‘Bharat’ movie review: NOBODY needed this Salman Khan film, let alone Priyanka Chopra

If you were to put biceps on a middle-school history book, what you’d get is Salman Khan in Bharat. But don’t bother getting too creative with the imaginary book cover—Khan displays fewer expressions on his face than a blank A4 page.

Which brings us to Salman Khan’s claim that people ditch their own weddings to act in films like Bharat while Priyanka Chopra committed the heinous crime of getting married instead. Seriously, right? What woman gives up the chance to sing and dance around a man impersonating a block of wood to sing and dance with a man she actually wants to marry?

So, in the interests of adhering to the logic of Bhaizone, let’s examine how big Chopra’s loss is. In Bharat, Salman Khan plays Bharat, who fled to Delhi as a child during Partition. While fleeing Lahore, he left behind his young sister and father, played by Jackie Shroff.

After this, the film feels like being stuck on a date with a guy whose Tinder bio reads: JFK —> DL—>MUM—>LA—>HK—>two dozen airport initials that plebs have to Google. Basically, while you labour through your popcorn and patience, Bharat travels from Dubai to Somalia, saving people from gas leaks and pirates, in between making several white women dance to bhangra. And while he is at that, the film offers you Cliff Notes versions of major historical events like Partition, India winning the 1983 World Cup and the liberalisation of the economy.

Halfway through the film, you’re left wondering why you’re being subjected to a Bhai edition of the History channel—rest assured you won’t have an answer even by the time the film ends. It’s like the script had a single-line brief: Bhai ka biceps buddha nahin hona chahiye.

So stuff keeps happening, the world changes, but Khan keeps appearing in clothes that lovingly cling to his muscles. He occasionally beats people up as well. In the midst of all this, he finds Kumud, played by the ever-so-pretty Katrina Kaif. She technically holds various jobs in the film — placement consultant, project manager at an oil rig, anchor, journalist — but her primary occupation is pining for Bharat.

Kumud is basically a 24-hour nurse for Bharat’s ego. He refuses to marry her, expects her to quit her job as a news reader to run a grocery shop while he is away earning money, and take care of his mother. In what seemed like a glimmer of hope, Kaif’s character does point out how selfish all this sounds, but then quietly falls in line while fake glaring at Khan. Imagine rejecting this role to get married to the love of one’s life? The glimmering opportunity to play a designer tulsi in Khan’s silverscreen angaan? The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run down staircases in wedding lehengas and into the arms of Salman Khan, whose blank stare reminds you of people rejected by all the auto drivers at Andheri station? What were you even smoking, Priyanka? Dump it now because it has given you a bad case of clarity.

It’s kind of rude to expect Salman Khan films to be about things like fair characterisation, actual roles for women and at least 10% logic. It’s like asking Sadhvi Pragya to comment with a heart emoji on a Gandhi photo. So yeah, it was not very nice of Priyanka to have gotten a life, saved her career and produced regional films when she could have sacrificed her talents for Bharat. Who knows what she will do next? Demand that washing powder ads show men washing clothes? Nobody needs that kind of negativity, yaar.

In Bharat, Sonali Kulkarni, who has more expressions in half a second than Khan has had in the last decade, plays Bharat’s mother. Kulkarni is 44, Khan is 53. This is the world you are supposed to live in, Priyanka. Just woman up and listen to Twitter bots with Salman Khan DPs for life advice.

(Source: HuffPo)

Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif's Tiger Zinda Hai Swag song is copied

Swag Se Swagat from Tiger Zinda Hai has borrowed heavily from an English number, The Horns, by DJ catch.

Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif's song, Swag Se Swagat, from the film Tiger Zinda Hai, became a roaring success in just a few hours after it hit the web. Along with some stunning visuals of Greece, the song showed Katrina's sizzling dance moves too. We couldn't help, but be hooked to this quirky song.

But, looks like this Hindi song borrows heavily from an English number, The Horns, by DJ Catch. The music, and the beats are uncannily similar.

What do you think?

