In a recent Facebook post, an army officer has exposed how Twinkle Khanna tried to auction her husband Akshay Kumar’s costume in Rustom. She tried portraying it as the auction of a ‘Navy uniform’. The officer, Lt. Col. Sandeep Ahlawat wrote a short open letter to Twinkle Khanna exposing how she tried to dupe people. In the hard hitting post, he called the idea of raising money for her NGO by selling of the costume in the garb of uniform as sick as her blogs.
In a point by point rebuttal, the officer made it clear that what Akshay Kumar wore in the movie was a mere costume and not a uniform. With the aid of a photograph attached with the post in which the widow of a martyr is standing next to the martyr’s well organised uniform, he reiterated how Indian Armed Forces wives do not even consider the auctioning of their husbands’ uniforms. In what will irk self-proclaimed liberals within Bollywood, the post made it clear that a uniform is not a mere piece of cloth handed over by a film producer. The permission to wear the uniform is a privilege in itself that comes directly from the office of the President. A soldier earns the uniform with blood, sweat and tears. It does not come easily and entitles the mortal remains of a soldier to be draped in the Tricolour. Finally, he issued a piece of advice to the auctioneer making it clear that he will drag them to Court even if a feeble attempt is made to pass off the costume as a uniform. As any diligent army officer would, he made it clear that if anyone attempts to tarnish the honour of the forces they will be given a bloody nose.
After this post went viral, Twinkle Khanna’s ploy was out in the open. Left without any plausible defence and having the grudge that Bollywood pseudo-liberals have against the forces, it was no surprise that she refrained from apologising. Therefore, she did what one would have expected her to do. She played the ‘woman card’. In her tweet, she tried to play victim and questioned how a woman can be threatened with bodily harm. In all probability she is deliberately misconstruing to the “bloody nose” remark which means to defeat someone. She still went ahead trying to project herself as harmlessly trying to auction ‘a mere uniform’ used in a movie. The key takeaway from this tweet was the way she tried playing the victim card for no reason and persisting with her ploy of calling the costume a uniform.
As a society do we really think it’s all right to threaten a woman with bodily harm for trying to raise funds for a charity by auctioning a uniform used in a movie,a piece of film memorabilia ? I will not retaliate with violent threats but by taking legal action! #JaiHind https://t.co/OF7e5lTHel
— Twinkle Khanna (@mrsfunnybones) April 29, 2018
The army officer has however come back clearing the air about the ‘bloody nose’ remark. He has made it clear that the idiom in common terminology means to defeat someone and does not amount to extending physical threats. He has again exposed how the actress known for her controversial blogs is trying to play the woman card in order to divert attention from her fraudulent auction. In this post he has hit back at Twinkle Khanna and made it clear that though he is not itching for a legal fight, if pushed to the corner he will stand by the honour of every soldier who has ever donned the uniform to protect his motherland. Signing off as a hurt citizen, he wished Twinkle Khanna and like-minded people truck loads of money with the only request of sparing the honour of uniformed personnel.
Bollywood actors, including the illustrious ones, have exploited the patriotic sentiments of the citizens of the country and the aura around the armed forces to a great extent. It has yielded sizeable returns for Bollywood. In such circumstances what we could have least expected was some basic respect towards the forces and the uniform that our soldiers so proudly wear. Mockery of the uniform central to any of the defence forces is not tolerable. What Twinkle Khanna and everyone else in Bollywood needs to understand is that a uniform is not bought but earned by great toil. It is an offence under the Indian law to dupe others into parting with money or property. Being on the wrong side, Twinkle Khanna should have apologised as soon as she was exposed. However, she was unfazed and tried to use the woman card to malign the army officer so that she could avoid being called out.
