by B. R. GOWANI
Pakistani actor Shaan with a Brazilian model in a TV ad for a Pakistani company, Servis Tyre PHOTO/Facebook
Phantom
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, is believed to be behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which more than 160 people lost their lives. Not to forget the wounded and the victims of the terror trauma that adds to the high toll of human misery. LeT’s founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, is now the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Indian film maker Kabir Khan’s film Phantom, released August 2015, is based on the incident and the efforts of an ex-armyman to catch the culprits. Saeed went to the Pakistani court and demanded a ban on the movie because, according to him, the release of the film would endanger his life. (Now this is true democracy where a terrorist living comfortably in Pakistan who makes incendiary speeches against India can also ask for a ban on a movie!) As was expected, Pakistan banned the movie! The film’s hero Saif Ali Khan‘s reaction was:
“I don’t have faith in Pakistan … [but] I won’t make a film that’s against the country [Pakistan].”
However, as easy as it is to criticize another country for denying freedom of speech and artistic freedom, especially if we choose to disregard the reality of our own country, to similarly expose the skeletons that exist in India would be another story. Would Saif demand the release of a film in India, made on the former Chief Minister of Gujarat (who is now India’s Prime Minister) Narendra Modi that highlights his role in the genocidal killing of Muslims in 2002? The answer is absolutely not.
Mawra Hocane vs Shaan
The Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane, currently working in an Indian film, Sanam Teri Kasam, expressed her views about the banning of Phantom by tweeting:
“If it’s anti-terrorism… then yes I’m anti terrorism, it doesn’t matter which land I belong to. I’m pro humanity and love and that’s that.”
Hocane’s another tweet:
“I would like to watch Phantom and then decide whether it’s good or bad… And that’s exactly what everyone should do…”
In his first ever video message, Indian actor Ranbir Kapoor told his fan, Pakistani actress M. Hocane, “Hi Mawra, this is Ranbir here. You are extremely beautiful, extremely talented. I hope to see you sometime soon.”” PHOTO/Filmi Beat
(Many Pakistani artists have taken selfies with Ranbir Kapoor and other Indian artists.)
This was too unbearable for Pakistani actor Shaan Shahid, who, one can say is the Imran Khan of the Pakistani film industry. (Imran is a former cricketer turned politician.) Like Imran, Shaan is ultra nationalist and a super hypocrite. Imran Khan’s eyes are always glued to the sky counting the United States drone attacks whereas Shaan’s eyes are always glued on India checking the statements, tweets, etc. from Indians to find some anti-Pakistan sentiment in them. Both are mostly blind to the bombings, killings, and destruction by Sunni militants in Pakistan itself.
Shaan tweeted:
“Should we ban the actress who supports an anti-Pakistan movie?”
He sounds like a mini-dictator. His tweet incited many followers and others to go on an abusive spree against Hocane on tweeter. Ban Hocane for what? Her only crime was to tell people to watch the movie first and then pass the judgment! Has Shaan ever opened his big patriotic mouth to condemn terrorists like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed who are living in Pakistan?
Hocane sharply retorted on her Facebbok page:
“We work so hard to achieve the love & respect in our people’s hearts and he always attempts to ruin it for everyone in a jiffy. Be it me, Ali Zafar, Fawad Khan or Someone as legendary as Javed Shiekh. He (Shaan) has always bashed everyone who’s stepped in India.”
“You know what Mr Shan Shahid I will still rise every morning, work as hard, still pursue my dream, still go after what I’d like to achieve and still keep my head high. I don’t need to love/like people like you to be a patriot. My love for my country and my people doesn’t need your approval.”
Puppet Khans
Shaan also had rubbish rants on a few other things, including the Khans,
“And the puppet khans [Aamir, Salman, Shah Rukh] are the symbol of the only Muslim domination [in India] …”
Puppets? Whose puppets? The Khans are mostly apolitical so they don’t have to play puppets to anyone.