Swag is sung by Vishal Dadlani and Neha Bhasin, composed by Vishal and Shekhar and written by Irshad Kamil.  The song crossed 12 million views in 24 hours of its release, and on its third day, it crossed 15 million views.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, Tiger Zinda Hai will release on December 22. The film is a sequel to the 2012 blockbuster, Ek Tha Tiger.

(Source: India Today) 

Why doesn’t Aishwarya Rai get enough credit for being a domestic violence survivor?

Aishwarya Rai, till date, remains the only woman to have spoken up against Salman Khan’s emotional and physical abuse, writes Tanika Godbole in Feminism in India. Read on:

In an analytical feature titled Being Salman: The dangerous innocence of Bollywood’s most controversial superstar, film journalist Anna M Vetticad traces the life, struggles, relationships and superstardom of Salman Khan. The story traces his journey from an insolent young boy to a criminal whose toxic masculinity is being protected by an entire industry, and his numerous fans.

Salman Khan has been accused of killing a man and injuring four others. He has been accused of shooting a blackbuck. But before all this happened, he was accused of a crime that is often overlooked, made excuses for, and outrightly denied: that of domestic violence.

In the olden days, there were always stories, rumours and reports of him being abusive towards the women in his life. Sangeeta Bijlani had once described her relationship with Salman as one of the most emotionally traumatic phases of her life. There were reports of him hitting, abusing, and even once allegedly smashing a bottle over his next girlfriend, Somy Ali’s head.

Even though Somy Ali denied this, explaining that he was upset because she drank rum and coke and was in the “wrong” company, so he poured the drink on the table in front of her. As Vetticad rightly observes, “She did not notice that even her description of Salman suggested that he was prone to intimidating, controlling behaviour, nor did she point out the hypocrisy of a man known for his drunken brawls objecting to his girlfriend drinking.” Ali, like many others, swears by Salman’s kindness and generosity.

HORRIFYING JUSTIFICATIONS ARE ONLY TOO COMMONLY USED BY MEN IN POWER TO DELEGITIMIZE THE ABUSED WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE.

Then happened his tumultuous affair with Aishwarya Rai, whom he started dating while they were shooting for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. An inebriated Salman broke into Rai’s house (this has been confirmed by Mumbai police). Aishwarya’s father lodged a complaint against him.  He showed up drunk at her workplace on the sets of Chalte Chalte and created a scene there. He rammed her car with his on the sets of Kuchh Naa Kaho.

“If you don’t fight, there’s no love. I will not fight with an outsider.” – Salman Khan

“Was it a mere coincidence that Salman rammed his Toyota Land Cruiser onto the pavement in suburban Bandra a day after Aishwarya made their break up public in The Times of India interview? A person lost his life in the incident and Salman had to go to jail for his crime. Many of Salman’s friends and colleagues visited him in jail to show their solidarity, but not Aishwarya.” – Jasim Khan, in his book Being Salman

“Has he (Salman Khan) ever spoken ill about any of them (ex-girlfriends), even under provocation? His exes call him a difficult man to get along with, but I ask them, why were you with him for 7 years?” – Salim Khan, Salman’s father, in an interview to Cineblitz

“None of the girls who broke Salman’s heart were interested in starting a family.” – Salim Khan in Being Salman

Through the use of rhetorical ploys and logical fallacies, the above statements push the blame fairly off Salman’s broad shoulders and onto the women who decided to date him and had to find the strength to leave him. These horrifying justifications are only too commonly used by men in power to delegitimize the abused woman’s experience.

This institutionalized protection of toxic masculinity shows the power enjoyed by abusive men as their vulnerability. It’s the women who are after him because they want to become successful actors. A system that makes powerful men vulnerable, just by the power they have. Women are after him for his powerful position.

Vivek Oberoi, who dated Aishwarya Rai briefly after her escape from Salman, came out to the press and spoke about an incident where Salman drunk-dialed and threatened him. Oberoi’s actions not only almost destroyed his career, but also made him a scapegoat to show what happens to people who speak against bhai.

