So how does a crook turn an envoy for community assent and cross-border peace? If we are Salman Khan, all it takes is a blockbuster film and some special diagnosis from NDTV and a anchor Barkha Dutt. Let a whitewashing begin…
Last night’s special partial of The Buck Stops Here starring Salman Khan (Not to be confused with that other Bhaijaan ‘special episode’ The Black Buck stops here) was headlined with a hashtag #SalmanForGeeta. Was it a uncover about Salman giving recommendation to Geeta Basra, a determined actress? That would make sense. If a luminary knows something about anything, it is how to make it in Bollywood.
Salman Khan and Barkhat Dutt.
But no, this Geeta is a deaf and tongue-tied lady who done headlines when it was detected that her life story paralleled a tract of Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Having incorrectly crossed into Pakistan when she was 8 years old, she has been lifted in Karachi by a Muslim family during a Edhi preserve trust home for a past 14 years. She was found during Lahore hire by Pakistan Rangers who discovered her. Geeta now wants to lapse home to India and a hunt is on for her blank Indian family.
If ever there was a genuine box of existence colliding with fiction, it is this.
So what was Salman Khan doing on a show? Is he partial of a Indian High Commission or ad hoc orator for a External Affairs Ministry? Sure he is a star of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, a film about a Pakistani child removing mislaid in India, and in that Salman acted as a Hindu Hanuman-devotee who braves all contingency to take her home. Star. Movie. Acted. As in ‘not real’. Get it?
It’s bad adequate that many people examination a film are expected to trust that Salman is a good Samaritan who saves children – as against to an actor who drives dipsomaniac over people sleeping on a pavement. But that’s a consternation of cinema. Fans of film stars have a bad grasp on a disproportion between novella and existence when it comes to their idols.
NDTV, however, is not in a film business. This is a news channel that reports on genuine events. So since in a universe did they do a news uncover portraying him as as a real-life Bajrangi Bhaijaan? And a uncover with headlines on a ticker such as ‘Geeta Awaits Her Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ and #SalmanForGeeta being shown repeatedly. Barkha complimented Salman’s physical values and his film, even asked him to give recommendation to Geeta – since certainly what a lady unequivocally needs is life recommendation from an actor who also happens to be a convicted criminal.
Bollywood has shown us many times over that it couldn’t give a damn if a luminary is a murderer, purported rapist, passionate harasser or molester. But all of us contingency frustrate when a news channel gets in on a act, creation a favourite of a assailant – one whose box saw many consider twists and turns — featuring him in a uncover that dovetails with his PR pull to use his on-screen persona to airbrush his off-screen antics . (Barkha herself sounded during times like a PR chairman when she kept referring to a film, seeking Geeta how many times she’d watched it and so on.)
If a evidence is that Geeta wanted to accommodate her favourite star Salman Khan, since does NDTV during primetime with a many famous anchor during a helm, need to yield a height – that too in a guise of a news show? Unless of course, The Buck Stops Here is now a partial of the Make A Wish Foundation, and we didn’t get a memo.
Even if a channel felt a need to make grain of a tie between Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Geeta’s life, it would have been reduction descent if it had during slightest invited a director, Kabir Khan and Nawazuddin Sidique, alongside Salman. They instead chose not usually to make a uncover all about Khan, though to paint him as a genuine life hero. It’s a bizarre choice for a channel that touts itself as India’s usually non-Tabloid radio channel to put together a news uncover that designedly blurs line between novella and reality.
Did anyone – producer, anchor, owners of channel – stop and consider about how descent it is to a victims and their families that currently Salman Khan is being touted as a saviour of mislaid children on primetime news? What is a doctrine being sent out to people? That we can be found guilty of a gravest crimes and nonetheless be portrayed as a favourite on a primetime news channel? Who is subsequent on a line-up? Sanjay Nanda and Vikas Yadav revelation us how to caring for a aged and infirm?
And let’s not forget that Salman has been found guilty of murdering dual involved animals in cold blood – a black sire and a chinkara. That’s a bit mocking given that NDTV has been touting a ‘Save a Tiger’ campaign. Just saying.
I had created before that Bajrangi Bhaijaan was a Best PR Job Salman could have asked for following his conviction. Well, this partial of The Buck Stops Here might only be a contender for that pretension now.