Many people in both countries are putting much effort to improve relations between these nations but the communal and ultra nationalist elements, including Pakistan’s ISI (Inter State Intelligence), are not keen to see improvement in the relations. Since partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, both countries have gone to war four times; these have done immense harm to the people and the region. But it is interesting to note that both governments have failed to create hatred in the majority of people in both countries. A 15 year old girl called Saba from Pakistan, suffering from the rare Wilson’s disease, was treated in Mumbai with funding raised by Mumbaikars like Shabia Walia. Many Pakistanis are provided free medical treatment by Indian hospitals and institutes as a gesture of friendship. Also, Pakistanis are not left behind in offering their generosity and hospitality to the Indians. Some people and groups are working diligently to improve relations between both nations. However there are people like Shaan who not only misleads his fans in the name of patriotism but also tries to stop fellow artists from working in Indian films by questioning their patriotism – which, as Samuel Johnson noted is scoundrel’s last refuge and as someone else put it, also the first one. The good news is that the Entertainment industry in both countries can and is slowly bridging the distance.
Shaan was offered a villain’s role in the Hindi/Urdu version of the Tamil film Ghajini. Shaan refused the offer.
“… I told AK [Aaamir Khan] that I’ll charge the same amount that was being offered to Surya Sivakumar [hero of the Tamil version]. He accepted … After thinking over it for a week I finally had to refuse [because] … in playing the villain’s role I would be subjected to humiliation by an Indian hero, and it would mean humiliating both me and Pakistan.”
So a hero beating a villain would mean Pakistan was being thrashed by India!
This kind of mentality exists in cricket matches only because those are seen as a kind of rivalry war between two nations.
Then again, it makes one wonder, why did it take a whole week for this great patriot to decide whether to work in the Indian film or not? He probably wanted to check out his market value in India. Shaan asked for a much too high remuneration (compared to what would be paid to him in Pakistan) which Aamir had agreed to pay. Also, it always leaves one with a great feeling to reject an offer by someone who is from India with much bigger name in acting, fame, and stature.
However, Shaan has expressed his desire to work in an Indian film:
“I am not closed to [the idea of] working in Bollywood, given that they don’t cast me specifically as a Pakistani. Secondly, this is not the time to go anywhere because if I go to Bollywood right now then no one’s going to stay back.”
The real reason may be that he doesn’t want to leave his numero uno position because, if he leaves, he knows there are dozens of Shaans waiting in the wing to occupy his position.
Shaan says
“India should play a bigger brother and support our cause of cinema.”
He has invited Shah Rukh to make a film in Pakistan.
The invitation raises practical questions:
· Will Pakistan be able to provide security to Shah Rukh and other people from India?
· Does Pakistan have the technicians and the latest equipment?
· If after the filming has begun, the Islamists order to halt the shooting, will the government come to the rescue of the film unit or will it just maintain silence and inaction?
These and many other issues are involved. It’s not simple. Instead of asking Shah Rukh to make a movie in Pakistan, why doesn’t Shaan go to India and co-produce a movie with SRK there? He had once said: “I’ll bring them [Indians] here. We won’t go there.” On screen, Shaan single-handedly fights against the villains. This has gone to his head too much, so off screen too, he wants to act in such a manner.
Shaan’s contribution to the Pakistan’s film industry has been notable, but his problem is his big ego and deleterious patriotism. During an award ceremony, he criticized Pakistani actors for working in India and got carried away:
“My identity is Pakistan, this green flag.” “God forbid that I may ever leave that identity.” “If you look at our blood, you won’t find it red but you’ll see it green.” “Till the time my flag needs my blood, has need for my art, has need for my life, I’m going to stay here as an A-class actor.”
The Pakistani actor/singer Ali Zafar, who works in Pakistan and India rebuked Shaan in a blunt yet reasonable way:
“I feel that on certain things, we use emotions or other things to hide our defects in the name of patriotism or some other name.” “Nowadays, we are living in a global world.” “We should look beyond ourselves.” “The first Pakistani [Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy] to take an Oscar [Academy Award] is a woman.” “[You young youngsters,] dream big and achieve big.” “We should have trust in humanity. To bound art by [border] lines is an unforgivable crime.”
In a 1962 Pakistani film Shaheed (Martyr), written by Riaz Shahid (Shaan’s father), the heroine Musarrat Nazir was cast as an Arab dancer. When a Western guest, played by Talish, remarked what she was going to do will put one more stain on her reputation, she responded:
“MeiN ek siAh chAdar hooN, mujh pe lagA huA dAgh dikhAi nahiN de saktA.” (at 47:52 in the film video) (I am a black chAdor, [any additional] stain on me cannot show up.)
