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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil




Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has a bunch of my friends acting in it. It has my brother Imran in a special appearance, which is now, I suspect, chopped to a considerable extent due to the stupidity of some petty minds, where people who are not related to those people have had to suffer. I care less what your political opinion is – a friend is a friend and a brother is a brother to me, and I don’t let politics rule my feelings when it is love that I feel for them.

Of course, I feel nothing but contempt to the way some people have handled things, and I am NOT interested in anyone making any sharp remarks here. If you are even slightly tempted to do so then I suggest you go face a mirror and let your mouldy minds loose before the reflection.

I don’t frankly know how the movie will do, but, yes, this is what I know – if you have no filth in your head, then please do watch it, and the ones with garbage can have some more stuffed into their heads: they deserve nothing else!

Fawad Afzal Khan is a brother and Imran Abbas Naqvi is my family and I stand by my family because the public means nothing to me, my blood does. 

PS: READ THIS WITH AN OPEN MIND AND A CLEAR HEART.

WARNING: NOT FOR INTOLERANT EXTREMISTS. 


I agree the producers had a rather colossal amount invested in their movie, and it is not rocket science to discern too that by now they would have recovered what they had invested in it, and certainly made far more from endorsements and other tie-ups. The industry is tough, and yet, not as tough as it is made out to be. Yes, what would have been lost is the surplus profit from the box office collections. I agree that one does not work on a project to ruin it, BUT this was not about that, was it now? Two nations happened to break into a scuffle for reasons they best know, and who bears the brunt of it? The innocents.

Yes, the neighbouring countries have been at war not from today, but from the day the politicians decided, back in the time, that it was a money-spinning machine, a community-dividing strategy, for them to use, as and when the opportunity arose, BUT this is not about politics, it is about disgraceful and disgusting politics, but beyond it all, it is about your allegiance to your friendship and your brotherhood, and by apologising and curtsying to the commands of those who are controlling you, you have confirmed in clear actions that money makes us do awful things, and it is ONLY money that matters, and nothing else. I do sympathise with the way things have gone, but I think that to betray your brother and his friendship is no less than eating your brother’s flesh while he is alive.

Let us keep the political beliefs aside and view it fairly. Several movies NEVER see the light of the day. They remain in cans and decay forever. This one could have been counted one amongst those, could it not? You did not have to make it appear like MONEY was ALL that MATTERED and NOTHING MORE. Or, better yet, you could have scratched your head and come up with clever ways, like say, distributing the movie digitally, or through any other fitting medium that would have reaped you similar profits and still did not end up hurting sentiments. We claim that we are brains on everything right, so why didn’t we put those ‘brains’ to use. A via media could have been established wherein you could have planned movies with the same people you had grown to revere, away from the countries that were at loggerheads. Don’t Americans make movies outside America, and English outside England? Not like you were chained only to a particular country, and it certainly was not the SOLE money spinner, that if the powers that be had created a furore, like wet cats you obliterated the feelings you had avowed to your loved ones in a riffle by claiming under such pressure that you will NEVER WORK WITH THEM EVER AGAIN. The love for money makes one do and say such pathetic things I tell you that it is deplorable that we have to live with those who praise us until they see value in us, and plead ignorance in order to keep their slate clean when their life is in peril.  

Yes, it was a give and take. Our country needed people from the other side to bring alive our roles with panache, (it is no secret that our actors were done and dusted) and they, from the other side, needed us to help further their exposure, BUT didn’t the others from the other side realise that they had an advantage over us – they not only have the physical talent, but also the mental acumen to give us a run for our prowess if they wanted to, while we, who were using them (from the other side) had limited talent in the physical department (nearly all our actors have wrecked us financially due to over glorification of those who lack talent to begin with) barring some who still had the gift of penmanship and were stirring up some spectacular scripts without the aid of the so called flop superstars. Pitiable we still call these flop shows saleable. I don’t know who is fooling whom, but it is high time we wake up from la la land and face reality. 

