PK: Why look for duplicate Gods when we have Dr Hirani?

Rajkumar Hirani is an accomplished filmmaker with the soul of a social crusader. A champion of sensible filmmaking and even more sensible philosophy, his films have always taken pleasure at knocking organised mafias promoted by the big guys and elevated the struggle of the little people. In Munna Bhai MBBS in 2003, he took on the mechanical and soulless way medicine is practised now. Three years later, he used Gandhigiri to question civic acceptance of social ills - from purveyors of superstition to real estate sharks. In 2009, he launched a delightful attack on the education system that prides itself on creating robots who chase success not excellence.

In each of his films, an outsider has emerged as the hero, whether it is the loveable goon living on the margins of Mumbai or the servant's son with the thirst for knowledge and love for innovation. PK glides through familiar territory in that sense - there is Tapasvi Maharaj, invoking Lage Rao Munna Bhai's Batuk Maharaj, played by Saurabh Shukla, who makes money by feeding off his devotees' fears. There is PK, Aamir Khan's little guy from outer space, who just wants to go home but not before he can tell the world not to dial the wrong number for God. His PK is part Phunsukh Wangdu from 3 Idiots and part Mahatma from Lage Raho Munna Bhai, determined to tell the world to get well soon.

And the illness this time is nothing less than blind faith. It's not something Indians like to laugh about. As the smug, shiny, squishy Tapasvi says, it gives Indians ummeed. We may not have anything to eat, no place to live and no one to share our sorrows with, but we have faith, and that gives us hope. God's name trips off our tongues with ease, whether in joy, sorrow or plain carelessness. PK, the alien savant of Hirani's imagination, takes faith on face value, assuming an investment of Rs 200 in donation, will fetch him his heart's desire - to go home to his world. When it doesn't happen, despite his praying to every God -rolling all the way to Siddhi Vinajayk, tying the thread at Ajmer Sharif and being baptised again as a Christian -he realises organised religion is a fraud. He realises it is run as a business, making ridiculous demands on its devotees, and taking them away from their real purpose in life - helping each other.

Only the combined talents of Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan could have come up with a film like this. Like the brilliant Oh My God, Hirani's film exposes the company managers, or as we in the media like to call them, self styled godman (as if there are any other kind), as nothing better than avaricious businessmen, who abuse the helplessness of people, making them dependent on their benediction. Tapasvi is a smooth talker, talking up his congregation to part with their money so he can build a temple (yes, yes, big nudge to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement), and ensure that his oils and medicines do brisk business. Remind you of a certain bearded baba with a lazy eye and an overactive abdomen? Tapasvi communicates seemingly directly with God, going into an instant trance and conversing with him to seek advice for his devotees.

PK is his nemesis. And he is helped in his task by Anushka Sharma's pouty, mouthy television journalist, Jaggu (Jagat Janini), who has suffered for years from her father's obsession with Tapasvi maharaj's hokey advice -- and a briefcase of idols for all occasions, from Hanuman for the treadmill to Lakshmi for online trading. She stages a mahayudh between Tapasvi and PK, a chat show on the lines of Satyameva Jayate, where the savant confronts the sage in a battle of wits.

Does one read the Gita's shlokas, the Quran's ayat, The Bible verse? Do we ring the temple bells or sound the mosque's loudspeaker? PK raises important questions about the ''darr ka business"' with a light touch, sprinkled with lots of feel good tears, a three hour catharsis at the hands of Drs Hirani and Khan, which comes once in three, maybe five years. If its themes seem familiar--the recent storming of the Rampal Ashram, the hashtag of IndiawithPakistan (there's a pull-your-heartstrings love story between Sushant Singh Rajput's Sarfraz and Anushka's Jaggu) and citizen activism against Christian conversions and fatwas against education (the wrong number movement inspired by the Idea ads) -- it's because Hirani has his finger on the pulse of India. Why pursue duplicate gods when you can call Dr Hirani for his jadoo ki jhappi?