There’s a certain drill that is followed. The security guards sandwich him between them and escort him in. Aamir Khan sometimes takes a benign step out of the sandwich to smile at someone, shake hands with another, pose for the cameras or accept a tub of popcorn. Once inside the theatre, until he and his close family (on the night of the 8th it was wife Kiran Rao and son Junaid) are seated in the last row, the guards are on full alert, after which they take their seats a couple of rows ahead from where they can keep their vigil. Film over, Aamir and Co. keep sitting while the security guys are on guard again. It’s only after the crowd evaporates from the auditorium that Aamir and family are escorted out to the car that’s revved up and waiting.

To the star’s credit, the security is inevitable, even imperative, but he does ensure that the men who guard him are not obnoxiously obtrusive. And Aamir himself remains calm and approachable, not stiff and scared. Today, the stakes riding on him are high and the controversies around him are strong enough to warrant the security. But even after the release of Lagaan, Ronit Roy’s security company had thrown a ring around him at every function he attended. At that time too, the threat to Aamir’s life (extortion) had been real and too near for comfort (underworld elements had confessed that they were on a mission to eliminate him).

Considering all this, Aamir Khan still manages to lead a fairly normal life, as he did on the 8th when friend and Rang De Basanti co-star Atul Kulkarni invited him to a special screening of his delightful Marathi film Valu (meaning, a wild bull), a sweet story with subtitles in English. Sitting in the back rows were a whole lot of Rang De Basanti colleagues including Aamir, writer Prasoon Joshi, director Rakeysh Mehra and actor Kunal Kapoor. There was also a sprinkling of Marathi-speaking actors like Sachin and Sonali Kulkarni (Saif’s Dil Chahta Hai co-star has smartened up her makeup and her wardrobe).

Thanks to the subtitles, Atul Kulkarni’s colleagues enjoyed his turn as a forest officer specialising in the capture of wildlife but who, to his astonishment, is sent to a village to catch a bull!

It’s also thanks to the current mood in the film industry where an actor can straddle regional and Hindi cinema with complete poise, without losing his footing in either world, that Atul Kulkarni can mix the Marathi flavour with the all-India appeal of Hindi films. In such a scenario, the aroma of every region can reach out to all corners of the country. And the parochial designs of Thackeray-style politicians can be thwarted, at least cinematically.

Incidentally, while there are a lot of very obviously PR planted news items about how well Subhash Ghai’s Black & White has been received, the truth is that it is a disaster, both commercially and critically. The empty halls are testimony to its commercial failure while its dreary story-telling is its critical demise. Even the placement of spurts of Sufi music by one band is un-original since a much-younger Anurag Basu had just done it so creatively with Pritam in Life In A Metro. To applaud Ghai for attempting a new genre is also not quite right since terrorism has been a tried-and-tested theme all over the world ever since 9/11. And let’s face it. The thumb rule of cinema is, a thought is not good enough, it has to make a watchable film.

However, there is something about Subhash Ghai that has not been lauded. While the Thackeray-inspired political thought is to ram those ‘outsiders’ who don’t give back to the state where they made their fame and fortune (eg. Amitabh Bachchan who earns in Maharashtra but gives to Uttar Pradesh), Subhash Ghai is a Punjabi from Delhi. But he studied in Pune (at the Film Institute) where he met and married Rehana (also called Mukta), his wife of many years. Rehana is such a Pune-ite that she jabbers in local Marathi more than Urdu. As for Ghai, his banner, Mukta Arts, has backed regional films like Valu and Shreyas Talpade’s Kandhe Pohe. Apart from this, his awesome ‘Whistling Woods’, smack on your way to Film City, is a sight to behold. Subhash Ghai’s Film Institute is a huge hit, attracting the best talents from all over the world.

Yes, Mr Thackeray. This man called Subhash Ghai has been quietly but consistently giving back to the state from where he made his fortune. How are you going to reward him for that and why don’t you make a public noise about this Delhi-ite who does so much for Maharashtra?

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International