One can say the same about Pakistan: “Pakistan is a river of blood. Few drops/pints of Shaan’s ‘green’ blood won’t make any difference.” Instead of wasting his blood/life, Shaan should stay alive and try to use a secular reasoning to bring both countries closer that would benefit the harassed and tired masses of South Asia.
(The blood sucking/spilling: In pre/post Partition 1947, Pakistan and India have sucked a lot of blood of the population; and from 1947 to 1971, Pakistan sucked blood of East Pakistanis, now Bangladesh); right now it’s sucking the blood of Balochi people. Also we should remember the parallel power of Islamists in Pakistan who are sucking the blood of minorities, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and others.)
Shaan’s hyper-patriotism took a big leap when he a made film called Waar (To Strike); it accused India for Pakistan’s terrorism problem. Nadeem Paracha, a columnist for Dawn, in talking to the reviewer Rebecca Santana of the Associated Press, points out that the young urban middle class is most fond of blaming India for Pakistan’s ills. He draws attention to the contradiction:
“They’ll go and have Burger King and McDonald’s and play their Xbox, and at the same time sound like mini Zia ul-Haqs.”
Hasan Zaidi, the Karachi International Film Festival director, remarked on the help of the military in making of Waar.
(Militaries are more than happy to help filmmakers which portray their image in a glorifying manner. Hollywood and the United States Pentagon have a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Governments are not behind either. The Indian government of Indira Gandhi spent millions of dollars on Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi for international beatification of the Great Soul or Mahatma.)
Zaidi thinks the Waar is
“trying to divert attention away from the actual source of the problems. And that’s why I think it’s a dangerous narrative.”
Coming back to Phantom, Saif criticized the Pakistan Censor Board but not any Pakistani artist. Latter, in an interview, he clarified his position by saying that he has nothing against Pakistan or its artists, otherwise he wouldn’t have worked with them in the past. Why did Shaan have to go after the other Khans – they hadn’t said anything either about the ban on Phantom or about Shaan? It was probably a ploy by Shaan to incite the other Khans into the confrontation to prove how he alone can take on the three big Indian Khans.
Then Shaan wrote:
“Tell your khans to worry about India and stop thinking about Pakistan it is protected not by khans only but by every tribe living and breathing Pakistan”
The only ethnic group which has been living and breathing in Pakistan is the one to which Shaan belongs to, i.e. Punjabis. 54% of Pakistan’s population was barely surviving and felt suffocation and had to part company with Pakistan to form their own nation of Bangladesh. The people of Balochistan have been asking for their rights for decades, but have instead received military boots and air force bombs. The province of Sindh has never been happy with the Panjabi domination. And many in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province/NWFP) feel more kinship with Afghanistan.
The Khan trinity in India is among the most popular in the world. They don’t have time to interfere in Pakistan affairs as they’re busy churning out good and rubbish movies and minting lots and lots of money. Yes, they want good relations with Pakistan. Shah Rukh’s family hails from Peshawar, Pakistan. (So does India’s first super star Dilip Kumar and showman Raj Kapoor. The Pakistani actor Fawad Khan who works in both India and Pakistan has said he’ll invite Shah Rukh to visit Peshawar.) Shah Rukh and Salman try to see that Pakistani actors/singers are given part in their movies. (Producer/director/writer Mahesh Bhatt has introduced many Pakistani actors and singers in his/his brother’s films.) Shah Rukh’s movie Raees (to be released Eid Day in 2016) has a Pakistani TV/film actress Mahira Khan as his heroine, which is a big break for her. Her TV serials are famous in India. Her experience in India was very good. Other Pakistani artists who have worked or are working have felt similarly.
(Ranbir Kapoor, grandson of Raj Kapoor, has expressed his desire to work in a Pakistani film. His father Rishi Kapoor had produced Henna in 1990 with a Pakistani actress Zeba Bakhtiar. The story was by a Pakistani writer Haseena Moin.)
The Khans: Aamir, Salman, and Shah Rukh are the top film actors in India but have to be extra careful in what they say/do/write about communalism in India because of their religion. In spite of that, occasionally they do express their views frankly.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com