From the instances mentioned in the Caravan feature, the entire industry seems to be in an abusive relationship with Salman bhai. From Subhash Ghai, Anil Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty, to even Aamir Khan, everyone acknowledges his obvious flaws. They mention instances where he was rude and disrespectful.

THIS INSTITUTIONALIZED PROTECTION OF TOXIC MASCULINITY SHOWS THE POWER ENJOYED BY ABUSIVE MEN AS THEIR VULNERABILITY.

But they also vouch for his big-heartedness, his selfless generosity, and mention kind gestures done by him, risky career decisions made by him, all to help someone out. These actions, in turn, are supposed to somehow rid him of his controlling, abusive, and even criminal behaviour.

Aishwarya, till date, remains the only woman to have spoken up against Khan’s emotional and physical abuse. His controlling behaviour is even said to have cost her a few films.

“It’s sad that I’m being projected as unprofessional and calculating. Filmmakers who have signed me know that the only healing factor in my life is my work. This is a male-dominated industry and I guess it has been difficult for many to digest a woman holding her own with dignity”, she had said in an interview in 2002.

Had this happened in 2017, with the #MeToo movement gaining ground, maybe Aishwarya would have received the support and respect that she deserved. She showed strength and got out of an abusive relationship. She spoke up against it. She continued going to work in spite of Salman creating a ruckus there as well.

Then, we turned our back on her. But even with the knowledge of abuse and power that we are equipped with today, we fail to give Aishwarya Rai her rightful credit as one of the first women from Bollywood to identify and oppose violence.

Shenaz Treasurywala’s open letter to Modi, Bachchan, SRK, Salman and Aamir!

Dear Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Anil Ambani,

I am writing to YOU specifically because you are the most powerful and influential MEN in our country.

I am writing to you as a woman who grew up in a middle class family in Mumbai.

I am writing to YOU for HELP!

My parents may not like me saying this. I apologize to them if they are reading but this is NOT MY SHAME. It’s THIER SHAME.

My first experience with the opposite sex, was when I was just 13 and groped by a man (never saw his face but will never forget his hand) while walking in the vegetable market with my mom. She had just given me the worst haircut and as an angry teenager I was upset at her and was lagging behind as she walked ahead. I still remember what I was wearing. It was her dress, mustard with flowers and little bow in the front. How I hate that dress! As if, it was the dress’s fault.

I was shocked at first. Speechless. He disappeared. I just stood there. Tears started pouring out of my innocent eyes. I told my mom who went mad screaming in the market but who knew where that man disappeared to. I still remember the dirty feeling I had and the number of times I showered in my grand-mom’s bathroom after. That feeling never went away.

Since then it was non-stop. I would try to articulate this to my parents and while my mom understood, my dad and uncles told me I was imagining it. Maybe they just couldn’t deal with it. CAN YOU?

When I was 15, I started going by train and bus to St. Xaviers’ College. I was groped and touched and from all angles and this was just how I grew up. Not Just Me but MOST INDIAN WOMEN who don’t have the luxury of cars and drivers.

As a teenager I would dream of and still sometimes dream that I had a machine gun and could kill all the men who tried to grope me. A very disturbing dream for a kid, don’t you think?

I got my first assignment as a model in the FYJC and I had to go to screen-tests straight from college. So I had to dress nice, didn’t make it any easier. I specifically remember the time I went for an audition in a red body suit and a black long skirt with slits. It was HELL! I never wore that again. As if it was the dress’s fault.

I developed ways to defend myself, I always carried a bag in front of me, my fist was always clenched, I always turned around every 20 seconds to check who was behind me and a few times I slapped men who touched me, I got slapped back many times too. Sometimes saved by the public, MOST TIMES NOT.

My mom begged me not to pick fights with men who touched me, she was afraid of acid being thrown at me or that somebody someday would hurt me badly. She is STILL AFRAID and today she told me not to take an UBER to my meeting tomorrow. Hell ya. BAN UBER! Make everyone take responsibility for this.

