A fascinating documentary shows us what Salman Khan means to an India that’s not quite shining.
One of the more perplexing moments on Season Four of Koffee with Karan was when Salman Khan made an appearance – his first on the show – and declared, “I am a virgin.” He added that he was going to save himself for the one he gets married to. Host Karan Johar stood in for everyone who’s read about the star’s sexual exploits – his eyes popped. But Khan maintained a grave demeanour, as if he’d just announced he was retiring from acting. After all, what performance could top this? Sneakily, Johar let us know that Khan may not have been entirely truthful. Earlier, he’d asked Khan about his relationships. The actor replied, “I’ve never had a girlfriend.” Johar smirked. A little later, he asked Khan how he handled ex-girlfriends when he bumped into them. Khan, apparently, had forgotten he had none. He began, “Some I ignore totally…” And we laughed.
But Balram Gehani didn’t. In Being Bhaijaan, a fascinating documentary directed by Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farooqui, this Salman Khan fan from Nagpur reveals that he liked the word “virgin” very much because Khan accepted that that’s what he was. As proof, he offered this fact: Khan has never done a kissing scene. According to Gehani, it is important to remain a virgin because, during sex, “the sperm that carries the male power is lost to the woman.” Gehani concludes, “I am 100% virgin and will remain one.”
The fact that a fan models his behaviour after that of a star is in itself disturbing, but there’s more. Gehani believes that India’s population is under control because Bhai’s (as Salman is popularly known) fans haven’t married. “And that’s because Bhai himself hasn’t married. If Bhai gets married, then at least 3-4 crore men will get married. A year later, they will have children. The earth will topple over and the world will end right there. He is like Vishnu’s avatar, who is balancing the whole world on his finger. If he moves his finger even a little, the world will be destroyed.”
Gehani is exaggerating, but not by much. Until Khan was sentenced, he was more or less a god. He was a god to the industry, certainly, balancing the box office on his finger, summoning up blockbusters out of thin air, thinner material. And to fans like Gehani, too, Khan was a god – for the hero of the masala movie is a direct descendent of the protagonists of our epics, an embodiment of good, a vanquisher of evil. And like most of our big stars, Khan created his screen persona with a bit of mix-and-match: respectful to elders like Rama, mischievous and flirty like Krishna, and, off-screen, unattached like Hanuman. (It’s no accident that Khan’s next release is titled Bajrangi Bhaijaan.) Many fans buy this persona totally, at least those from the kind of India mainstream Bollywood has been trying very hard to make us forget.
These are ordinary people. Gehani wants to reopen his father’s bakery on the same street. Bhaskar Hedaoo, another Salman Khan fan and all of 19 when the documentary was made, wants to earn enough money to marry off his sister. And Shan Ghosh, a Bhai lookalike who’s earned the nickname “Junior Salman,” is investing in real estate so that he can move his family from middle class to upper class. (His father worked for the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board.) But these real-life aspirations come second to dreams of – as the documentary’s title puts it – being Bhaijaan. If you want to know just how much of a god Salman Khan is to Shan Ghosh, listen to how he answers calls: “Jai Salman.” That’s also the name of a Whatsapp group for fans.
Shah Rukh Khan, with his NRI romances and designer duds, embodied, depending on how you look at it, either aspiration or escapist fantasy. Aamir Khan made a name for himself as a thinking-man’s actor. There was no one speaking to the real India – as some might put it – that wants godlike heroes and modern-day myths. Salman Khan stepped in, and, in due time, became the Rajinikanth of North India, speaking to an audience to whom a burning bra is simply an undergarment in flames. Rajinikanth, at one time, specialised in putting his heroines in their place. Ghosh expects his wife to cook, keep house, look after his parents… “These are the things girls should do.” Ghosh emulates his hero’s inconsistency as well. After listing out the qualities of an ideal wife, he says he doesn’t believe in love. Bhai, after all, said that he wanted a girl who’s like his mother, and according to Ghosh, “The marriage market doesn’t have those kind of girls anymore.”
As with many Indian men from smaller towns (Ghosh is from Chhindwara, about 3½ hours from Nagpur), there’s more bromance than romance. Ghosh tells Gehani that he’ll come to Nagpur and they’ll watch the new Bhai film together. It’s practically a date. On his way to meet Ghosh, Gehani wonders nervously, “How do I look? Will he be smarter than me?” At one point, Ghosh is viewing, on his phone, the Fevicol se number from Dabangg 2. Asked about Kareena Kapoor, he says, “Oh, I can’t even see her. If Salman Bhai is on screen, I can only see him.” In the mirror too. Ghosh not only looks like Khan, he’s also chiselled his physique like Khan’s. He has no qualms tearing his shirt off during the first-day-first-show screening of Jai Ho. But why copy someone? Why not create your own identity? Ghosh replies, “Amitabh Bachchan got ahead by copying Al Pacino… If you look at his photos, you’ll be able to see Al Pacino… We copy and that is how we move forward.”
