in his films that appear not too frequently in the scheme of the Hindi film industry, is he sounding a little unsure about how the audience would react to his next offering, Laal Singh Chaddha (LSC), a copy of the iconic and heartwarming Forrest Gump, starring the inimitable Tom Hanks. Well, if the audience at all watches the film that is!
Going by how Aamir Khan is on a spree requesting the audience to not boycott his film, he seems to be feeling the pre-release jitters quite strongly. This time though, this feeling of isolation has nothing to do with the creation, aesthetics and content of his film. Means if Rajkumar Hirani’s PK, a film that gave Khan a merry lease to go overboard in making fun of Hindu Gods, rituals and traditions, could earn Rs 854 crores at the box office, why exactly should the actor feel so insecure even if LSC makes a decent turnover that is not as fancy as the 2014 release.
It’s also not like Khan, who had openly declared during that time that he wants the people of India to see that the Bharatiya Janata Party doesn’t believe in democracy and in the rights of poor people, has not faced commercial failure before. When Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Thugs of Hindostan failed to impress his fans and the masses in 2018 and barely scraped Rs 335 crores against its Rs 300 crores budget, the method actor took the debacle in his stride. After all, an actor is supposed to learn from the flaws in such projects, where not everything is considered as perfect as the filmmaking team is supposed to believe.
Then why is he suddenly churning out media interviews to justify his love for the country when he should be confident of flooring his audience with LSC in which he even dons the Indian Army uniform. The image might have him wearing an expression that has invited the strongest critique from social media chatteratti but isn’t this Ram Shankar Nikumbh who seemed to have a solution for every exigency in Taare Zameen Par not supposed to take the flak in his stride?
Is Khan hoping that the social media hashtag of #BoycottLaalSinghChaddha will stop trending as August 11 nears and the first day collections of the Advait Chandan film, made on a budget of Rs 180 crores, will appear promising? Actually if the actor would have taken his art more seriously than indulging in divisive politics in urban chatrooms maybe this moment of tension would not have arrived. Maybe the mainstream Indian audience who made Khan a superstar watching his films wouldn’t have reacted so strongly against LSC. They would have glossed over the campaign he conducted to ensure the United States of America denies PM Narendra Modi a Visa in 2005 as a mere misjudgment on his part to gauge the real perpetrators of the 2002 Godhra riots.
When Aamir Khan strolled around a Delhi monument with Shekhar Gupta for a TV interview in 2005 to promote his film Fanaa, where he played terrorist Rehaan Quadri, he didn’t know that his comments slamming PM Modi for the Gujarat disturbance would come back to bite him in 2022. Especially because, LSC is not a film that would justify Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and glorify lawbreakers like the character he played in Fanaa. It is after all about a slow-brained Sikh whose characterization is under the scanner for being blatant stereotyping and distortion of how Sikhs are. That much artistic liberty the audience must give Mr Perfectionist, right?
Some doctors are writing open letters to Khan on Twitter about an episode he conducted for his show Satyamev Jayate in 2012, a production targeted at bringing out the follies not just in the Indian democracy but also Hindu festivals, traditions and rituals. Since the actor went on to vilify Indian doctors without understanding what repercussions the unwarranted statements would create, the letter wants him to gauge how his shoddy remarks resulted in the loss of trust between the medical fraternity and patients in India. Should LSC be abandoned because of that? In another episode, he guilt tripped Hindus for pouring milk on the Shivalinga and suggested they use the money to feed the poor. Why should the audience take him to task for denigrating Hindu religious traditions repeatedly instead of spending a lump sum on tickets and popcorn when LSC plays in a neighbourhood posh multiplex? Surely, the poor can eat later, or skip a meal!
The curious question however is that why is Aamir Khan even bothering to pacify the Indian audience. His proximity to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, was for all to see when he paid the family a visit in 2020. Indians even witnessed him beaming with the first lady when the country openly criticized the Abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and favoured Pakistan in 2019. With so much faith in the Turkish way of things Khan should have considered a Turkey release instead of bending before Indians, especially Hindus, to ensure a box office victory for his latest venture. Surely, flooring his Turkish brethren would be easier than amassing virtual support from a pronounced left cabal on Twitter who would never talk about the atrocities meted out to Hindus in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan but jump to dismiss the fabric of a peaceful, tolerant democracy like ours just because Aamir Khan’s film might land up in the dumps.
Interestingly, at this juncture, one is also reminded of how the actor explained during a media award function in 2015 that he was disturbed and depressed because Kiran Rao, his second wife, had suggested they leave India because the growing intolerance in society made her feel unsafe here. He reiterated that coming from a Hindu, the statement carried immense weight. The fun part is, this is 2022 and both Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao continue living their privileged lives here in this country. However, Khan has left Rao and Rao has left the Bollywood celebrity. So, who is the joke on at this moment?