My sister got into Sophia’s college, we were all excited. She went by bus but the first day she came home, she sobbed traumatized. A man had put his hand in her tee-shirt through her sleeve, the entire bus ride. She just froze. She was a kid too and wasn’t equipped to even understand this. I was LIVID. I’m sorry sis for telling the world this, please don’t stop speaking to me. IT’S NOT Our Shame. It’s THEIRS!

One of my friends in college was RAPED on the train on her way home in the ladies compartment. She was sick and was going home in the 11:15 break. There was nobody in the first class compartment going back to Bandra at that time, it was a superfast meaning it didn’t stop at most stations. He raped her and then jumped off after using her scrunchy (hair tie) to wipe himself. She was the only one on the train and had to limp her way back to her home in Bandra, bleeding profusely. She was just 16. This she felt was her shame so she did not say anything to anyone.

BUT IT ISN’T HER SHAME, it’s THEIR SHAME.

My mom accompanied me to Hyderabad on a shoot once. In churi bazaar, a cyclist groped My MOM. My dear respected and lovely MOM.

Sorry Mom, IT’S NOT Our Shame, It’s THEIR SHAME.

Why am I telling you my personal story?

Well first I want all women to Speak Up.

Let’s make this our MOTTO-

It’s not OUR SHAME, it’s THEIR SHAME.

Who are “THEY”?

“THEY” ARE THE MEN IN OUR COUNTRY.

Not just the rapists and the sexual offenders and gropers but also our Fathers (sorry dad) and Uncles and Brothers and MOVIE STARS AND CRICKETERS AND POLITICIANS for not SAVING US or PROTECTING US by insisting and protesting for the LAWS TO CHANGE and Rapists and Gropers to BE PUNISHED SEVERELY!

Why do we as women have to feel so threatened? WHY has there been no severe action taken? This has gone on for years now. Not just in Delhi but all over our country and yes even in BOMBAY OR MUMBAI OR Whatever the hell you want to call it! It’s NOT SAFE. NO!

My biggest fear ever since I was kid and even today when I walk back home at night from yoga or when I take a rickshaw from a friend’s home is being RAPED. I still feel that fear. I am still am on guard. I still fantasize of having that MACHINE GUN.

In the past 4 years I have been living and working half in India and half in New York and let me tell you I have walked the streets of Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn (perceived as the most dangerous in NYC) at3am after parties in short skirts and felt safer than I feel in Bandra at 10 pm on a quiet road fully covered. WHY??

Let’s talk about Delhi our Capital. I was there 2 days ago and the day of the rape. I wanted to go out and walk by India Gate and admire our great monuments but could I?! Why??

What good are all your speeches in the US or Japan or AUSTRALIA- NAMO, if no woman can walk freely in the streets even in broad daylight by herself in the CAPITAL OF OUR COUNTRY. Isn’t this a SHAME? SHAME ON YOU SIR.

This is our NO1 issue. FIX THIS before anything else.

This is a SHAME. And it’s YOUR SHAME. You are now RESPONSIBLE FOR US.

I beg all of you fine gentlemen that I have addressed to help change the LAW.

You are powerful men. I say, SHAME and PUNISH THE Gropers and Sexual offenders severely. KILL THE RAPISTS.

I won’t ask for public castration which is what I want and all the women want because I know this is unrealistic and things move SO DAMN SLOW in our FINE NATION.

All I ask for is the -Death Penalty Please. NOW! QUICK!

If that’s too hard or will take too long then at least LIFE IMPRISONMENT.

Put them away forever.

Why was this man who had raped twice before out on bail?

And then given a drivers license? YES, BAN UBER TOO. Make everyone responsible.

I’m ready to do anything. I’m not a big enough celeb but you Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Sharukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Anil Ambani SIRS- need to speak up as MEN ( you are the men with the power)

SAVE US!

Please demand the Death Sentence for the Rapists.

NO BAIL. Just Death.

Superstars I beg you, please take a stand. Use your Superstardom and Power and MONEY and save the women of our country. SAVE US!

