It has melodrama. It has song and dance. It has a pretty lead actress. It features two topics of discussion that are favourites with the Indian audience: religion and cross-border tension. And it has Salman Khan.
Yet talk to the actor about his Thursday release Bajrangi Bhaijaan and he dismisses all this.
“All this is just the backdrop. The film does not deal with all this,” he told tabloid!. “The film simply deals with one man [taking] one girl who cannot speak back to her country so she can live with her parents. And that country just happens to be Pakistan. The film deals with human emotions, with the heart, with one person’s feeling for that child. Just that. Basically, it deals with humanity. It deals with what a human should feel about other humans. Love and love and only love,” the Dabangg actor said.
Khan is said to be spending as much time with his family before the release of the film this weekend and his upcoming appeal against his conviction on July 20, which was moved by the Bombay High Court from July 13. It has been reported that he is not travelling even with the country for promotions.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan also happens to be Khan’s debut production and however much he may dismiss it the film has been in the news more for negative reasons than the positivity he tries to portray. Khan plays Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi, a Hindu who is a devotee of Hanuman or Bajrangi [the monkey deity] who takes responsibility for taking a Pakistani child, who has wandered across the border without legal papers, back to her family.
Earlier this month a couple of right-wing political groups, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, raised slogans demanding that the film’s title be changed as it hurts Hindu sentiments. This followed the submission of a public interest litigation (PIL) by a resident of Chitrakoot in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Social activist Anil Pradhan sent a legal notice to Khan and director Kabir Khan demanding that the word “bhaijaan”, a respectful term for a brother in Urdu, shouldn’t be used in conjunction with the deity’s name in the title, and other objectionable scenes.
Last week Khan’s manager approached the Mumbai Police for “fake and malicious” WhatsApp messages circulating in the actor’s name regarding the film which said that the film would prove a hit even if his Muslim fans didn’t watch it. It was reported that these posts were playing on a spat between Khan and Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party, last year. Moreover, the post also claimed that the title of the film was changed from “Khan Bhaijaan” to “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”. The actor has told the police he made no such remark. At the same time EMI Pakistan has served a legal notice to Khan and the director claiming that film’s recently released qawwali Bhar Do Jholi by Adnan Sami didn’t acquire the rights from them to use it.
Though the Hum Aapke Hain Koun …! actor says he doesn’t believe that any religious or political group would want to create a strife with a film that “deals with love and positivity”.
“I don’t think this film is having any such problem because it is a positive film. I am talking about humanity,” he reiterates. “I am talking about an entertaining film of a man and a little child. So I don’t think any of these political or religious groups are doing this because they themselves want peace. They themselves believe in the fact that one religion has to respect the other religion to have the other religion respect their own in return. Every religious book has said to respect other religions and live in peace and harmony. And as religious leaders they will all know these basic things. I don’t think any religious leader is taking a negative approach to a positive film”.
Despite all his legal issues, Khan still commands a tremendous fan following and not just for his acting skills. He is equally loved by his film industry colleagues, whom we’ve seen rallying with him in May during his trial and 5-year suspended sentencing for culpable homicide in a 2002 hit-and-run case, an issue his aides allow no journalist to bring up. He is an originator of what is known as the “100-crore club” (a crore is 10 million) in Bollywood with box office smashes such as Dabangg, Ready, Ek Tha Tiger, Bodyguard and Kick. Yet, he will, modestly, tell you that it is due to the viewers.
“You know [the number of] theatres has increased, the ticket prices have increased, so it’s a [expletive] good thing to cross that 100-crore mark and everyone is doing that. The industry is progressing, it is flourishing. Today, even Varun Dhawan’s film ABCD2 has crossed the 100-crore mark”.
In a recent interview the Maine Pyaar Kiya actor said he was given to do only romantic roles initially because of his stature.
“When we all came we looked like boys. The heroes before us all of them looked like men. At that time we couldn’t play inspectors, lawyers, local don, and all that. So we started off as romantic heroes, did comedies and then now doing action”.
And it took him nearly 20 years to get there. He told tabloid! that the actor in him never really felt the need to play an out-and-out negative character.
“Why should I play a negative character when there are so many positive characters to be played?” he laughed.
Don’t miss it
Bajrangi Bhaijaan releases hursday, July 16, across the UAE and also stars Kareena Kapoor and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
