The most astute actor today is flashing his gummy smile from ear to ear. While the Khans and the handsome Roshan make rare Eid ka chaand appearances by working in one or two films a year (SRK, Salman), or even one film in two or three years (Aamir, Hrithik), the man who was once accepted only as a glorified martial arts artiste has already notched up two back-to-back hits this year and is still counting.
His January release, Airlift , was an intense, patriotic film, as real as they come. On the other hand, his June fare, Housefull 3, has been as farcical as they could make it, the kind where you had to leave your intellectual questioning at home to enjoy its wackiness. While both films have worked and made money for the producers and for Akshay (who always has a share in the profits), there's also Rustom around the corner. This August release swings back to the real-life mould as it is inspired by the Nanavati murder case of 1959.
For someone who was most often dissed as a non-actor, Akshay has managed an impressive portfolio. While his act as Commander Nanavati who shot his wife's lover is still to be out, he's already moved to a new challenge in Chennai. This was Akshay's schedule when his latest release was celebrated on Thursday, June 9, in Mumbai: take the evening flight out of Chennai, turn up in full natty black at the Trident near the airport for a brisk session with the media along with the Housefull 3 team, take the night flight back to Chennai and report the next morning for the shooting of Robot 2 with Rajinikanth.
Interestingly, Akshay's consistent success may have fattened his bank balance but not his waistline. The man is as trim as Ranveer Singh, his complexion is as robust as Tiger Shroff's and he's practically touching 50.
He is also sensible enough to stay out of trouble.
"The Punjab youth is falling prey to drugs. Keeping this in mind, I am working on a film which will be based on (the) drug menace in the state." That was Punjab da puttar Akshay Kumar speaking at a university in Jalandhar last year when he was there to promote Brothers.
He spoke no more on the subject nor did he make a film on it. Was that political foresight considering what a hot potato the theme has turned out to be?
"I wanted to make a film on it but I simply couldn't find the right story or subject for it," he smoothly said to me, and explained, "Mine wouldn't have been like this (he meant Udta Punjab ); it wouldn't have been political."
Meanwhile, has Punjabi cinema itself done something about it?
Out of the 100-odd pan-India films that we watched as jury members of the International Film Festival of India, 2015, there was one solitary Punjabi film titled Qissa (not to be confused with the Irrfan Khan-starrer by the same name) which had references to how rampant the problem has become in the state, and how it's ruining the youth and their families.
The film came and went. Nobody raised any objections and few saw it.
But Udta Punjab , spearheaded by producer Anurag Kashyap (in the melee, most people seem to forget that it's directed by Ishqiya director Abhishek Chaubey), will have many more people flocking to watch it now after Pahlaj Nihalani and the censor board have turned the film into an issue. The noise they've generated works in the film's favour. Calculate the crores a producer would have had to shell out for this kind of prime-time coverage on every channel day after day. And Udta Punjab is getting it for free.
The censors' move will also ultimately be counter-productive because the ruckus indicts the Badal government even if the film doesn't. And the united stand of filmmakers (with support from the courts) will make it advantage Udta Punjab . Therefore, instead of crying foul, Anurag and Team Udta Punjab should be dancing balle balle .
But the malaise afflicting Udta Punjab is not restricted to the present dispensation.
This is what happened to a film on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Amitoj Mann is a Punjabi filmmaker whose Hawayein told this story with realistic scenes of frenzied killers putting a rubber tyre on their Sikh victims before setting them on fire. The film was passed in 2003 when the BJP was at the centre.
But Punjab was under Congress's Captain Amarinder Singh and Hawayein bore the brunt of their politics in that state. The film was simply pulled out of theatres in Amritsar and Ludhiana.
The Congress and Amarinder Singh, therefore, have no moral right to talk either about freedom of expression or about the politics surrounding Udta Punjab . Their report card doesn't read any better.
Bharathi S. Pradhan isa senior journalist and author
