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.
