Towards the end of PK, Rajkumar Hirani’s new film with Aamir Khan in a lovable lead role, a Hindi film song about humanist values in the voice of Mukesh accidentally starts playing on a chunky tape recored player. It is the simplest of ironies considering the scene—nobody can miss it—but the juxtaposition of the song and the circumstance also augments his overall thesis in the film in the most charming, non-confrontational way possible. This is Hirani parlance. All his three earlier films, Munnabhai MBBS (2003), Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006) and 3 Idiots (2009) merge the collective agony over systemic rots of the country with a unique sense of childhood wonder and imagination. Buffoonery and physical humour are not ruled out. It works, even though it might mean breaking down an idea or an argument to such a skeletal degree that intellect ceases to matter. It is argumentative, activist cinema softened by farcical humour and elemental emotions, and can appeal to the intellectual and the philistine alike, if they are generally okay with the hyperbolic trappings of mainstream Hindi cinema.
PK is firmly in that mould although finer than the earlier films in presenting its theme. Hirani and his writing partner Abhijat Joshi writes a deft screenplay on the rationalist’s or the agnostic’s argument against organized religion—that propagators of organized religion thrive on the fear of those who flock to them. Aamir Khan plays the title role, an unworldly character torn between logic and faith, perplexed by his inability to understand the ways of faith and dogma. He meets a journalist, Jagat Janani or Jaggu (Anushka Sharma), who works as a reporter at a television news channel and finds potential for a provocative story in PK’s journey from a Rajasthani village, where the burly head of a local brass band (Sanjay Dutt) sheltered him, to consumerist Delhi. PK is in desperate search of a remote-control, and to get to it, he has to overcome the manipulations of the religious heads including a guru who “communicates” with god and offers remedies for any life-threatening problem of the ordinary man. Jaggu convinces her editor (Boman Irani), a market savant more than an editor, to let PK begin a conversation about organized religion in their channel. The media team then pitches PK against the guru and forces a national debate. PK is unwittingly the rationalist, and also clearly the writers’ voice and worldview.
The lengthy film, spanning about three hours, progresses in vignettes, all emphasizing PK’s point. We see PK approaching the doors of a mosque clutching two bottles of wine in his hands, barrels of milk spilling over oversized Hindu gods, PK walking into a church filled with devotess with a Hindu pooja thali and incense sticks balanced on his palms and an unforgettably funny sequence of PK’s encounter with a performer painted blue as the Hindu god Shiva, inside a public toilet. The gentle ironies of the film do not hide the film’s unflinching views on majoritarianism and religious oppression. I don’t remember the last time a Hindi film-maker make such rapacious fun of the devout Hindu and his blindness. It is a splendid thing to happen at least once in a while on cinema, because in a majority of Hindi films, we routinely idol worship and religious taboos play out as virtues, which, usually, a mother or a wife displays.
Aamir Khan is immersed in PK’s innocence and staunchness, albeit using staple tricks to communicate the oddball mannerisms of his character. Overarched eyebrows, widening eyes and pursed lips seem laboured in some scenes, although ignoring them is easy because of the sharp dialogues he gets. We have seen Khan as the alpha-figure with quirks or an impossible amalgamation of philosopher, gentleman, superhero and comic rolled into one man in 3 Idiots. Here too, the projection of a man who knows it all without knowing anything about the world has an exalted aura. But PK is still an extremely lovable and winsome fellow, and Khan has much to do with that.
Sharma’s Jaggu is a competent act, without frills or gimmicks and in their small roles, Dutt, Irani, Sushant Singh Rajput and Saurabh Shukla leave their marks.
After the interval, the plot begins to bloat and the histrionics of staged debates, reiterating the theme scene after scene, argument after argument, begins to tire, but even so PK’s potential triumph over an exploitative godman, the villain of the film, is a climax is worth the wait.
Hindi film lovers of a certain vintage are familiar with romantic ideas like love of all humanity and rejection of the barriers of religion and nationalism through films of Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and others. With a cross-country, inter-religious love story in their story, Hirani and Joshi are closer to Nehruvian ideals of rationalism, scientific temper and socialism than those films mostly from the 1950s.
PK is a dialectic on religion on the big screen, without much of the splendour of cinematic technique. It is rooted to dialogues, scenes and characters, as does Hirani’s other films. But the director’s biggest feat is the idea, its effortless translation and its politics. Someone in the broad stroke canvas of populist Hindi cinema has finally spoken on behalf of the agnostic. Given the news headlines, how much more relevant could that get?
PK released in theatres on Friday