Gehani believes that building a Bhai-like physique is about masculinity. “If a man shows his body, he is successful. It means he’s a man. If somebody beats up two more men, he’s a man. A man needs courage, and what gives him courage is his masculinity.” I asked Gehani if Khan’s sentencing had made him re-evaluate his fandom. He said no. He also said that what happened was “ooparwale ki marzi,” God’s will. Which god, he didn’t say.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2015 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Sev
May 8, 2015
This is a timely post. For the past two days or so, TV channels will have me believe that sentencing Salman is the equivalent of crucifying Christ and has left the world in a deep, irreparable gloom. All I say to that is , “Bah humbug!”. It is curious how no channel or people around me mention the first-class treatment that awaits “Bhai” when he’s in jail, much like the first rate treatment that’s being meted out to Sanjay Dutt. Even in jail, they get treated like they’re one of the Gods, and yet, they grumble. Moreover, once they’re out of the five star jail, they’re back into their cocoon of wealth, power and unfettered privilege. No wonder they think they own the world. I would be deluded too were I in that position.
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Anon
May 8, 2015
Disturbing at many levels, I should say!
Anyhow the one point that stands out and bewilders me is how did this (mind-numbing, intellect-dumbing) personality-worship culture come about in India?
Ours was meant to be Dharma (read duty & principles)-centric culture, never about a single personality. We had/have a multitude of Gods, never did anybody tower over the rest and each came with his/her own inspirational trait or quality that we were supposed to learn and adopt from. Their actions were supposed to speak louder than the individual personality or charm. Even a Rama or Krishna were not considered flawless, paid for their (real or perceived) slip from Dharma, and were never beyond reproach. Great saints and scholars of yore did not even bother to leave behind their names or images as part of their work. They only left behind their message for posterity. There are stunning pieces of philosophical treatises in our country that we don’t even know the authors of.
When did we slip down from there and become hero worshipers? When/How/Why does liking transform into blind devotion? When did running over the poor or hunting down endangered species become less important than PR stunts and personality cult?
Sad 😦
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js81615
May 8, 2015
I am a regular reader of your blog; unfortunately I don’t get to see many films in the first few days or even weeks of their release and therefore haven’t weighed in, yet.
Like you, I find fan cultures fascinating. But I am wondering if mythology and the pantheon (Ram, Krishna, Hanuman) is a fruitful way of decoding Salman Khan the person who has been sentenced to a jail term. It may be one way of understanding the significance of his onscreen avatar (Prem, Chulbul Pandey, or even Salman Khan, the guest in Karan Johar’s show) to his fans. That too, I think, is a bit glib; fans may mythologize Salman but most may not interpret him via Hindu mythology.
I realize that Salman the person and Salman the film personality are blurred in the imagination of his fans. But I am fascinated by the fact that we know so little of Salman the person even after 25 years; his inarticulate interviews, his shifting and opportunistic support to political personalities during elections, the aura of the bhai has obscured the Salman the courts don’t trust, but the fans do. We really need a good biography on him; he’s not going to write it.
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Rowdee Ranga
May 8, 2015
Minor quibble, but when you say “There was no one speaking to the real India”, aren’t you actually referring only to the real Indian male? There are also no references to Salman’s female fans. Was that intentional? Curious…
Very fascinating piece. The Chhindwara link is very interesting. For, right as we enter Chhindwara by road from Nagpur, we are welcomed by a gigantic Hanuman (supposedly one of the biggest temples in the area). And almost all of Chhindwara district is full of Jai Shri Ram and Bajrang Bali flag and symbols. It’s interesting that Salman’s Muslim identity does not seem to matter at all even in such a place.
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brangan
May 8, 2015
Anon: I think the personality-worship culture came to India fairly early. For we may claim to follow Hinduism as an abstract “philosophy,” but what we actually do is follow Shiva or Vishnu or Murugan or whatever. We worship these “personalities” as idols, and extrapolating this, it’s not difficult to see why we begin to worship our “human” idols too, sometimes with temples and palaabishegams.
Sachin is God. Ilayaraja is God (“Raaga Devan”). Rahman is God. Rajini is God. MGR is God (“Idhaya Dheivam”). We keep hearing this all the time.
Which is also why it becomes so difficult to criticise or offer a contrarian opinion on these human idols — because that’s tantamount to heresy, the equivalent of Husain and his nude goddesses.
js81615: I believe that when a star attains a certain stature, he becomes almost mythical to his legions of fans. And this derives also from the fact that our basic genre of filmmaking — masala — harks back to the myths. Those are the archetypes that, IMO, are most useful to examine the most larger-than-life star personas.
