So the undisputed Sultan of mass
appeal has delivered yet another blockbuster film. No one can refute the fact
that Salman Khan knows his audience and has perfected the art of pandering to
its whims and fancies, no matter how juvenile it makes him look for a man past
his prime. But then, this man is hardly past his prime even where age is
concerned if he is able to romance heroines half his age and pulverise much
fitter pahelwaans so convincingly, right? So what if the silver grey in his
hair and the sagging skin on his face are tough to get rid of and manage to get
their share of the spotlight and his dance moves look like a child could do
better! It is all fair in the name of a mindblowing Bollywood potboiler.
Critics may go on raging against the fact that he has been sticking to a plot
that has long been flogged dead with every successive hit but if his massive
box office figures are anything to go by, we are witnessing a superstar’s
innings whose strike rate is far from waning just yet. Like it or not, from
chasing skirts or in this film, Anushka’s salwar in ‘Baby ko bass pasand hai’
to running after kites, this man sure looks like he can get away with murder.
Oops! Let’s ignore that pun for the moment.
No matter how unheroic this man’s
criminal record may look like, the truth is his fans can’t be more adulatory
when it comes to putting him on a pedestal and the industry would rather
tolerate his tantrums than let go of a hero who enjoys such clout at the box
office, spanning the multiplex to the small town single screen audience. His
films don’t need A R Rahman’s musical talent, Rajkumar Hirani or Imtiaz Ali’s
directorial flair and a co-star with tried and tested chemistry. This man has
changed the rules of filmmaking to suit his comfort level. The stories are
simple, the narration spiffy, the music foot-tapping or at least hummable, the
dialogues are an excuse to showcase his machismo and the comedy rib-tickling.
It has all the ingredients of a paisa-vasool dekko for an audience that digs
escapist fare and can’t get enough of it. When he laughs, you laugh, when he
cries, you are reasonably moved and when the film is over, you are relieved
that everything managed to fall in to place and you were left with a happy
ending and a silly smile to take back home.
It is a take away yours truly is
also truly guilty of. I remember shedding a tear when little Munni unites with
her Maamu in the last scene of Bajrangi Bhaijaan or in this film, when Sultan
reunites with his wife. You may be able to predict these end-results ages
before you actually reach them but that doesn’t stop you from falling flat for
the melodrama served to you like the generous platter of biryani Salman is
known to dole out at his Id parties. Like he says in a scene in the film where
Amit Sadh who gives him his career’s second break is trying to coax him in to
joining him at his birthday party. “Melodrama!” “Hamare gaon mein kahavat hai,
Angrezi mein sunata hoon, ‘Don’t teach your father how to make babies.” Quite
clearly, Salman knows how to milk the audience’s emotional quotient and mint
money with it.
So inspirational is his bravado
that I wasn’t surprised when a hefty boy sitting next to me exclaimed after
watching Sultan’s triumph to his dad, “Main bhi kushti ladhunga Papa aur world
champion banke dikhaunga.” To which his unimpressed Dad retorted, “Ye picture
se. Ghar chal chora, tuition ke liye late ho jaave hai.” Yeah. I watched the
film at a neighbourhood theatre in Haryana and if you ask me what’s the best
part of the film, it is the fact that it put hitherto ‘uncool’ places like
Faridabad and Rewari on the map of breeding hubs for well-bred wrestlers who can raise the country’s calibre on an international
platform.