I was asked a couple of days ago – Yeh tadap kya hai unn logon ke liye? (Why this pining for those people?) I would say – Ek kutte ko aur zyaada izzat dete ho yahaan, aur mujhe poochte ho ke mere bhai ke liye itne tadap kyun hai? (You give a dog more respect here, and ask me why I have feelings for my brother?). Let me make this clear, it is not a crime to love anyone from anywhere, and second, no one can question my patriotism simply because I choose to love my brethren for who they are and not for anything that I can make out of them. I am as much a citizen of this country, and this is my motherland as much as it is yours, and if my country has had a scrap with some other country why should we as civilians pay the price, eh? Why don’t you get the collar of those who are responsible for all that is happening rather than using the common man as a scapegoat? I quite honestly think that the people here must REFRAIN from making me prove my loyalty time and time again! Disagreements and displeasure are perfectly understandable, everyone faces them one way or the other, at some time or the other, BUT to call people beggars, abuse them and shower them with other expletives, the purpose of which was nothing than to demean them was terribly unbecoming of us, us, who claim to be superior at a drop of a hat. What saddens me is that we are, most unfortunately, living in a time where grace and politeness is alien to people at large, where decorum and propriety is smirked upon rather than taken as one’s second skin, but the finest trait of human nature is that we adapt, and indeed, we have to make do by making the best out of the worst situation. That said, we are free to express our dissimilarity in deed and thought, but we must not insult and disrespect human beings. Not judge them based on creed, or demonstrate our hatred in such dreadful ways. Had the names been Anil or Adam, would you have banned them from acting in our cinema, or created the uproar you have now created? Both of us know the answer to that, don’t we?

What would I have done if I were in that place? Let me explain it to you like this –

A war breaks out between two nations. My brother who has been my brother for more reasons than one has been there for me. He has made his money with my nation, and my nation has used him because they know that they can make money with him. It has been an interdependent relationship. Once the trading of money had been done with professionally, one realised that one had established a rapport with people, as people generally do. In time HE has gone from being just a commodity to someone who has become a part of your life, or so he is led to believe. You reckon that you connect with him more than you may connect with many others who are out there to debone you until your bones wear out, and at the slightest hint of unrest, what do you do? You choose to be the geedar (jackal) and take to your heels when in actuality you ought to be standing by those who have stood by you.

It would dent me, yes, but I would let that damn money go, because life is NOT about MONEY. Life is about LOVE and RELATIONSHIPS. Life is about my BROTHER. It is about the BOND we establish with those irrespective of not having the same blood run in our veins, and for that bond I would lay my life out gladly, and certainly NOT trivialise it by choosing material over man. I would certainly not yield to brainless bullies, and retract my words under any circumstances because it was my brother who mattered to me and not those who have wolfed millions and will still continue to devour millions more in their hatred and politics whether I am alive or not. Am I being a deserter in the eyes of some? I suppose so. Those who are calling those dying in the name of the mess they have created themselves as martyrs will do away with those who oppose them in a jiffy, and label people as traitors, yet what these fancy-car-driving, and branded-clothes-wearing geedars do not realise is that there is more to life than mere fluff and swollen heads. They don’t realise that your brother may forgive you, that is his tehzeeb (culture), but you will never be able to see eye to eye with him for the stuff you said about him in order to save your skin, and someone with a wee bit of conscience would know it would kill them, unless of course you are a part of the unreasonable clique because as I see it ‘conscience’ seems rather in short supply in this era.  

People failed to realise that I can adopt another country as my home, BUT I will NEVER get a replacement for my brother. The people who have toed the line have clearly indicated that what matters to them is only their vested interests. That we needed you, to make use of you for our benefit, and when we thought you were a threat to us we backtracked and decided to play safe. If I were you, I would walk away from such opportunists. However, the magnanimity of some from there is that even in the face of adversity they talked of peace and leaving the world happier for the next generation. Hats off to you all, and I don’t know if you will ever understand what I feel, but I love you all from the deepest core and corner of my heart. YOU are all important to me just as these are all important to me. I care any less for your stature like I care less for their stature. One can find an actor, any actor, to enact in a movie; they are purchasable for a fee, BUT the heart-to-heart connection that you establish with your people is not something that one puts to test against measurable, variable terms. It is something you protect at all costs, under trying circumstances because that is where you show your real fibre, your bare-naked self, and our people have been a pathetic example of relationships and brotherhood and FAILED on all counts.

Forgive me for I know I have been repetitive, and I have just let my mind flow without any stopping it. You can say that it was like a volcano waiting for a vent. I also know I have been emotional and so be it. What’s to life if we have to be careful and calculative all the time? We have seen that it hasn’t done any wonders anyway.


Once the hullabaloo surrounding this is done with, I quite look forward to Tum Bin 2 written, co-produced and directed by my bade bhaiyya (elder brother) Anubhav Sinha. It has the charming Aashim Gulati, the chiselled Aditya Seal and the cute Neha Sharma quite ready to captivate us with their artistry. And god knows we need something to make us feel nice than to be embroiled in a man-made mess that is taking us nowhere really. 

