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Hey Aamir Khan, "The audience loved it" not the measurement of art any more?

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Ananya Bhattacharya
Ananya BhattacharyaFeb 11, 2015 | 19:15

Hey Aamir Khan, "The audience loved it" not the measurement of art any more?

Do you remember "DK Bose"? That pudgy police officer in the film Delhi Belly, and that film, which had a song dedicated to the eponymous Bose? Back in 2011, no matter where you went, whether you happened to be in the vicinity of a paan shop in Jadavpur, Kolkata, or shopping on a certain Bungalow Road in Kamla Nagar, Delhi, snatches of the "Bhaag bhaag DK Bose" sure have entered your system. So much so, that even after new songs made their appearances on the music scene in the back-then-Bollywood, DK Bose managed to rule the roost several months later, while other, newer numbers faded away way sooner than expected. The protesters protested the obnoxious content of the song - given the fact that a popular North Indian gaali had been given a musical twist and turned into a song - and filmmakers celebrated the success of Delhi Belly, throwing a bash here and bashing up critics verbally elsewhere.

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Among the Delhi Belly-bash-throwers, was a certain Aamir Khan, too. The film, as is common knowledge by now, was quite a hit with youngsters, because, as many people had pointed out back then, it "spoke a language that the youngsters of the country could relate to". Aamir, who was the producer of this film which had his nephew Imran Khan in a lead role, had been quoted as saying that "he was happy that the audience loved the film". PIL after PIL began to accumulate in police stations across the country, and the profanity-peppered dialogues of Delhi Belly were being showered on the filmmakers. Unfazed, untouched, unbothered by the brouhaha, Aamir Khan celebrated the success of Delhi Belly, with a dance pose or two to the tunes of "I Hate You (But I Love You)". He defended the wafer-thin plot and toilet humour and scatological references and whatnot of Delhi Belly.

That was four years back. Much has happened in between, including some brilliant performances in not-so-brilliant films from Aamir Khan, and his TV debut in Satyamev Jayate, too. The Aamir, who stood up for the freedom of speech and expression, and catered to the intelligentsia with his highbrow, near-perfect films, has now gone ahead and done something which qualifies way more as pushing the existing boundaries of Bollywood than what any of his work has probably been able to do till now. In the context of the All India Bakchod (AIB) Knockout roast of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, which is quite the raging controversy at this point of time, Aamir's comment was, "I haven't watched the AIB video but I have heard of it. I just watched two-three clips of it and I did not like it... When this happened, Karan (Johar) and Arjun (Kapoor) came to me and told me that they did this roast, and exchanged the dialogues they used during the show. Honestly, I was deeply affected on hearing what all they said on the show. I was very disappointed with the things that happened".

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On being prodded some more, the actor added, "I completely believe in freedom of speech, but we also need to realise that as people, we have certain limitations and responsibilities. But when I heard all that was said to me, I felt it was a very violent event. Violence is not just physical that I hit you with my slipper, and it is violence. It can be verbal as well. It can be emotional as well. When you insult someone verbally, you are perpetuating violence. Not only are you doing something this violent, you are also proudly showcasing that to the whole world... I don't like to show such violence. I am sure that there must be a lot of young people who have loved the show and I believe that all of us are entitled to have our own opinions and I respect it. But I did not like it at all."

The Delhi Belly-lauding Aamir of 2011, in contrast with the AIB-damning Aamir of 2015. In four years, much has changed. Even things that were ideally not supposed to have. A person's stand vis-a-vis freedom of speech and expression, for example. If a person, and a public figure at that, could have stood up for his own work - Delhi Belly - despite the volley of insults and barrage of bullets from many sections of the society back then, why not do something similar now, too, when someone else's work is under the scanner? And what shocks one even more is the fact that Aamir, a proponent of free speech and equal rights and the likes (his Satyamev Jayate stint and its aftermath, the social crusader Aamir, his standing by his work PK, despite the controversy storms, etc), condemns something without even having watched the entire act.

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Walk the talk, Mr Khan. If "the audience loved it" yardstick is the one you use to measure the relevance or irrelevance, the appreciation or criticism for a work of art - no matter what the work of art may be - maybe use the same to determine other stuff, too. DK Bose will second that.

Last updated: February 11, 2015 | 19:15
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