Author: Vrikodar
Publication: Indiatomorrow.co
Date: December 20, 2014
URL:   www.indiatomorrow.co/nation/2488-aamir-khan-is-a-closet-iconoclast-no-doubt-about-it

Iconoclasm need not manifest itself in the form of Ghaznavid horsemen alone.

It is ‘modern’ 21st century, and iconoclasm comes clad in all kinds of ‘progressive’ and ‘artistic’ cloaks. And what better medium than cinema, particularly Bollywood, whose reach and impact on the average Indian is yet to be matched?

Make no mistake; Bollywood is the home-grown industry of iconoclasm. And the latest Aamir Khan trash dressed up as an ‘entertainer’ ‘PK’ is every inch a Hindu-bashing flick.

The dissing of Hinduism, its tenets, cultural mores and Hindu society and people in general has been a subtle subtext of Hindi (or is it Urdu?) cinema for decades. Recall the dhoti-clad Panditji, always portraying a mendacious character, the lecherous and villainous Thakur and then the corrupt, greedy and scheming Munim/money-lender. These were cunningly juxtaposed against the ‘good and sacrificing’ Rahim or Karim chacha, the holier than thou Catholic padre, the good Samaritan Parsi Bawaji…etc. Earlier cultural assaults though, had been subdued to the point of being almost invisible.

Not so anymore. The incessant laceration of Hindu sensitivities in movies laced with barely disguised innuendo is now the unspoken norm in Bollywood. The message is directed at urban middle class Hindus, who despite their relative affluence have refused to morph into self-hating ghouls. Relentless bombardment on 24/7 news channels against Hindu religious figures, deriding them as “godmen”, is but one leg of this assault. However, this has not yielded the desired dividends.

The next part of the strategy has now shown its ugly face — the open ridicule of Hindu systems. To make the messaging more effective, the assault has been made subtler and understated. It is now laced with humour so that it makes a deeper impact on urban India.

In ‘PK’, the latest Aamir Khan flick (atually Produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra but on Aamir's behest), an alien resembling a human lands in the deserts of Rajasthan and is robbed of his “remote”, which connects him to his “mother ship”. An ‘Indian’ girl falls in love with a Pakistani boy in Belgium, because according to the movie’s maker, this is all Indians are good for. The deification of all things Pakistani has of late, become an absolute must for Bollywood. It is also Bollywood’s middle finger to Hindus, who still unwittingly line to buy its movie tickets, particularly if they’re made with someone with intellectual pretensions like Aamir Khan.

The Paki-besotted girl’s father objects naturally, but as PK so ‘graciously’ enlightens the audience, he is just a communal Hindu in the grip of a Hindu godman who has been brainwashing him about the Islamic invasions of India by the ‘secular’ Mahmud of Ghazni. The none-too-hidden subtext here is that there is nothing wrong in Hindu girls’ ‘inherent craving’ for the ‘nice’ Pakistani men who are true gentlemanly specimens with not a single malevolent thought inside their heads.

The Aamir Khan devised plot then makes the Indian (the audience is left wondering what is Indian about her in the first place) girl — ditched by her gentlemanly Pakistani paramour — return home to the big bad Hindu land called India. Lo and behold! In India, the alien, played by the evers-so-truthful host of Satyameva Jayate, begins circulating “Missing” pamphlets with pictures of various Hindu Gods because he believes the Hindu Gods are responsible for his missing remote. He visits Hindu temples but chain locks his slippers at the gates because all Hindu devotees are thieves who rob slippers. In the Aamir Khan world of make-believe, Hinduism is totally infested with thievery and all other malicious things.

PK is nothing but a bareley-disguised assault on Hindu temples, Hindu Gods and Hindu 'godmen'. Every aspect of Hinduism is ridiculed. There is a rickshaw-puller dressed up to resemble Lord Shiva, pulling a rickshaw with two burkha-clad ladies. Then there is climactic TV studio confrontation between a Hindu Godman and the alien hero. No prizes for guessing who wins. The alien do-gooder, of course. Then nice Indian girl who’d fallen in love with the nicer Pakistani boy but had to return from Belgium after her supposedly “failed” love affair with that nice, non-violent Pakistani boy, joins a TV news channel as an anchor. (Little wonder that TV news anchors in this country have such affection for anything Pakistani).

Then the PK plot takes the predictable Bollywood turn — the Pakistani golden-hearted guy hasn’t ditched her after all. He has, in fact, been waiting for her since the last two years in Lahore, pining for a call from his Indian lover.

The climax has a bomb blast. The TV newscaster informs us that some people of an unknown “kaum” (religion) have taken the responsibility for the blast. Their religion? Shhh! Don’t ask. Some questions are best not mentioned. Hindu bashing is so much more fun. And safe too. And PK’s maker Aamir (with Chopra) is a past master at it. Recall his highly successful 3 Idiots, where Aamir, who plays the central character in the movie, ridicules his friend, played by Sharman Joshi, who believes in the divine and faithfully worships Hindu deities. In that movie too, Aamir’s assault on Hindu beliefs was cleverly woven into the subtext of the movie laced with humor and innuendo.