If we seek praise for a living, we should be ready for the insults

I wasn’t at the Screen Awards, nor, as I write this editorial, have I seen the telecast. I read in the papers that Ashutosh Gowariker was very offended by host Sajid Khan’s jokes. And now Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raj Kumar Hirani, along with Ashu, are planning to ban ‘such award functions’ unless the hosts show them their scripts before hand.

Beats me, the only thing they have found offensive in so many years about these award functions are the scripts of the hosts! I mean, clearly, these guys see themselves as serious connoisseurs of cinema! And yet they have sat through these farcical fanfares, year after year, in their best finery and expression, sometimes accepting and sometimes giving away undeserved awards. And after years of being party to these comical ceremonies, they suddenly train their guns on Sajid Khan’s jokes! Puhleese!

Yes, there’s a difference between humour and sarcasm. But are we looking for profundity here, sir? This is a circus, for Krishna’s sakes! And all of us are jugglers and jokers, scrambling for attention, glory, fame, money, viewer-ship, readership, revenue…immortality. The awards functions are merely television shows desperately, desperately chasing TRPs. If we see them as sombre tributes to Hindi cinema the joke’s on us! This is show business. We thrive on excesses. Who would know more about excesses than our affronted trio? Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Ashutosh Gowariker have spent millions and millions of rupees to satisfy their own creative whims! Propriety and righteousness are a matter of opinion.

So let’s not take on exalted positions and get romantic about ourselves. If we seek praise for a living, we should be ready for the insults. Intellectual supremacy cannot be an argument against it, because intellectual superiority is once again a matter of opinion, and an assumption open to everybody. Humari jail mein soorang! That’s a vain declaration. Either nobody in this world is above banter or everybody is.

Like this huge hue and cry about SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and this ‘selling India’s poverty’ outrage! Firstly, SLUMDOG is a piece of fiction, a book and a feature film, not a documentary on India. Secondly, it happens to be a fact that 80% of our population is poor*. The slums are India even though they are often treated like the country’s servants’ quarters. Of course, we would like to wish them away, sweep them under our expensive Persian carpets or much rather pretend they do not exist. They cramp our global style. We’d like to assume that we represent India and they do not! Isn’t it presumptuous on the part of a mere 20% to think that they make more appropriate ambassadors of our country than the rest of the 80%? How typical of us, pompous asses that we are. Come on let’s hide the hole in the wall with a Husain painting?! But they are not holes in the wall; they are our bona fide countrymen. If Madame Tussaud’s can house stupid looking wax replicas of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai why can’t Danny Boyle make a vibrant film on spirited kids from the slums? Both represent India. In fact, they, more than us!
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* As of 2005, 85.7% of the population lives on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day. The World Bank further estimates that a third of the global poor, now resides in India. And income inequality in India is only increasing.

Why should there be any moral onus on film stars to ‘take a stand’ or ‘do something’?

A couple of days after 26/11 a friend of mine called me and asked me, “Where have all your stars disappeared?” The tone was not very flattering. It was clearly a jibe. And this was only the beginning of various such asides, even before 60 hrs had become 72.

Subsequently, responses from film stars began to trickle in. You had Preity Zinta, Pooja Bedi, Rahul Bose, Shah Rukh, Aamir and many others coming out and voicing their opinions, some passionately and some not so passionately but most of them earnestly.

More rallies and morchas followed with discussions galore on the news channels. Simi Garewal talked about some flags flying over the slums of Mumbai and hailed ‘the Bush way’, Ram Gopal Varma naively decided to tour ground zero with our ex-CM, Amitabh Bachchan got caught with the right gun but the wrong licence and so on and so forth. Then Simi apologised, Ramu remained defiant and Amitabh Bachchan decided to step back and withdraw from the situation, with or without his pistol. While we looked at every move, every word with a magnifying glass, from a higher pedestal.

For instance, that friend of mine and those hundreds like her, who sarcastically asked me, ‘Where have your film stars disappeared at such times?’… My question to them is: good, bad ugly, while all systems lie in a heap around us, disorientation abounds, our minds are in a flux, running helter-skelter, posing a hundred questions and rummaging in this battered mess for a sane thought – our words often scurrying ahead of us – in such circumstances, why should the burden of nobility and composure fall only on famous shoulders, why should there be any moral onus on film stars to ‘take a stand’ or ‘act upon’ or ‘do something’ – any more than the rest of the citizenry?

Their job is to entertain. You may buy the ticket and watch their movies if they do. Don’t, if they don’t. You can accept or reject them as actors, you may accept or reject their films, you can rave about or rubbish their performances, but you cannot pull them up for not being ‘socially conscientious’. That’s their personal matter. They are not obliged to respond or act on every national crisis. If they wish to, it’s their choice, and so be it even if they don’t – Just like it is for you and me. I did not attend any rallies neither did I join any signature campaigns, that was my individual choice. I’d hate somebody getting righteous on me over this issue. I pay my taxes, I try to do my job well, I try and break no laws, I respect every religion. It is the job of our political leaders to look after the matters of the country, and I can only hope that they will try to do their jobs well while I try to do mine. And the same should go for film stars. Including, yes, Salman Khan.