Bollywood at its shrewdest

PUBLIC memory is short. To see larger than-life characters on 70MM, to forget a harsh reality called life, we willingly suspend disbelief and cherish the action on screen. But public memory is not short as in the case of Sanjay, the protagonist in Aamir Khan’s Gajini, whose memory span is not more than 15 seconds or so. We remember what we consider important and what we are told is important. Similarly we keep a tag on our celebrities — what they do, what they don’t, and what they are believed to have done. No celebrity is immune to this scrutiny.
In a scorching April in 2006 he braved the Delhi summer and extended his support to the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The next day was the DVD release of his movie Rang De Basanti. More than appreciation, he received flak from all quarters, so much so that activists asked him to stop promoting a soft drink and his movie Fanaa was not screened in Gujarat.
Two years later, he again braved an unforgiving Delhi April and ran with the Olympic torch. This time (as mentioned in his blog) he ran “with a prayer in my heart for the people of Tibet, and indeed for all the people across the world who are victims of human rights violations”. He might have had little option, as the soft drink giant he was endorsing was an official partner for the games.
This winter he is back, with a new cause. Yes, it is 26/11 — the talk of the town. This time he has expressed a desire to postpone the release of his movie, slated for Christmas day, as he is yet to come out of the ‘shock’ of the attack and is not in a frame of mind to think about movies. A closer scrutiny would reveal the arithmetic behind the thought. The fact is it might not be a good time to release a big budget movie. Post-26/11 around 70 theatres/multiplexes in Mumbai saw less than 25 per cent collection till the second week of December.
Another reason for Aamir Khan’s press conference on Id-ul-Adha could be that Shah Rukh Khan, whose movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi released on December 12, has been all over the media speaking about religion, his movie and the terror attack.
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is clearly the most anticipated Bollywood film in recent times, and is hogging all the light. While trade pundits bet on the movie for its freshness and the SRK-Aditya Chopra team, the feedback from distributers and moviegoers is that it has the power to bring the audience back to theatres post-26/11 — and the movie seems to be doing that.
Other than the fact that it is an Aamir Khan movie, there’s nothing fresh about Gajini. The heroine is a new face in Bollywood and so is the director. The storyline is known, as it is a remake of a Tamil movie ‘inspired’ by an English one. It might be this fear that has made the actor market his movie in a way best known to him — get hold of a contemporary issue, identify himself and then the movie with it.
Bollywood has been all over the media, expressing shock and making suggestions on the lapses, what needs to be done and how the nation can fight terror. It seems everyone is an expert in terror management except the government and police. Sanjay Dutt was among the first from Bollywood to be interviewed after the attacks — maybe the anchor thought firsthand information on how hard it is to handle an AK-47 would give some perspective on how much training the killers received in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or wherever they came from. It is not Aamir Khan’s acting skills that are in doubt. It is his concerns that often come across as the conniving shrewdness of a politician who waits for the press before paying floral tributes at a leader’s memorial.

The Show Must Go On

The biggest hit this season seems to be a 62-hour spectacle that was scripted from across the border. None of the actors were known faces until now and its overnight success has send shivers down the spine of many in Bollywood.
The 26/11 Mumbai attack, while an unprecedented and grotesque one, has threatened the country’s biggest movie industry and rightly so because in a holiday season when every teenager should be humming OSTs and copying movie styles, they are trying to gather themselves after 26/11.
TRPs are the highest for news channels while entertainment and sports are forgotten. For an industry that has had a lean year, missing this season is unimaginable. Also sensing this, many in tinsel town reacted openly in a manner that has never been witnessed before. Bollywood was all over the news before the fire in the Taj Hotel was doused.
While the media in a deliberate attempt refrained from communalising the attack, as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Islamic’ terror, in a subtle way it projected how the attack had maligned the Muslims. For reasons best know to the news channels, most of the celebrities who appeared on TV or appealed for unity and peace were Muslims – Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Javed Jaffrey, Farah Khan … . Saif Ali Khan and his latest arm candy Kareena Kapoor dashed a letter on how they were ‘shocked’ by the attack. The exceptions in this could be Amitabh Bachchan on his blog and Sanjay Dutt. But given Sanju’s alleged 1993 blasts links one cannot miss the parallel. How come the media missed the Kapoors, Kumars, Deols…?
What took the industry so long to react while the country, particularly Mumbai, has been reeling under a series of attacks time and again?
This time terror has hit the glitterati in more than one way. The panic the attack has created has stopped people flocking to multiplexes thereby reducing the revenue movies churn.
26/11 has dawned upon them the reality that they could also be hit by terror. An average Mumbaikar does not frequent the Taj or the Trident. He has been hit many times in the past when bombs went off in crowded trains and BEST buses. Bollywood does not frequent the CST terminal, their hangouts were targeted on 26/11. The appeal filmstars have among the public cannot be underscored but one wonders what took them so many years to voice themselves in the chorus they are now?