An alien who speaks in Bollywood cliches: Here's why Aamir Khan's PK works

There is nothing particularly stunning about PK except the fact that it marks a spectacular improvement in the goodlooking-ness of the aliens who choose to visit India. Since the last visitor we had was Jadoo, a blue cross between Shakti Kapoor and Gollum, a sparkling, hairless Aamir Khan in PK isn’t too bad a deal actually. Apart from that, in its essence PK is just another Munnabhai film, with the thug-with-a-heart-of-gold replaced with an alien-with-a-heart-of-gold. Rajkumar Hirani employs his tried, tested and now a proven blockbuster of a formula in PK too - the ‘outsider’ trying to make sense of the unquestioned order of a society we live in. In the Munnabhai films it was a goonda showing the well-behaved, educated society what it means to be a good human being, in 3 Idiots it was household help’s son questioning the education system which middle class India blindly follows and in PK, Hirani very literally translates outsider into an alien, who questions the religious establishments of the country. PK’s alien is not one of out science fiction novels, he is out of a Bollywood potboiler - therefore he is almost goodlooking, sings songs, falls in love, dances, chews a paan and at one point of the film you’ll fear that he will also be made to lip sync to a ‘alien da beat de’ type Honey Singh song at that must-have Punjabi wedding party. After all, he seems perfectly okay being referred to as an ‘alien’ by humans, who logically should be as alien to him. Add to that PK’s partner-in-crime Anushka Sharma, whose Jaggu is so over-the-top right beginning with her name you will want to lock her up in the Bigg Boss house. PK, from its characters to its dialogues, from its music to its climax, is a rich, mindboggling assortment of cliches flogged to death in Bollywood, you’d think. And that’s exactly where its power lies. [caption id=“attachment_2001227” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Aamir Khan in PK. Image courtesy: Facebook page.[/caption] Let’s get one thing straight: PK, with its Bollywood A-lister protagonist, dream song sequences and corny dialogues, has been made for an audience who make raging hits out of a Chennai Express or a Dabangg. A lot of us, the writer included, might find PK silly, its run-time may feel longer than that of a Doordarshan News bulletin and its humour slapstick at its best, and it’s tone relentlessly preachy but that’s exactly what speaks to thousands of Bollywood film watchers. And PK’s triumph is it has taken up the contentious issue of how an average Indian relates to religion and the myths we associate with faith but it does so in a language that that average Indian understands and relishes. For example, to a sappy, tear-jerking track called ‘ Bhagwan Hai Kahan Re Tu (Where are you God?)’, Aamir’s PK is shown going through the rituals associated with most recognised religions. He bathes a shiv ling in milk and fights with a crowd of people desperate to touch a bow, he beats himself till he bleeds in Muharram and chants couplets during a Muharram procession. Basically, Khan is shown doing rituals many of us or our families have done in the name of religion, and some of us know we will keep on doing because we neither have the strength nor conviction to question them. And like a typical Bollywood film, the entire section comes wrapped in a song which in a cloying melody asks one question, “Where are you, God?” If you are the kind of Bollywood addict who furtively wiped a tear when ‘Tujhe Sab hai Pata Hai Na Maa’ in Taare Zameen Par played on screen, you are most likely to feel slightly restless, slightly saddened, just a little out-of-breath at the question that has landed, ever-so-softly on your lap. Did we already have a film that questioned religion? Very recently, a tightly-scripted Oh My God, with a brilliant Paresh Rawal in the lead, probably asked the same questions that PK asked with more cunning. However, when a Bollywood behemoth like Aamir Khan takes on a film that bluntly questions myth vs religion in a country whose first, informal mark of identity is religion itself, it has the potential to make a great impact especially at a time when ghar wapsi and Love Jihad are all over the news. Then a Muslim star taking on myths of all religions, Hinduism included, in a film directed by a Hindu man is remarkable in itself. Aamir Khan could have chosen not to do PK. After all, do-gooders in Bollywood films come in all shapes and sizes and they necessarily don’t have to question rituals in a country whose primary political narrative is anchored in religion. In Bollywood and India, a man only has to beat up other men to be called a ‘hero’. Aamir Khan, like all other actors, has undergone the rite of passage of beating up snarling baddies to have hero-hood bequeathed upon him. His fans, thousands of them, don’t question Khan the ‘hero’ now. And in PK, their hero turns around and asks them to question a host of beliefs that many of them consider sacrosanct. At times, he even makes what they call rituals seem like caricature. As a result, Aamir is surely aware that PK will put more of a focus on him being a Muslim than his other roles. But the focus should not be on Aamir’s religion. It should be on what the rest of blindly accept as religion. I was all of five, and my brother a toddler, when like most god-fearing Bengali middle class parents, ours took us to a famous pilgrimage spot in West Bengal. It was a harrowing four-hour ride in a local train, buzzing with middle-aged women who almost took turns to  doze off on my head, vendors stomping over my father’s foot and a passenger dumping her big bag full of vegetables on my grandmother’s lap. After reaching, just when we were thinking the ordeal was over and my grandmother was taking what looked life a refreshing dip in the still, emerald waters of a pond in the temple, another horror awaited us. Though she had gone down the steps to the pool walking, but had to climb up the stairs crawling as a pandit murmured chants. She then made an entire round of the temple in the following cycle - lying prostrate, marking the floor with a chalk, standing up and lying prostrate ahead of the chalk mark. She was a little over 60 years old. I remember being afraid to talk to her for one full hour afterwards as I was terrified that she might die from exhaustion. “Hum bhagwan ke bachche hain naa (Aren’t we god’s children?)” Aamir Khan asks Anushka Sharma in the second half of the film. It’s the kind of line that usually has me banging my head against an imaginary wall. “So why will he want his child to roll on the ground and then reach him in a temple?” Aamir asks, eyes widened for alien-effect. A great scene? Nope. A great dialogue? Not in a mile. But a question I wouldn’t mind asking my grandmother, or my father who, back then had looked on, mortified, yet quietly? Perhaps, yes.