Bajrangi Bhaijaan - An Ambassador of Peace

BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN, A Salman Khan Film initiative directed by Kabir Khan is a magnanimous treat this Eid. Introducing the beautiful Harshaali Malhotra, having Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Nawzuddin Siddiqui in the lead, Bajrangi Bhaijaan also casts some popular faces from the Silver Screen. With some amazingly touching tracks, the movie also has follies like “Selfie le le re..” and the “Chicken” song. The film is all about a man with a marvelous spirit that helps a mute girl from Pakistan return home. About almost a week after its blockbuster release all over the country, I went to watch this film in a multiplex near my house. Even after reading such good reviews about the film, I was quite confident of Salman Khan having some silly story line. This was not because I don’t like this guy. Rather because films like Dabangg & Kick had made me lose my confidence over him that he would have made a gem of the year. 

However, the movie was quite predictable since the beginning. The flow of the film was smooth, plot was simple, story line was amazing and in fact, I’d appreciate Kabir khan who did not put any Salman Khan Silliness across the film except for the “Selfie le le re…” song. The film connects to the hearts of the audience entirely because of the little cute Pakistani girl. Stealing everybody’s attraction in a movie over Salman Khan is something that even Bebo couldn’t. The character of Bajrangi, has been tremendously innocent throughout. He is supposed to be an ardent follower of his religion but however, he wasn’t a fundamentalist. He lets the little lost girl to retain her lifestyle by making her eat Non Vegetarian food, taking him to her religions’ sacred places while he practiced none of these. He swears on his lord Bajrangbali that he would take this girl back to her house at POK no matter what may come across. The humor in the film majorly due to Nawazuddin Siddiqui mingled with the emotions of both the Girl and Salman Khan makes Bajrangi Bhaijaan a movie of a social cause. This film might preach the lessons of Humanity, Love and affection, morality but there is much more than all this that Kabir Khan might have made this film for.

I take this film in a very different perception which the critics or the media may not get into. Bajrangi Bhaijaan depicts how people of both the countries i.e. India & Pakistan helps Bajrangi and Shahida (Salman Khan & Harshaali Malhotra as referred in the film respectively) collectively to achieve their mission. Some beautiful incidents in the film might create a deep impact on people who actually take this film from this perception. It is the goodness within the people of both the lands that let’s Bajrangi take Shahida back to her house to her parents. Then why after watching this film and liking it to the core did we not evaluate the movie as an ambassador of peace between the two lands which were once one?  

The film features how politics being played by a few has led to all the disturbances across the international borders. Then why after watching the film and enjoying it so rigorously, we could not refrain from cursing each other’s land and its people? It is not a country but a few anti-social elements in it that spoils the reputation. But after knowing this fact, why couldn’t we initiate to develop a strong bond with the people of each other’s’ countries?

This is our mere hypocrisy that we could appreciate a gem like PK on the reality of religion that it portrayed but could take Bajrangi Bhaijaan as only a Humorous Thriller cum Fiction. We neglect intended messages so bluntly that even though if the film breaks all the records over the Box-Office collection, the people behind it would not be able to get the actual pay of their efforts. Ever since the film was released, I could not find any proper reason why people like it so much when it just has this simple ‘predictable’ plot. Now, that I have watched the film, I could say that people might have liked the film unknowing of the fact that the issues of communal disharmony, narrow politics between the countries, assumption of Pakistan being our biggest enemy (India being the same for Pakistan) raised in the film has influenced us and has somewhere made us realize that people in the both the countries are just so good at heart. But the, since childhood, we have been hearing our media, politicians and elders proclaiming Pakistan (India being the same for Pakistan) as our hardcore enemy, and so we could not find anything good about the opposite country in the film or even if we could find it, we don’t bear guts to admit.

I believe, many of you would get what exactly this film has to convey. It urges us to stand for a common issue in both the countries i.e. PEACE. Hardly a few in both the countries would understand the clear picture and the reason why peace does not prevail between India and Pakistan. But when our ‘sacred leaders’ and ‘Gems of our land-Politicians’ call us to curse, swarm of foolish people from both the lands would gather in a herd debating on the news channel, or breaking the seize fire at borders or dropping bombs all around to defend their respective countries irrespective of how cheaply they are fighting for something which never affects your personal life. Yes, this is how extremists from among us end up with. Defending our own land does not entitle us to defame someone else’s land merely crushing out our moral values. Bajrangi bhaijaan tries to shake the souls of each one of us present at the theaters watching the film but sadly, only a few might have taken back a lesson of Peace from it.

Kudos! to the film maker Kabir Khan, the cast and each one who was behind the film to initiate something so daringly in India. I have learned that this film had been banned in Pakistan but however, because of the people there, the Pakistani Censor Board allowed the release of the film there after deleting a couple of scenes. The film bashed the Pakistani Silver Screen striking a chord of emotions with the audience there. It is so good to make the other feel proud about being a citizen of such a pious country. This feeling has been shared by both the countries after watching Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

I wonder how we could still keep our hearts down at each other across the two countries. Undoubtedly this film would not affect the nasty politics being played around at both the ends but nobody would stop us from looking at Pakistan & India with a warm heart after Bajrangi bhaijaan.