Amir Khan - Not only an entertains but also spreads social awareness

Amir Khan

Movies show us how to reach the hearts and minds of people. Commercial cinema has a huge following in India. People not only visit multiplexes to see movies , but they are able to see a particular favourite movie many times over in their DVDs , mobile phones, tablets etc. There is great impact of movies on the psyche of people around the world, probably more in India than anywhere else. 

In Bollywood if anyone has tapped into this wonderful influencing power of movies positively, that's Amir Khan. 

During his earlier years Amir came across as a wonderfully talented natural actor. When he became a film producer his humanitarian and thoughtful side came into prominence. The film Lagaan actually became a case study for students at various management institutes and also the Indian Army. 

His film Taare Zameen Par created awareness among the masses regarding dyslexia in kids and also generated hope and optimism in the minds of parents of kids affected by dyslexia - that the condition can be overcome. 

The awareness created by this movie actually helped in early detection of dyslexia among thousands of kids and many parents and teachers took corrective steps  to overcome this disorder in their children and students.

Earlier in India, in most cases a dyslexic child was simply passed off as dumb and were often made a laughing stock. In India even now beating up a student with a cane is still practiced by teachers. This dyslexic children are often mercilessly beaten up by their parents or teachers for being weak in studies. This results in lower self esteem  and loss of confidence among such children. 

This compounds the already bad situation of a dyslexic child. However dyslexia can be overcome, some of the greatest scientists like Nikola Tesla, Galileo , Pierre Curie and the great painter and polymath Leanardo Da Vinci were dyslexic. 

He didn't stop there he started a television programme called "Satyamev Jayate", that took up various social issues and also showed various positive initiatives taken by people. The show was simultaneously broadcast on various TV channels including the national service broadcaster Doordarshan.

It was watched by millions across the nation , it was discussed widely in social media. It was shown in regional channels as well in languages other than Hindi. The success of this programmes bear testimonial to the fact that even knowledge based programmes can be commercially successful and at the same time spread awareness among the people as well. 

Meanwhile he also did two more movies, which were both entertaining and had an excellent social message as well. Both of the movies were super hit in the box office. The movies were 3 idiots(released in 2009) and PK(released in 2014) respectively. 

The movies 3 idiots encouraged youngsters to follow their hearts and warned students against memorising stuff without understanding them in a rather hilarious fashion. 

In the movie a student named Chatur (nicknamed silencer) memorises a speech that is to be given in Hindi. Now chatur does not know Hindi , he gets his speech written by the collage librarian. 
Rancho(the character player by Amir Khan) mischievously changes some of the words like chamatkar(miracle) to balatkar(rape) and dhan(money) to stan(breast). 

Now when Chatur gives the speech in front of a packed audience the speech not only embarrasses the principal, but it generates a laughter riot among the people present there. By this prank Rancho tried to give a message to his friend that only memorising things won't work one needs to understand what one reads.

The film also shows little innovations done by Rancho from the stuff available near him like on the first day of his collage, when the seniors were ragging the juniors ,he immediately ran into his room.When one of the senior student threatened that he would pee outside his door if he didn't come out, what Rancho did was he connected one end of a wire to a steel spoon and the other end of the wire to a power supply and placed the spoon right under the door so when the student urinated , his pee fell on the spoon and that completed the circuit and he got an electric shock. 

It also shows how he helped a woman into delivering her baby , with the help of an inverter made by him he generated power when power supply was snaped and his on the feet thinking of adapting a vacuum cleaner into a suction device of a lower force that helped pull the baby out was another such instance.  

I have already written a blog about the movie PK , which is a wonderfully entertaining movie that warns against getting under the influence of fake spiritual gurus. 

Both the movies are produced and directed by the duo of Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani, but both movies seem to have a tremendous Amir Khan influence in them. 

If we have more socially responsible actors like Amir Khan it would be good for the country and the society. 

PK - The movie (Stay away from wrong numbers)

Its quite strange that I am posting a movie review on this particular blog, but the 2014 movie PK deserves to be here. The reason is that its a movie against superstitions and blind beliefs and exposes the so called middlemen between people and God. While people say that movies have a negative impact on the society , PK definitely is wonderfully educational as well as an entertaining movie.

The movie is about an alien who comes to earth to do research on the civilization here but as soon as he lands on earth the first thing that happens is someone steals his remote. Now without his remote it is impossible for him to go back on his planet. Interestingly though the alien lands up at Rajasthan in India.

The alien whose external features are exactly like a normal human being has to go through lots of hardships. First of all in his planet there is nothing called language people communicate through telepathy. He has this power to hold anyone's hand and download all the information from the person's brain.

Initially he moves around naked but funnily when he comes across a so called dancing car( a car that is moving because people inside are having sex in it) he realizes that the humans have exactly the same skin as them and they wear clothes. The dancing car actually becomes his source of clothes and beggars became his source of money.

But once when a barber was chasing him, he met an accident with a van that belonged to a local music band. Bhairo Singh the driver and leader of the band took him to the hospital where the doctor thought that this alien has lost his memory because of the accident. Initially Bhairo Singh tried to run away but he had a change of heart and decided to take the alien with him and keep it with him till he got well.

Now the alien tried to hold everyones hand so that he can download information about language and speak it. He got into lots of trouble trying to do that. Bhairo Singh thought that he was sex starved and took him to a brothel where he gets an opportunity to hold the hand of a prostitute -Phuljharia, in six hours he downloaded all information regarding her language , words etc and was now able to speak Bhojpuri.

After he learnt the human language he embarked on a mission to find his remote. He went to Delhi but was told by someone it is God who can help him so he went to different offices ( temples,mosques, gurudwaras, churches) for help from god. He listens and follows different advices( rituals) that the managers ( priests, pujaris, sadhus, maulavis etc) of Gods ask him to follow but to no avail. 

He finally found his remote with a so called spiritual guru named Tapasviji, the thief who sold the remote had sold it to Tapasvi. The Tapasvi claimed that it was given to him by God in the Himalayas. When PK came to get his remote , the Tapasvi used his guards to throw him out. 

Then he sees his friend Jaggu making fool of wrong number on phone and thought that it was the same problem with Tapasvi and other spiritual gurus. Their calls to Gods were going to wrong number and someone was fooling them by providing wrong information. The rest of the story is about how he exposes this godmen.

In India movies are very popular and this movie is a must see for all. This is the kind of movie that the nation needs today,along with entertainment its educates the viewers against the so called god-men who fool people in the name of God and make good money from them.

PK has been a global hit. Made for budget of Rs 850 million its has made over Rs 7400 million globally and what's interesting it is the first Hindi movie that did a business of Rs 1020 million in China. 

I hope this movie and other movies like PK that would be made in the future act as eye-opener to the people of country. Being free from blind beliefs, superstitions and fake spiritual gurus is very important for India.