If Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar had superpowers in real life, he would combat evil by resorting to some questionably violent methods.
His role in Gabbar is Back, releasing in the UAE this Thursday, mirrors his personal take on how to tackle the rotten souls out there.
“The answer to tackle corruption is to take a stick and beat them up bad, really bad. In Gabbar is Back, I am a vigilante who cannot tolerate corruption and he doesn’t hesitate to kill that corrupt guy. I make my own laws,” said Kumar in an interview with tabloid!.
The actor was in Ras Al Khaimah for the filming of his next film, Airlift, last month when he squeezed in a few hours on the last day of filming to talk up his latest release. He plays Ajay, who’s wronged by the establishment and sets up an Anti-Corruption Force (ACF) to track down the baddies.
Accompanying him in his vigilantism is Shruti Hassan, who plays an inexperienced lawyer.
“I didn’t do this film because I had dialogue that makes you want to clap or whistle. There’s a lot of corruption in India and a friend of mine was telling me that since 2008, the scams that ripped India amounted to $12 trillion [Dh44 trillion]. Just imagine. That huge amount of taxpayers’ money could have actually gone to feeding the poor or a common man could have avoided paying taxes for 12 years, had the scams not taken place,” said Kumar.
His face is animated as he underlines the injustice of it all. Even in real life, the 47-year-old actor seems to be an modern-day avenger armed with a keen sense of right and wrong. Just like his role in Gabbar is Back, it angers him tremendously when he hears about incidents of violence against women in India.
“You girls can walk around at 3am or 4am here [in the UAE], and nobody dares to bully you? Why do you think that is?” said Kumar. He doesn’t wait for an answer.
“That’s because those bullies are scared of what will happen to them if they ever try to touch you all. Those people [in India] are not scared. They will think: ‘Let’s spend five or six years in prison, eat the food they provide and be back in the streets again… there’s no deterrent,” said Kumar.
The actor, who has made a living out of playing action roles, says the best way forward would be to instil fear — even terror — in the minds of those who hurt girls.
“The retribution should be so strong that they should automatically think: ‘don’t you dare touch a woman when she’s walking. She has as much right to walk the streets and the roads as I have’. Even if she’s wearing a short skirt that doesn’t ever mean that she’s inviting you to touch her,” said Kumar.
Interestingly, the self-made hero, who doesn’t belong to any acting dynasty and has worked his way up in the industry without any contacts, is not all talk. In Mumbai, he runs a series of martial self-defence classes for women.
“It’s a shame that I have to do that. I teach about 300 girls every month — maids, women working in corporate companies — on how to tackle attackers. Ideally, I shouldn’t be training them because they should be enjoying life. Instead, they are training for two hours a week to defend themselves. So when the script came my way, I just grabbed it.”
It’s evident that Kumar, who has acted in more than 125 Bollywood films, feels strongly about the issue of violence against women. His advice?
“I want them [the women] to react in a different way. Stop taking a candle and walking around with it. It’s not working. We need to take more stringent steps. The law has to increase the intensity of punishing the culprits. Inject fear that if a man dares to attack a woman, then his fate is going to be despicable. Until you instil fear, nothing much is going to change.”
Perhaps, it’s this reasoning that compels him to take the lead in thought-provoking films. In his hit 2012 satire OMG: Oh My God, Kumar played the Hindu deity Krishna and the film unapologetically took a swipe at all those who blindly followed religious rituals.
In the more recent blockbuster Baby, which released in January this year, Kumar celebrated the unsung Indian heroes working in anti-terrorism unit who did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for their country.
“But I am aware that I am not doing documentary films… all my films have been entertaining in a commercial sort of way. There will be song or two, some action scenes... The moment we start preaching, my fans would give up on the film... but let me tell you that after OMG: Oh My God released, lot of people stopped offering milk and oil to [deities] as their offering. Instead, they started giving it to the poor. In a small way, my film made that difference.”
The title Gabbar is Back is derived from the 1975 blockbuster Sholay and its iconic sadistic bandit Gabbar Singh (played brilliantly by the late Amjad Khan) whose idea of revenge involved chopping off arms of honest men with a sword. But the resemblance to the Amitabh Bachchan film ends there.
“A name like Gabbar would automatically instil fear in anyone’s mind. In this case, it’s kaam hero ka, but naam villain ka [the deeds are of a hero, but the name is that of a villain]. In Sholay, Gabbar chopped off the hands of good men. But this Gabbar attacks only the bad ones,” said Kumar.
Three months ago, Kumar rolled out Baby. After Gabbar is Back, Kumar plans to release another film, Brothers, in August. Does he ever fear overexposure?
“Overexposure happens only when you are doing the same kind of cinema. That’s not my case. Also, I am not doing these films for money or to mould my image as an actor. Initially in my career I used to do films for money, but now I do it because I have this greed for good scripts and characters. Plus, it takes 60 days to finish a film. Even if I do four films a year, I have just used up 240 days of the year. I have so many days left — what do I do with that time?”
He isn’t a workaholic in denial, Kumar insists.
“As a rule, I never work more than eight hours in a day. Even if I am producing the film, I will not break that rule because I need eight hours of sleep and the rest of the time is with my family or spent swimming or jogging… Today, I have finished a scene from Airlift, conducted a press conference for Gabbar is Back and I have ten individual interviews slotted. But it’s all possible and I am not complaining.”
Don’t miss it!
Gabbar is Back releases in UAE cinemas this Thursday.
Quote/unquote
“The episodes of corruption that you see in Gabbar is Back have happened in India. For instance, there’s a scene set in the hospital and its corrupt practices. It actually happened and will shock you, All that you see in Gabbar is Back has happened,” said Kumar.