I urge you to protest or go on a fast or do something DRASTIC so people take notice, the government wakes up and CHANGES the LAW so these men are terrified to touch us.

Death to rapists. No bail. Just death.

Imagine Amitabh Bachchan Sir, Aamir Khan, Salmaan Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Ambani- if you went on a fast or walked to the Rashrtrapati In Delhi. If you, took this stand and made this YOUR NO 1 issue, how much change there would be?!

Why should we as women feel so unsafe in our motherland?!

Why should we as women be terrified and on guard all the time.

Why was this man out on bail after committed two rapes already ?

Make an Example Of Him.

Any man who even touches a woman should be imprisoned for life.

Be strict, make examples of these men, scare those who dare to touch us.

SCARE THEM BY MAKING AN EXAMPLE OUT OF THEM.

SAVE US, Save your mother, daughter, sister please!

This is NOT OUR SHAME.

THIS IS YOURS.

SHAME ON YOU.

Don’t sleep till you – SAVE YOUR WOMEN!

With all respect,
Shenaz Treasurywala

(Source: Indicine)

A brief history of ‘Khan,’ the name that rules Bollywood and stalls airport security lines

Bollywood’s three biggest stars are all Khans, though they are not related. Together, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan rule even mundane aspects of Indian life. Shah Rukh is said to endorse more goods than any other Indian, dead or alive. His face is everywhere, looming over roads and in the pages of magazines, hawking the stuff that makes a life — from the luxe (Apple toys and motorbikes) to the dull (AC units and pens).

Aamir, the good guy, hosts a national talk show, avoids tabloids, and is often cited as a dream political candidate. Salman is the brute — the Crowe to Shah Rukh’s Clooney and Aamir’s Damon. He’s forever in the news for some sin that won’t hurt his box-office clout, whether it’s joking about rape, or killing a rare animal for sport.

The “Khandom,” to quote director Karan Johar, is real. Nothing can take down a Bollywood Khan. Of the country’s ten top-earning movies ever, the Khan triumvirate star, separately, in eight. One of the others is narrated by a Khan: Irrfan — of Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, and other blockbusters.

Excepting Salman (whose movies draw smaller audiences stateside), the above Khans have all been detained multiple times in Western airports since 9/11, long before the travel ban came to pass. So has the boxer Amir Khan, causing a notable enough Heathrow event that David Cameron stepped in (a U.S. immigration officer stopped him, en route to Vegas, on the anniversary of 9/11); the actress Zareen Khan, in JFK; acclaimed directors Sajid Khan and Kabir Khan, the latter reportedly in three different U.S. airports the same year; and Imran Khan, one of the most globally famous Pakistanis, who was forced to opine on drones.

Readying for a transatlantic media trip in 2008, the television star Iqbal Khan says he turned up earlier than anyone else in his group to the embassy office, yet was the only one denied a visa because, he surmised, “my name is Mohammed Iqbal Khan.” Irrfan Khan nearly quit Hollywood after being made to sit for hours in back rooms with no explanation, in both LAX and JFK. “When I tried to ask why I was being treated this way, I was told to keep quiet,” he told a reporter, calling the experience “humiliating.” “I wasn’t allowed to use my phone. They said, ‘No, you just sit down.’ All because my name was Irrfan Khan.”

Compared to recent airport drama, these injustices pale. Families weren’t split indefinitely, no young children kept from their mothers. But Donald Trump’s travel ban didn’t come from nowhere, though the sudden sensitivity for Muslim travelers can seem to suggest it did. For years, Muslims have surrendered all power inside American airports — even those with great power outside them. Arguably, no case proves the absurdity of modern profiling more than Khan. On one side of the world, the surname signifies godlike greatness. On the other, it convicts its holder of crimes uncommitted.

