Gauahar Khan is a slap in the face of Gauhar Khan

Reality bites and slaps.

Actors will do anything to get noticed. Why would anyone add an "a" at an awkward place in such a gem of a name and spoil it? Gauhar is so regular/forgettable. Gauahar is unique/noticeable. Maybe a mumbo-jumani numerologist asked her to add an "a" for good luck to upgrade from being C-grade to A-grade. Actors would believe anything with a Sindhi name. But this is not about parochialism. This is about violence. In the name of religion. Because all religions preach peace. Now that we are done away with the platitudes, if your religious sentiments are as flaky as those of a Mohammed Akil, then I suggest go read something else. We are done with the warning, too. Now let us get down with the story.

Actor Gauahar Khan was on the sets of a reality show. Mohammed Akil was in the audience. The 34-year-old Gauahar’s revealing clothes infuriated the 24-year-old man. He went up to her and told her: “Being a Muslim woman, you should not wear such a short dress.” He then slapped her. Akil was, in return, slapped with three cases under the Indian Penal Code, including molestation and outraging a woman’s modesty. He will be punished for there is taped evidence and many witnesses. Meanwhile, we, the ever-outraged hypocrites, have rubbished the man as a regressive loony who deserves to be punished.

After all, we are not Pakistan yet, where vigilante justice in the name of religion has become a norm. Neither are we Saudi Arabia, where law must punish Gauahar Khan for revealing anything more than her pair of eyes. We are India, we really don’t know what to do, so we adjust because we can. We outrage when we can’t.

We have a law against hurting religious sentiments. Akil should have filed a case against Gauahar if he was so offended. But if he was educated and familiar with the law, he would have not been working as a part-time waiter in a restaurant. In case of Hindus, if your religious sentiments are hurt when somebody is desecrating your religion, the correct way is to not interrupt the proceedings but to find a lawyer. Gauahar got away with a slap. M.F. Husain didn’t. India’s best artist died in exile because a lot of people found a lot of lawyers.

Instead, Akil did what his conscience told him to. He slapped a celebrity for what he believed was un-Islamic behaviour. She had shattered Akil’s belief that she was a devout Muslim. He believed so because Khan wears religion on her sleeves when she’s wearing her sleeves. She doesn’t tire of telling people how devout a Muslim she is. That all she wants to do is go on Umrah, Inshallah. Must perform the Haj because every Muslim is required to. She regrets her work disrupts her plans to pray five times a day but come hell or high water, she manages three to four prayers every day. And she has been keeping roza (Ramzan fast) since she was seven.

In her time in the Bigg Boss House, when she was not canoodling with Kushal Tandon, she was mumbling something inaudible. She later told us those were Ayats (verses) from the Holy Quran, the book she reads every day. When she is outdoors or travelling, she recites Ayat-ul-Kursi for protection. There’s no way we can confirm whether she had recited the lines on the day Akil slapped her. Because if she did, it obviously didn’t work. You will call this victim-blaming. You will also call me an Islamophobe. That’s an obvious risk.

Let’s face it. You can’t pick and choose from your religion when you can’t pick and choose your religion. Religious books are full of stuff that aren’t relevant today, you would agree, but insist that books themselves play an important role in people’s lives. Because they are sacred scripture. You think your milder, nicer interpretation of the holy books is the right interpretation. You think moderate sweet Urdu-speaking Muslims know the Quran better than the Saudis who speak Arabic as mother tongue. I would trust the Saudis to explain the Quran better than my Urdu-speaking friends, simply because they are the custodians of the language and the book and the holy places. Now you will say the Wahhabi House of Saud foments trouble and the royals misuse their unique location and position in Islam to their own advantage. Maybe they don’t? Maybe you have been influenced by anti-Saud propaganda?

Akil is a waiter and a lone wolf. Pramod Muthalik has a gang and calls it a Sena and spells it Sene. This insane Sene goes around slapping women, non-celebrities mostly, every once in a while because they think girls are dressed immodestly. Not much happens to Muthalik except being subjected to hour-long TV debates. The law is a bystander as Sene runs amok. Khaps regularly bar young women from wearing jeans or carrying a mobile. A Dalit boy and his Muslim wife were just slaughtered near Delhi for falling in love.

Gauahar fell in love with Kushal Tandon but being a devout Muslim, she couldn’t marry him, or he couldn’t marry her. Or maybe they weren’t meant to be. We don’t know what went on Akil’s mind. You will say such violent behaviour based on centuries-old text is not acceptable in the 21st century. The rule of law shall prevail. Well, the holy mother of law, our Constitution, couldn’t prevail when a widow’s constitutional rights were snatched by an amendment because the centuries-old text didn’t make a provision for this. The progressive, suave man who brought the amendment to life is hailed as the man whose efforts pulled India into the 21st Century. Or so his son Rahul claims.

You will say this is downright ridiculous that people hide behind holy texts to justify their vile acts in this day and age. I say believing in any text as holy is downright ludicrous in this day and age. You will defend people’s right to believe in what they want. But you will deny me the right to call their beliefs stupid.

My nephew believed in Shaktimaan. He jumped from the roof and suffered multiple fractures and a realisation that Shaktimaan did not actually exist. My friend believes in Hanuman. He didn’t have the balls to jump from the roof. As it happened, he fell and escaped with a broken leg. His belief in Hanuman is unshaken. He thanked his deity for giving him just one fracture. A kid got multiple fractures for not believing in the right deity, is it?

Gauahar Khan says alhamdulillah at the drop of a hat. One slap and she forgot to praise Allah. Because who else but God created the good Muslim Akil and gave him the opportunity to teach Gauahar a lesson. Of course, you will say God created Gauahar and the devil spawned Akil. But it might be the other way round. Because it’s Gauahar who is violating the tenets. It’s Akil who is risking his personal safety to uphold it. After all, it’s a matter of belief. I am an alien. I belong to Middle Earth, according to Lord of the Rings, the holiest book I have read.