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Ali Zafar - My Brother. My Life. My Reason For Being!



My darling, my charming, and my favourite younger brother at a gig last night. When he is not composing, reading, writing, keeping awake to find ingenious ways to make the world a better place. When he is not painting, or being the perfect brother that he is, he picks his guitar up, or let's his fingertips bring life to the keys of the piano just like the magical dust that he sprinkles on each of us makes us better because of him being around us. He raises us to love ourselves more, and his lips break into a satisfied smile when he observes how we hand over that love he has given us to someone else. He enjoys doing what he loves, and we enjoy watching him enjoy doing what he loves, and love him even more for living his dream. 

We are fortunate to have him in the family. I would never choose any other time to be born, if I am ever given a chance; a life without my brother would be no life worth living. Only in the rarest of the rare instances do the younger one's become the torchbearers of the legacy when the older ones are still alive, but he is one who has managed to reach heights that when we watch him our eyes go moist with pride and our chests swell with love. I would give my life for him without thinking a wink, and that is what he deserves - us to love him the way he deserves to be loved: with our heart and soul, and with every ounce of our blood, although somewhere I feel that is still not enough for what he is to us and what he does for us.  

Love you my Zee!!!








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Danyal Zafar - Most Importantly LOVE


My Kidd Danyal shared the image I am pasting below. If only people had truly understood the meaning of life, the gravity of love, and that we are here today and gone before we can even bat our eyelids, they would not be behaving in the way they are now behaving.

Shocking to see how low we can stoop to unthinkable levels of spite in stating that we are protecting our values when we are actually falling into a deeper ravine of indecency every single time we demean someone else.


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The October 17th Boys!



Many may be born on the same day, BUT to be connected to them the way Anand and I are connected is something of pure chance and pure bliss. Thank you my dear mate for making life the coolest, day in and day out, with your words of encouragement and inspiration.


All I managed was a mere “Happy birthday, bro!” this morning, and this is what Anand sent me. As you all must have surmised by now I am nowhere close to him to even think, leave alone inscribe something like this, so without much further ado I am sharing what my buddy (whom I share my birthday with) sent me this morning.

Many thanks for your love and all of it right back at you, multiplied a million times over! 


17/10/16, 06:52:41: Anand Sivakumaran:

Dear Fara,

Happy Birthday.

Have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day. And year.

In fact why stop there, I pray that every day henceforth is a never ceasing joyride of adventure and love and exhilaration and enthusiasm and madness and mirth and music.

I pray that this year you truly find yourself and what you want out of everything you do, I pray you have clarity on the kind of people you want to be with and the kind of life you want to live.

And that you then act on this clarity with renewed zeal and get go and make it happen forthwith. May all the forces of the Universe support you on this making you truly the person you were meant to be, shining, dazzling, living the life that was truly your birthright.

I wish for you to love yourself and those around you, unconditionally and totally and for that love to be multiplied manifold and come back to you from every direction. Let there be love in everything you do, every word you speak, let there be an aura of love around you that touches even strangers, let love radiate from your very being.

I wish for infinite joy from the tiniest of things in your life – the smile of a stranger, the tune on a radio, a snowflake, a raindrop, the leaves that lay themselves at your feet, the puddles that invite you to become a 6 year old again…

In fact I wish for you to be a child again at your very core, live with that innocence, carefree sense of adventuring, faith, surrender, optimism, belief in goodness, trust that everything is great and it’s just going to get greater. Which is exactly how it will be in your life, today and forever.

I wish for the unexpected – unexpected breakthroughs that take you to doing what you always wanted to do, being with the kind of loved ones you have dreamt of, having the kind of life experiences, journeys and adventures that have always featured on your bucket list. In fact I pray that you exhaust your bucket list asap and are forced to make many more and you run through them too faster than a roadrunner fleeing Wile E. Coyote.

I wish you have contentment and gratitude and love and bliss in your heart always. That positivity and peace are in your every breath. That goodness becomes a shield around you that nurtures and protects you. That laughter is your best friend and constant shadow. And madness – that keeda/itch to just let your hair down, be crazy, do crazy constantly crops up and you give in to it with wild abandon.

I do not wish you the life you have dreamt of. I wish you that multiplied a million fold and then some. Let life delight and surprise and enchant and entice you always.

To eternal exploring, learning, living, laughing, loving, singing, dancing.
To being alive.
To being you.

To sunshine and snowflakes, raindrops and rainbows, fairy lights and pixiedust, magic and miracles in every moment of your life.

Love and panda hugs.
Always



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