In 2015, the U.S. government introduced a measure to excuse VIPs, VVIPs, and VVVIPs — to use the lingo of India, a country obsessed with hierarchy — from airport questioning. India was to enter the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program, bumping Indian elite out of security lines. The measure seems to have stalled. India is not yet listed online as an official member; and last summer, one of the VVVIPs to be protected by the pre-check system was again detained: Shah Rukh, in LAX, where he gamely caught Pokémon during the hours spent waiting. (The TSA did not respond to requests for comment on India’s Global Entry status.)

It was SRK’s fourth detainment in the U.S. (the only country to ever stop him), and was as memorable as the rest. His third detainment tracked with the 2012 global tour of My Name Is Khan, a blockbuster about a Muslim family man in America, fighting for equal treatment. The irony did not escape fans, who wondered if the airport hassle was a setup.

From Khan, it produced a legendary quote, on the twisted art of profiling. Speaking at the podium at Yale University — hours late, having been detained — he quipped: “Whenever I start feeling too arrogant, I take a trip to America.” The next year, writing for the magazine Outlook, he grew serious. The name Khan — once evocative of “a strapping man riding a horse, his reckless hair flowing from beneath a turban tied firm around his head” — had warped in our new age to describe a new sort of man: “shoved into a backroom of a vast American airport named after an American president.”

The nobler sense of Khan goes back centuries. The name is derived from a title, adapted from the Turkish word for “king.” Demand for it spread, through mountain tribes, into Central Asia (thanks Genghis), morphing as it went. In China, it became Xan, and was handed out by Ming-dynasty emperors. Hindu courtiers of 16th-century India could become Khans, if Emperor Akbar took a liking to them. There are Hindu Khans, and Buddhist Khans, though it is largely a Muslim surname. Nowadays, it’s one of the most common last names in the world: As of 2014, more doctors in the U.K. were named Khan than anything else.

In Bollywood, thanks to the successes of its bearers, the name retains that first, regal, sheen. Some years ago, the renowned Harvard professor Shahab Ahmed spoke to a reporter hoping to crack why India’s biggest movie stars were Khans. Ahmed was the authority on the matter, at work on a book on the history of Khans in Bollywood. He died before its completion, and his insights paint a half-formed picture of how the name came to the screen: via a tribe of Pashtun warriors — Khans — who left Afghanistan for India, and young Bollywood.

These early Khans were skilled, but not, to use Ahmed’s word, “influential.” It was an Afghan Khan who wrote the first-ever Bollywood song, for example, for the industry’s first talkie. By the 1950s, at least two Khans were stars — Madhubala and Dilip Kumar — though they’d adopted faux Hindu names. (India holds as confused a relationship with Muslims as any nation.)

Khandom theories exist. Most are conspiracies, about a Muslim underworld controlling Bollywood; some credit the Khans’s Afghan blood for the fair skin that seduces Indian audiences. Perhaps the simplest answer is best, though. Salman and Aamir each claim parents in the industry. Their ancestors were those early Khans, working in the dark, so their descendants could stand in the spotlight. (As for Shah Rukh, son of an activist and homemaker, he’s keeping the Khan mystery alive.)*

Any travelling Muslim today might view faith as a malleable force, to be downplayed or celebrated with care, depending on context. It’s therefore a boon, in a sense, when VVVIPs are held to the same standards. A person used to special treatment calls out injustices others swallow. What separates a Bollywood Khan from the rest, after all, is he still sees himself as a hero.

(Source: Vulture)

How Anupam Kher's acting school killed my Bollywood dream

In the spring of 1994, I posted a letter to film director Raj Kumar Santoshi requesting him to launch me as an actress when I’m all grown up. His address I found on the pages of CineBlitz, a magazine I regularly read as a kid to get my fill of Bollywood gossip; there weren’t too many entertainment outlets for us except for watching films on VCR and we did so religiously.

Many Pakistanis may despise India and Indians but not Bollywood; it is seen as a separate entity, a secular space filled with as many Khans as Kumars. The return of Hindi cinema on our screens is both a moment of jubilation and relief for us, even if some people don’t like admitting it.

