Guess what is keeping the Punjab Cultural and Heritage Board busy these days ?
Watching movie trailers and getting agitated. Quotes their President Charan Singh Sapra :
The problem in Dil Bole Hadippa is that in the promo, instead of a dot on the letter I in the word Haddippa they have shown a small Sikh boy’s turban falling on it. That is our main objection.
I, for one, am completely with the Sikh body in this. The Sikhs have been stereotyped as silly and stupid for too long. So what if they were the most endearing characters, no one should assume they are not intelligent.
Which is why this guy needs to get off the mike.
My favourite line :
Yes we are also getting a lot of phone calls for the film Kisaan, in which there is a scene where the turban has been thrown on the floor.
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I don’t want to rant about creativity and free speech here. Even seemingly normal people are strangely conservative on such issues. I am sure more than half the readers who agree that the above reaction was unwarranted will have something different to say if I invoke the name of artist M.F. Hussain.
So, instead, let’s sit back and have fun.
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September 9, 2009 at 11:05 am
Jasmine
Letter to Yash Raj Films
The Directors
Yashraj Films Private Limited
5, Shah Industrial Estate
Veera Desai Road
Andheri (West), Mumbai 400 053
Gentlemen:
Greetings in the Name of God, the light of every soul.
As if male actors were not enough to mock at the Sikhs, you now have a female actor to tar the Sikh image. Scenes and sequences from your latest movie seem to suggest that you are doing with a vengeance. I have browsed through whatever is available online on the internet and on television regarding your forthcoming movie -Dil Bole Hadippa and I have to say that the use of imagery and icons has been done cursorily and derogatorily. It is highly offensive to the devout for those who hold the religious way of life and tradition as a higher ideal.
Bollywood has been using names of God and script about God in a rather agnostic or atheistic manner and all this has been only “tolerable” not “acceptable and tolerable”. For Bollywood, with respect to Sikhs, freedom of expression has been license to poke fun at their attire, their intellect, their language and their community consciousness.
I have a hunch that there may be many more scenes in the whole movie which may raise our hackles and annoy us, but from what I have seen so far, I take strong objection to the following:
1. The use of the Sikh small turban –Keski as a dot on top of the alphabet i of Hadippa, both in the posters as well as the promo is simply shocking. The manner in which instead of the dot, the Keski –the small turban comes and rests on the alphabet I in an animated manner is disgusting. Do the producer and the director and all those involved with the movie remember the dot busters of USA of the late eighties and earlier nineties? Has Yashraj films and the promotional companies taken into account the impact of such imagery? If not, how does it propose to address this prior to the release of the movie? Is it a sinister move to make Sikhs the target as were the dot wearing Indians in the US at that point of time? To do this in a year, when Sikhs are commemorating the daylight murder of more than 3000 Sikhs in the capital city of Delhi is rubbing salt on our wounds. Sikhs, particularly young Sikhs are seething with anger at this kind of portrayal, and are highly perturbed.
2. The lead actor Rani Mukherjee is casually dressed as a Sikh and her whole character is stereotyping of the Sikh image so far held by Bollywood –“strong but foolish”. Why is this so? Do the makers of the movie realize that it is a Sikh face that is running India?
3. The promotional video of the movie on the internet very caustically says that Dil Bole Hadippa is “a tale of turbans, twists and tricks”. Could you not think of a more perverse way to trivialize the Sikh turban?
4. The interspersion of the display of Gatka with semi-nude Indian actresses during song sequences is nothing but blasphemy.
This is all intolerable. Under the aegis of the Film Certification and Censor Board, you should approach the Sikh community organizations in Mumbai and elsewhere and take all the necessary steps to remove offensive posters and scenes before the release of the movie on 18 September 2009.
Before another Sikh character, Rocket Singh, also of Yashraj Films hits us in the face; it is time to ensure that the sixer of the female actor does not hit the Sikh community badly, for if it does, it is likely to boomerang on you as well.
I pray that better sense will prevail and immediate corrective action will be taken. I also hope that this will enable others in Bollywood to be more careful and learned while portraying Sikh characters.
Jagmohan Singh
Editor-in-Chief, World Sikh News
Read more: http://www.unp.co.in/f16/letter-to-yashraj-films-dil-bole-hadippa-55380/#ixzz0QdMfVfGS
September 9, 2009 at 11:30 am
Deepak Iyer
@Jasmine : Thank you for the link. Totally hilarious.
Whatever happened to freedom of expression. Wait .. do we have that in our constitution ?