For the past one and a half months, there has been a rise of the Rip Van Winkles of India. They have woken up and suddenly realized that India has become intolerant. Without going into the details and being accused of whataboutery, I wonder what made Aamir Khan feel so ‘insecure’ in India?
‘Kiran and I have lived all our lives in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India? That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make to me. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day. That does indicate that there is a sense of growing disquiet,” said Aamir Khan.
I can understand some of the other actors or starlets making random meaningless statements and trending for the next twenty-four hours. But with Aamir Khan hadn’t we thought he was one of those ‘responsible’ members of civil society? For Aamir Khan to make a statement about leaving India is not only ridiculous but also elitist. Also isn’t it funny that he calls his wife’s view ‘disastrous’ yet shares it on a public platform? Even if I give him the benefit of the doubt for being my crush when I was a nine-year-old and believe the disquiet he is talking about, I wonder if leaving a country or home would ever be an option for me or millions of citizens of this country. Is running away from a problem a solution? Also, let us presume India is an extremely intolerant nation and one needs to look for greener pastures. In such a scenario how many of commoners would get a chance to leave the nation?
One must not attach too much faith on reel characters or narrations. Wasn’t it Aamir’s film that had the ‘koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota. Usey behtar banana padhta hai’? Escapism can be romanticized, but can never be a solution. Maybe he is just proving what Madhavan said in the same Rang De Basanti ; ‘ghar ki safai mein haath gande kaun kare’. When you have all the means of leading a better life away from India, why stay here? India is after all the golden goose that will give Aamir more topics like bride burning or caste killings and a few more glazed eye episodes for TV.
Kiran Rao might have had a talk with her husband and I hold nothing against her. It is her private life and what she says to her husband is her freedom. But for Aamir Khan to come to a public platform and spell it out is nothing short of scaremongering. Doesn’t Aamir realize how crazy India is about Bollywood?
Also, one might wonder if Aamir has allayed his wife’s fear or courted it. And even though I consider him to be one of the few thinking actors of the 150 crore club; by his one statement he has only taken a bouncer from the ‘fringe’. His wish to leave the country is so in tune with the cacophony of ‘go to Pakistan’. He also plays into the ‘other’ and ‘outsider’ syndrome.
Even as Aamir Khan talks from his high chair, the Dadri victim’s family waits for justice. Would, for example, Akhlaq’s family leaving India give them justice? It is indeed nice to talk about relocation when one has a microphone and lights and camera at their disposal. One realizes what leaving means when they have no option to look back. Aamir Khan could just visit some refugee camps. Maybe he would realize there is nothing romantic about leaving ones homeland. He could connect to the Syrians that are desperately seeking for asylum and try and fathom their pain. Or he could connect with the families of the victims of the recent Paris attacks and ask them what ‘disquiet’ really means. I am not suggesting he connect with any of the distressed in India, because if he had he wouldn’t feel insecure all of a sudden. Most of us have grown with a fear of losing loved ones to riots and terrorism. That has also given us our strength to empathize, forgive and be brave.
I wonder if Aamir felt the same disquiet when he was researching for Satyamev Jayate. I would lie if I said I was unmoved by his scripted tears. But I believe Aamir was unmoved by his own episodes. From domestic violence, honor killings, medical negligence, child and sexual abuse; hadn’t he seen it all in Satyamev Jayate? Wasn’t that fear and insecurity rocking him then?
Also, if Aamir Khan believes that his wife ‘fears about what the atmosphere around us will be’, he could just give her DVDs of his movies. I say this because I strongly believe cinema is a mirror of society. He could suggest she watch the Dons in his debut Yaadon ki Baraat and their reign of terror in the seventies. Or maybe how young lives are lost like his onscreen character of Qayamat Se Qayamat tak. Or his films like Raakh where his lady love is raped, or the tapori’s life in Ghulam. That is the muck we have in India. Nothing has changed. But instead of taking political sides and whining and complaining we should try and clean that mess. Well Aamir’s onscreen character ACP Rathore chose the same and then when India still did not become tolerant, Aamir had to become Surjan Shekhawat again for Talaash.
One realizes how everything is wrong in a nation when even Owaisi makes more sense. ‘We’ll be doing great disservice to freedom fighters by even verbally saying that we’re thinking of leaving India’, says Owaisi. And how true. Sad Aamir belongs to the family of one of the greatest men of India’s contemporary history.
Maybe it is really not ‘Incredible India’ but ‘Intolerant India’ for Aamir. And I wonder which is that utopian land Aamir would want to move to. Aamir reminds me of the Great Buddha’s teaching when he had sent a woman to look for that house where no one has ever died. The woman did not find any such house. And Aamir would find no such utopian land. Unless he become the modern day Columbus and discovers a new land for himself and the Rip Van Winkles of India.