I never heard back from Santoshi or from Madhuri Dixit to whom I had dispatched a birthday card as well, but the fascination with Bombay only grew over time, even as I left for Canada with my family as a teen. Years later, right after completing university, the filmi bug raised its shiny head again reminding me of the countless "best actress award" acceptance speeches I’d given under my blanket each night, and the promise I made to myself of buying a house next to Shah Rukh's.

I just had to give it a try, so I enrolled myself in Anupam Kher’s acting school, a training ground for young aspirants, exploiting the dreams of the naive and promising them a good future in return. The process of getting selected in the school was a tedious one, ensuring that everyone landing in Juhu felt like "ab btoh star ban hee gaye yaar".

There were young men and women from the smallest of towns in India, who had saved up for months to make it to this prestigious school, sitting with their widest smiles as Kher went around asking for introductions on the first day itself.

There was also a coterie of exceptionally well-turned out, affluent young people sitting in a corner by themselves. Some were recommendations of superstars, others belonged to a filmi gharana; they each took their turn explaining in their broken Hindi why they wanted to act.

I’m probably the only Pakistani to have attended Actor Prepares, I thought to myself and disclosed this information to everyone upon my turn. I also saw myself as an equivalent to any Indian there - in the realm of cinema we were equal as spectators, we were all one ticket each, so ideally everyone should hold a fair chance to making it inside B-town.

The Pakistani film industry is still in its nascent stages of being revived and already overpopulated with well known TV stars. Indian films have always been our drug to escape civil unrest, volatile attacks and the forever-palpitating political scenario, and so they have been an involuntary part of our culture since Partition.

As vocal as Anupam Kher may be against corruption now, it was disheartening to see that his acting school was filled with the same incongruencies found elsewhere. 

"But you don’t look Pakistani," exclaimed a fellow struggler to me in our dance class. Of course I didn’t - not in the way Indians had come to recognise Pakistanis - I was dusky, short, and on the plumper side of things and all the more conscious of it, sitting among Kingfisher Calendar girls touching up their make-up every few minutes.

I had instead packed with me a whole lot of zeal and the willingness to learn which I soon learnt weren’t needed at all. They paled in comparison to connections and the insane amount of money required just to survive in the aspiring-actor circuit.

Finding accommodation turned out to be an easy-task for me, my hybrid sounding name helped; the landlady mistook me for being half-Christian and half-Sikh; soon my Urdu gave me away but by then we had bonded strongly over her devrani-jethani family politics discussions each evening.

Within the acting school though were strange divides which became apparent early on. Nepotism ruled the day, and those of us that felt neglected started meeting outside of class on Juhu beach, discussing prejudice while devouring panipuri. We felt belittled in front of celebrity rug rats, much like children born out of wedlock.

Some batchmates tried compensating for their dilemma by clicking umpteen selfies with Anupam Kher, and also guest speakers, to send back home. This kept their parents fooled into thinking that their talented child was hobnobbing with people that mattered in the industry. It was frustrating to watch the faculty place their faith into those born with a silver spoon overlooking the common man’s hunger for expression.

"I want my fee refunded... bas," I said one fine night to my friends as we made plans to revolt. Suddenly I felt like the union leader of labourers in some B-grade Mithun-starrer demanding "hamari maange poori karo". However, I could sense that most people were petrified of rubbing Kher the wrong way, it may affect their filmi future they figured - so plans for the mutiny were dropped.

As vocal as Kher may be against corruption now, it was disheartening to see that his acting school was filled with the same incongruencies found elsewhere. Cinema is perhaps the only domain in our subcontinent that allows people to make vast economic jumps.

Being the eldest in a family of all girls, hailing from an upper middle class set up, I had envisioned that a life filled with celluloid stardust would relief us of always budgeting our desires - of checking the price tag first and then deciding to like something or not.

Bollywood’s quota system for their own kind may have aborted my cinematic dream but it could never rob from me the pleasure of watching stories unfold on the big screen.

There was however another way of breaking it in, it was by getting into the good books of Salman Khan - but I was neither a foreigner nor a look-alike of one of his exes.

(Source: Daily Yo)