Were the protests by the angry mob at Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar Temple against the Brahmastra team’s darshan inside the Mandir justified yesterday? For the uninitiated, even as the team of the upcoming Karan Johar production is wrapping up their extensive promotional campaigns before the film, made on a budget of Rs 500 crore, releases in theatres tomorrow, Avik Mukherji, the director and lead protagonists Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor were driven out by agitating Hindu groups before they could step down from their car. Some call this act blatant mobocracy that is stifling the freedom of the celebrities to publicise their work, while others opine that this reaction was long due. But, before getting judgemental let’s understand why exactly Hindus are reacting adversely towards a film that apparently is touted to project the beauty of ‘Hinduism’ on the big screen. Interestingly, it is being brought before the audience by Bollywood, an industry famous for churning our rabid anti-Hindu content for many, many years.
Brahmastra was earlier named Dragon with the lead character called Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi whose personality was channeled to deliver lofty talk on the lines of Persian poet Rumi. Made to floor the Indian audience who regularly overdose on Marvel and DC Comics franchises, Mukherji’s creation sought to present an Indian counterpart of the successful Hollywood series. Considering that the name of the film (Kapoor’s character was renamed Shiva) was altered after the ghastly Pulwama attack, how does it guarantee that the script, which earlier dwelled on Rumi’s interpretation of light and other philosophies, would actually denote Sanatan iconographies truthfully, especially when the dialogues and songs are peppered with Urdu and Farsi words. More importantly, how is this not reflective of opportunism and double standards?
Left liberals might lash out at the boycott calls citing how detrimental this is to ‘good cinema’, but they have remained tightlipped about legitimate movie critiques panning big Bollywood projects on the basis of quality. While Laal Singh Chaddha and Samrat Prithviraaj fared terribly, a much smaller film, The Kashmir Files, did exceptionally well. Maybe it is time for the cabal to note that the audience is rejecting not only bad content but also forces that prodigiously present anti-Hindu and anti-Indian propaganda through cinema, which is actually modern visual literature that holds the power to influence the audience. Also, they are interested in the truth, which Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri dared to show (even as we pen this, Ramasimhan’s Malayalam film, Puzha Muthal Puzha Vare, about the Malabar Hindu genocide by Moplah Muslims is facing the heat of the Kerala Censor Board because of the incriminating reality it presents. If this isn’t fascism what is, the director, who was called Ali Akbar before he converted back to the Hindu realm, has complained about communists trying to dilute facts about Muslim brutalities of 1921). The diktat seems to be, “Enough is enough! Time to turn the tides on gangs fuelling and funding activities harmful for the nation.” So ideally, Brahmastra might seem to be a flaky attempt to grab the attention of Hindus, but there’s no denying that the team behind it is thoroughly anti-Indian as well as prone to make insipid, horrible cinema.
We say this citing Karan Johar’s earlier inane works that ruined the class and quality of cinema. Crude jokes against Hindu religious characters, diluting our rich traditions and customs showcasing them as ridiculous fancy dress affairs and deriding, distorting or stereotyping our culture has been his mainstay. He also is stamped with the tag of fuelling nepotism in the industry. Heady with arrogance and an indignant attitude, perhaps the audience has decided to show him who holds the economic reigns after all in the business of movies. Moreover, with videos of his AIB roast session with Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh resurfacing, it is clear to many that he is certainly not the source a sane mind should go to for discourses on Dharma.
Are we skimming the surface? Well, let’s probe deeper then. Who exactly is Alia Bhatt, the actor who conceitedly shrugged in an interview that if the audience ‘doesn’t like me, don’t watch me’? A Brit citizen, her father, director Mahesh Bhatt has been subverting his original name of Aslam Khan that he took when he converted to Islam during his nikaah to Soni Razdan without divorcing his first wife. But then, even before that, there wasn’t anything Hindu about him considering he was brought up by a Muslim mother, who was a concubine of film distributor Nanalal Bhatt. So essentially, when the director openly rallied for Pakistan in the Kashmir issue and stood with Congress to blame the RSS for 26/11, it was his Muslim roots and upbringing showing their true colours. The actor’s brother, Rahul Bhatt, also befriended David Headley, the crook who conducted the recce before the ghastly Mumbai terror attacks. Immediately after India’s dark hour when the public outcry of shunning Pakistani artists became bold forcing Fawad Khan to return to Pakistan, Pooja Bhatt, Alia’s step sister, cribbed saying this was amateurish bullying! This is the family the girl who is playing Parvati in Brahmastra.
These celebrities who throng mandirs just before their films are scheduled for release are failing to shroud their hypocrisy nowadays. Ranbir Kapoor’s love for beef could be a personal food choice, but should movie lovers forget how anti-Hindu his recent dud Shamshera was? Or that in Rockstar, the actor peddled noxious separatism propaganda? When actor Sushant Singh Rajput passed away, these A-listers remained tightlipped about their colleague’s shocking demise even as Johar repeatedly passed jibes about SSR in his nonsensical talk show Koffee With Karan. Perhaps he must have planned in his mind, “Ek Brahmastra phaenk ke maarunga to audience sab bhool jaayegi!” but now it is up to the audience to decide whether they still want to be taken for granted by non-talented people who viciously popularize Islamic agendas through their cinema. That way, Brahmastra is now a litmus test for Hindus on whether they want to reclaim their civilizational authority over strengthening Bharat’s future by setting the right narratives.
Sharmi Adhikary is a senior lifestyle journalist and columnist with a yen for exploring interesting concepts in fashion, culture and cinema.
- Sharmi Adhikaryhttps://organiser.org/guest-author/sharmi-adhikary/
- Sharmi Adhikaryhttps://organiser.org/guest-author/sharmi-adhikary/
- Sharmi Adhikaryhttps://organiser.org/guest-author/sharmi-adhikary/
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