Shamshera director Karan Malhotra's height of brazenness on the film's failure

Two weeks ago, director Karan Malhotra shocked us with one of the shabbiest, most incoherent and irrelevant films in recent years called  Shamshera . It marked the revival of the dacoit drama forty years after Bollywood put it to sleep. Even the horse that the leading man Ranbir Kapoor rode looked bored.

Last week, director Karan Malhotra shocked us even more by putting up a stout defense of the summarily rejected film, laying its failure squarely on the audience.

The Instagram post reads:

“My Dearest Shamshera, you are majestic the way you are. It is important for me to express myself on this platform because here is where all the love, the hate, the celebration and the humiliation exists for you. I want to unimaginably(sic.) apologise to you for abandoning you for these past few days as I could not handle the hate and rage. My withdrawal was my weakness and there are(sic.)  no excuses for it. But now I am here, standing beside you hand in hand feeling proud and honoured that you are mine. Will face every thing together, the good the bad and the ugly. And a huge shout out to the Shamshera family, the cast and crew of Shamshera. The love, the blessings and the concern that has been showered upon us are the most precious and nobody can take that away from us. #Shamsheraismine #Shamshera.”

 I had to read the director’s lachrymose lament thrice to get a hang of it. And I am still rubbing my eyes in disbelief. “Feeling proud and honoured that you are mine…”?!

Seriously? Is this defensive diatribe about Shamshera, an unmistakable misfire, a steeply-budgeted purported epic gone horribly wrong in the tradition of Kamal Amrohi’s Razia Sultan and Yash Raj’s Thugs Of Hindostan?

Or is this in defense of Kagaz Ke Phool or Mera Naam Joker?

Is this Karan Malhotra? Or is Guru Dutt or Raj Kapoor rising to their precious works’ defense after they were rejected by the audience? Does Malhotra really think the audience….ummm…didn’t get it? Does Malhotra feel that the “hate and rage” that he speaks of in anguished tones, is not deserved?

Has he watched his own film? What was the think tank at Yash Raj Films doing while making this  film? What were their thoughts when they first sat down together in huddled excitement to watch Shamshera? Probably, they  thought they had created a masterpiece which would change the course of Indian cinema.

Get real, Mr. Malhotra, before it’s too late. This  kind of smug self-pity oozing contempt for the audience won’t get you anywhere. Look at Aamir Khan’s democratic attitude to his cinema. From his first major endeavour Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak to his latest Laal Singh Chaddha, Aamir shows all his films to a cross-section of preview audiences  from every walk of life. He welcomes suggestions, and in fact, has made changes in Laal Singh Chaddha based on some suggestions from a preview audience.

Merely licking your wounds about a raw deal given to your “majestic” creation won’t get you anywhere. Instead, why not look around and within yourself and see where you went wrong?

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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