Garv: Pride and Honour was a movie Salman Khan starred in 2004. The film was about how the righteous brother and upright cop played by Salman avenges the rape of his sister. We will get to the irony of that theme later but this film directed by Puneet Issar was insufferable, tacky and turned rape into, like most Hindi films do, a prolonged, insensitive theater of hysteria and violence where the woman was nothing but a prey to be taken apart and consumed. That a raped woman can also be turned into a causal analogy is something we will discuss later.
The film was a big hit and I remember writing a piece, ‘No garv, only shame’ for a national daily to question the mindset that glorified a star for a heroic screen persona when in real life, he was facing criminal charges. It is significant that the film’s success came post the alleged hunting of two black bucks in October 1998, his hit and run case in 2002, the way he was again “allegedly” instrumental in getting Aishwarya Rai sacked from Chalte Chalte after storming on the film’s set and creating a scene and the very ugly, public spat with Vivek Oberoi.
Since then ofcourse, Salman’s star has been on the ascent. He has since then, survived almost unscathed, the scandal that broke out when Hindustan Times posted on its website, a transcription of abusive conversations allegedly featuring his voice. These tapes, a forensic lab ruled later, were doctored. No clear resolution seems to be at hand either as far as his court cases go and he seems to be getting along just fine with life and his career. His fans get hysterical at the slightest possibility of a long jail term, they troll women who stand up to him online, mock his ex girlfriends and celebrate the release of his films with ritualistic fervour. There is something about Salman that makes men emulate him. Maybe it is the fact that no matter what he does, he remains unapologetic and free of any moral conflict about right and wrong. How empowering must that feeling be? To be above criticism?
It is not hard to see where Salman’s sense of entitlement comes from. Every time he crosses a line, his doting family springs to his defense, as does his loyal coterie of friends. Time and again, journalism has been compared to a “dukaan” (read Salim Khan’s latest tweet) that runs only on the alleged indiscretions of the poor, misunderstood Salman. Infact in one interview, Salman had told Indu Mirani (if memory serves me right) something to this effect, “You dress so soberly magar doosron ke kapde utarti hain?” What an eloquent man. It is never, ever about him but about how others misunderstand him, you see, even though he is almost always pushing boundaries of propriety.
There have been reports (unsubstantiated, ofcourse) of him pouring a cold drink on the head of a former girlfriend and roughing up a few others. Every time he feels slighted by a woman, he finds a lookalike to prove a point. Remember Sneha Ullal and Zarine Khan? He runs Big Boss with the arrogance of a tribal lord, talks down to interviewers like Anupama Chopra who giggles helplessly because really what do you say to a grown man when he interrupts a co-star during an interview, asks for green tea and shows no respect for the format of a show? What chance does an Arijit Singh stand when bigger names than him have lived to regret standing upto the ‘bhai‘? Remember Vivek Oberoi and how he was reduced to bowing at a public function before Salman in abject apology?
The “youth” icon’s 50th birthday celebration was a huge media event with the top names in the industry showing up to be counted. Also add to this coterie, legions of vociferously loyal fans, the public chicanery of starting an NGO and an on screen persona that can do no wrong and we have an almost invincible success story.
In Sooraj Barjatya’s family dramas, Salman is a sanskari dude in whose mouth, desi ghee won’t melt. In his other films, he is a shirt ripping, strutting, punching hero basking in his unchallenged manhood. The man who can get away with anything and almost does.
So we should not at all be surprised by his recent analogy about a raped woman. We should be surprised that what his court cases and his appalling public behaviour could not bring home to so many, this one statement finally did. The fact that beneath all that brawn, lies a shallow, unintelligent, insensitive man. Someone who, at least after all these years of enjoying blind adoration, will now be called out, not just by those whose lives and careers have been damaged by him but those who can no longer pretend that just because an actor plays a messiah on screen, he really is one in real life.
And that an actor who avenges a woman’s rape on screen is not necessarily some one who understands what the term means beyond a victim’s inability to walk after an assault. In Yasser Usman’s biography, Rajesh Khanna, The Untold Story Of India’s First Superstar, Salim Khan had stated that success has destroyed far more people than failure because superstars begin to confuse their reality with the hyper reality of adulation. Maybe it is time Mr Khan, instead of apologising on his son’s behalf time and again, sat him down and let him understand the difference between reel and real life.