Monday, June 2, 2008

Aamir Khan is dead.

Don’t be searching fervently for this item on a news site. Also, don’t be surprised that a blog is reporting a news item, ahead of a news site!! Well, the Aamir Khan you know, an actor, is alive and kicking (literally, to loosen up the injured knee!!). But there used to be an activist called Aamir Khan, who looked and spoke like the actor. It’s the activist Aamir Khan who’s now dead!!

On a more serious note, Aamir Khan took to protest (meaning publicity; Source: The Aamir Khan Dictionary) with the Narmada Bachao Andholan. Probably, he was told his films’ name was Narmada. Co-incidently, at the same time, his film Fanaa was due for release. The media went ga-ga over the activist “who had always stood for his ideals”. Many hours of content was wasted over him. He demonstrated his acting skills effectively, with most the country believing he was indeed supporting Medha Patkar-led movement and had genuine concern for those displaced by the dam.

Not that his other recent film, Rang De Basanti, was free from dirty publicity. I have no objection to the special screening of the movie to the defence minister. The movie was marketed as revolutionary, saying it asked citizens to fight for a cause. Killing a central minister at will and taking people and institutions hostage with the aid of weapons is not social revolution. A film can’t be good by just showing its countrymen in poor light, as in policemen attacking silent protesters. A film can start a social revolution, only if it offers positive inspiration. Munnabhai was able to achieve that. Gandhigiri is now prevalent all over the country, including the Parliament. Years ago, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustaani , another mainstream movie showed how a small journalist could bring together a lot of people to fight a powerful social menace. These and more such movies can create social revolutions, since they didn’t try to achieve it by killing politicians.

There have been a number of mainstream movies that have showed some aspects of the country in poor light. They were not troubling the society, since they didn’t call themselves revolutionary movies. RDB was a good movie to watch, but my objections are only on how the film was marketed. Another reason I believe it wasn’t marketed well is because Aamir Khan was playing a supporting role to the lead character played by Siddarth. If you don’t agree on this, watch the movie again and you will observe that I am correct.

Not that every Aamir Khan movie needs dirty publicity. Taare Zammen Par was a beautiful movie. He knew that and hence, he didn’t see the need for dirty publicity.

With his recent remark on Shahrukh, the dog/actor, Aamir Khan has proved he is intellectually dead. It, though, reminded me of a Kannada cult comedy, Ganeshana Maduve and the Ramanamoorthy scene (Google Video). He has to take help of these cheap tricks, now that a movie under his banner(Jaane Tu..) is being released. That explains the sudden “outrageousness” erupting from his blog, which has been on for some time now.

By the way, despite the remarks on SRK, Aamir is learning the antics of a producer from SRK himself!! What else can explain Aamir Khan sitting next to Sachin, during the IPL final?? So, what’s next Aamir??? Hosting a TV show??

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