SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Shahrukh Khan’s latest release ‘Pathaan’ has taken the cinema world by storm and despite the stiff opposition displayed by conservatives, the movie has broken several box office records. The movie’s gigantic success should be enough to shut the mouths of critics. In fact, it has become a new trend to oppose the smallest of things in recent times without seeing it yourself.
To watch a trailer or a song, make an opinion about it and then jump on the bandwagon of the ‘boycott’ trend has become a new norm. Amir Khan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ was a victim of this trend and ended up being a flop plunging its producers into tremendous loss.
Sometimes the objections taken by leaders or people do make sense and a movie could be still screened by omitting the objectionable content. However, it is not right to boycott the entire film. This behaviour is festering lately. This time it was Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham starrer ‘Pathaan’ which was dragged into the controversies. After the song ‘Besharam Rang’ from the movie was released, it quickly went viral amassing millions of views over various social media platforms. But at the same time, some of the conservatives objected to Padukone wearing a saffron coloured bikini in the song.
Calling it a disrespect towards Hinduism, they opened a boycott campaign against the film. They did not stop just at that but also threatened to block the movie from being released. Quickly two sides were formed, one which was opposing the movie while the other one supporting it. Of course, the debates led to tense situations across the country at various places which were aimless. How does an actress wearing a saffron bikini equals disrespect towards Hinduism? This song featured actors wearing clothes of various different colours and one of them was saffron – that’s all. It is not as if the saffron colour has been used only in this particular film. The same colour has been used in various films before and there were no objections raised that time, neither there was need to object as it is not an issue of taking an objection in the first place. Also, such a senseless tendency was not prevalent at that time. Saffron is just like any other colour and it is not right to associate it with Hinduism all the time. Yes, it is true that people following Hinduism wear saffron coloured clothess during religious ceremonies but that does not mean other people should not be using it.
And even if someone does, considering it as an insult to Hinduism is not right. However, some upheld this topic and even staged protests outside theatres on the day of the movie’s release. Tearing posters, burning effigies of actors, attempts to cease the screenings; they tried it all but to no success. In fact, the movie received tremendous response from people all across the country without being bothered by the ‘scenes’ caused by some. The film earned a whopping 57 crore on its opening day and a record-breaking 300 crore within six days. The people after watching the movie realised that there was nothing objectionable as claimed by some and even the issue of saffron colour which was raised measures for barely one minute of the scene. It cannot even be noticed while watching the movie as it is just like any other song. As a matter of fact, the well-maintained physique of Padukone and Khan should be appreciated. Khan’s fitness regime at 57 and John Abraham’s at 50 would put anyone to shame while Padukone too, is well into her late 30s and they both have put in great efforts in maintaining their athleticism which is required to perform action scenes. All in all, everyone’s hard work is evident and fruition is necessary as the film business thrives only if movies become hits. However, the film business faced a bitter struggle marked by calumny courtesy to people whose goal is to only disrupt the peace of this country.
Thankfully, the movie ‘Brahmastra’ which also was criticised, broke this pattern and emerged as the highest-grossing Hindi release of the last year. The same has been proved by ‘Pathaan’.
The response given to the movie by the public is the real India which has rejected the values of orthodox groups. Everything will be simpler once one accepts that movies are but a fiction.
