Satyamev Jayate: Aamir Khan tries to be a sport and holds back his tears

We might just start seeing fewer fat parents and fat children roaming the streets of urban India soon. Or so I hoped, after watching the first episode of the third season of Satyamev Jayate. Aamir Khan is back, playing the Conscience Of The Nation. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I didn’t care much for the first two seasons. They were weepy, melodramatic and the audience sequences were heavily edited. Khan was so busy crying through the first two seasons, you almost wanted the show to stop out of concern for his tear ducts. But this time around, Satyamev Jayate - at least the first episode - holds far more promise. Titled “A Ball Can Change The World”, the premiere was about the importance of sports in rehabilitating criminals and as a career option for those who are economically backward or are academically poor. It’s still terribly long at 90 minutes, but had interesting stories of people whose lives were changed because of sports. First up was Akhilesh Paul from Nagpur, who spoke of how playing football at a time when he was a juvenile delinquent helped distract him from becoming a career criminal. We got to see a re-enactment of his days as a criminal, which reminded me of the cinematic expertise which was evident in Mela. I almost expected Faisal Khan to jump out and start singing a song with Twinkle Khanna, at any second. Once we’d suffered the re-enactment, we got back to hearing Akhilesh speak. He now teaches children from a red light area to play football. He said that people now call him Sir, and sports has given him the respect and societal acceptance which he wanted. Of course, just when you thought Aamir had stopped his crying jags, he decided to change the episode name to A Bawl Can Change The World. Akhilesh was crying, Aamir was crying, the audience was in tears. It was one big, crying jag. Next on the interviewee list were champion wrestlers Geeta Kumari and Babita Kumari, who are two of four sisters, from a village in Haryana. Both have won gold medals for freestyle wrestling at the Commonwealth Games and spoke of how they started wrestling, and that it was their father’s wish that his daughters win gold medals in wrestling. They told us how he’d wallop them if they didn’t perform well and how they used to wrestle with the boys. It was nice to hear a north Indian father say that if a woman can be India’s prime minister, there was no reason why she couldn’t be a wrestler. [caption id=“attachment_1743373” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Aamir Khan in the latest episode of Satyamev Jayate. Screenshot[/caption] Another Haryana villager, a young boy – nine-year-old Shubham Jaglan - used to deliver milk and now is a world champion in his age group. He’s from a family of wrestlers and one that could ill afford the expensive golfing equipment. Shubham discovered golf when an NRI set up a golf academy near his home. The academy would shut down soon, but Shubham had found his calling. He used to practice in the fields and learnt 60 percent of his golf technique from YouTube videos. Shubham has since been supported by a foundation set up by golfer Amit Luthra. Satyamev Jayate showcased a few organisations that use sports in their projects and one of them was Mathew Spacie’s Magic Bus foundation. Since we can’t escape China nowadays, the wonder that is China and its focus on sports and encouraging its kids to take part in sports was shown to us. That the government’s focus on encouraging children to take part in sports and turn China into a sports superpower has often led to accusations of child abuse and trauma is ignored by the producers of Satyamev Jayate. But why let facts get in the way of good television? The need for sports federations to be run by sportspersons, and not by portly politicians who resemble deuce balls, was also discussed. Viewers were asked to send in their responses to the question - should sports bodies be run by sports persons only? I swear I heard Ravi Shastri giggle backstage when they announced the question. But despite these few details, the new season of Satyamev Jayate is a decided improvement from the last two seasons. It’s way less weepy and maudlin. And I’m all for any celebrity who highlights the role of sports as a rehabilitative tool. The programme delivered messages that you need a celebrity to mouth, to penetrate through the skulls and misogyny of the masses and classes alike. Girl children aren’t a handicap or meant to be killed or married off. To have a father from a village encourage gender equality and say that marriage isn’t the be all and end all for his daughters, is something which needs to be heard on national TV. To have that thought process backed by an A-list star only makes the message even more potent. The jarring moments in the episode came from how preachy Satyamev Jayate sounds, but I think that’s part and parcel of partnering with Aamir Khan. Everything is sprinkled with a generous dosage of sanctimony. You almost feel like calling him Sadhguru Aamir by the end of it. But maybe for once, preachiness and repetition is what is required to enlighten the parents and their obese kids who I see rolling around the city – claiming that they have hormonal disorders and not realising that all their health problems are related to them not exercising or taking part in any sport. So kudos to Khan for highlighting a much-needed issue. Would I watch the next episode? I’m not sure. It would require me to be a couch potato for 90 minutes on a Sunday morning, which is, ironically, contrary to Khan’s call to do some sporty activity at least once a week. But I’d recommend others do so. Watch it till Khan’s lachrymal glands take over again. Till such time, to borrow a wise man’s words – may the force be with Khan. Satyamev Jayate airs on Star Plus, every Sunday at 11am. Disclaimer: Firstpost is published by the Network 18 Group which includes Viacomm 18 as well which owns channels like Colors in India that compete with Star Plus