I wrote about myths and masala here:
But this isn’t the inevitability of the movies so much as the inevitability of myth – our myths, which were filled with happenings that made the head spin. And because the myth is our only true “genre,” our older films are essentially as fantastical as the fantasies involving gods and demons. In Hollywood, the barren and dangerous frontier territories spawned the western. The song-and-dance of Broadway gave rise to the musical. The crime in the East Coast birthed the gangster drama. But for the longest time, our cinema was shaped solely from our endless supply of archetypal myths, and that’s why we used to accept, without complaint, these near-miraculous coincidences and these “logic-free” plot leaps (though free only of physical logic; there certainly is an emotional logic at play).
Rowdee Ranga:About female fans, there’s a brilliant bit in the documentary. After Shan says these things about his “ideal woman” (which are in the piece above), we see his sister Sheetal. And we get this text:
Sheetal is a student of commerce.
She wants to be a banker.
Her favourite hero is Varun Dhawan.
🙂
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cl
May 8, 2015
Please check the last paragraph –
Gehani believes that ‘a’ building …
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brangan
May 8, 2015
cl: Thanks 🙂
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Rahini David
May 8, 2015
Anon: The way I see it, our culture that is filled with mythology is the very reason for our hero-worshiping crowds. Indian Mythology has made its Gods and Heroes flawed and vulnerable . A little bit of naughtiness, a little bit of indiscretion and impulsiveness is very much a part of every God. This makes people believe that their on-screen heroes are very much God-like.
In monotheist cultures, People are constantly reminded from childhood that their God dislikes Hero-worship of fellow-humans. So they have a bit less of it. But of course, fawning over a Hot-dude is pretty universal. Only here the people actually seem to use the word “God” in all seriousness.
We can only wonder how the attitude was during the reign of Greek and Roman Mythologies.
Rowdee Ranga: I don’t see why the line can not be applied to fans, both men and women. Yes, BR does not write specifically about women, young and old, having the hots for him, but the points are the pretty much the same, IMO.
BR: Super write-up.
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js81615
May 8, 2015
I agree on the usefulness of myths to understanding masala films. And I don’t doubt that some personalities become idols after attaining a certain stature in the eyes of the Indian public. I have no quibble about your list of idols either Sachin, Rajni, MGR, Rahman etc. To my mind Salman complicates your list because he is also a much despised figure. The others have their detractors, but they are not despised by as many people. Now, one can read him through the tropes of Nayak/Khalnayak or quibble wether he is really an avatar of Vishnu or Shiva. But this will only take us so far. I also realize that with Salman we have a body of work and a plethora of news worthy events, but nothing else to offer us any radical insight. That, I think, is his greatest achievement. His ability to be so opaque under the spotlight. Thanks for the link, by the way, look forward to reading it.
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Anon
May 8, 2015
Brangan, Rahini – thanks for those different (and interesting) perspectives. Whatever the reason, I only see what great deal of harm we have done to ourselves in this process.
Wanted to point out that this is also probably tied to self esteem issues.
As a group of people, when there are not many visible things we can be proud about or derive satisfaction from, we (maybe) decide to tie our self esteem to a few who we perceive to have risen above the same limiting circumstances. So our unswerving faith is a crutch that we afford cannot let go of. Accepting that I idolized a wrong person is tantamount to admitting to stupidity and not worth risking further damage to our fragile self esteem. Hence we probably continue to hero worship and live in denial.
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brangan
May 8, 2015
js81615: Now, one can read him through the tropes of Nayak/Khalnayak or quibble wether he is really an avatar of Vishnu or Shiva. But this will only take us so far
Of course, there is an extent to which we can use myths (rather, the archetypes derived from myths) to do this sort of analysis. After a point, individual circumstances and events take over and reshape some aspects of these archetypes.
But at a fundamental level, I find these archetypes useful is what I’m saying.
Anon: Accepting that I idolized a wrong person is tantamount to admitting to stupidity and not worth risking further damage to our fragile self esteem.
Truer words, etc.
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Rahini David
May 8, 2015
Anon: I have seen impressionable teenage girls throw Ajay Jadeja from the sweetest part of their hearts when the match-fixing thing came up. So sometimes people do wake up.
The very concept of faithfulness (coupled with trustworthiness) is a part of the pack hunting, group gathering part of our evolution. We find the Alpha-Male and stick with him through thick and thin. Lean times come and go and at the end of it all it is the Alpha’s team that probably wins. This is what makes people stick with their less-than-stellar idols. The sexual desirablity of the Alpha-Male is pretty much tied within the concept.
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js81615
May 8, 2015
One last thought on thinking about Salman’s iconicity (apart from mythology, which I agree is not unimportant). I think, he should be located in the list of ‘alternate’ icons of post-indepedence India. Unfortunately, I could only come up with political personalities – Mayawati, Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee, Bhindranwale, Charu Mazumdar etc. All these people are venerated (by their fans) and despised. It’s ironic that a star so opaque about his convictions finds himself in the list of people who were/are clear about theirs. But I think Salman Khan of the celluloid taps into that sentiment bold, rebellious, tragic, inarticulate…
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V D
May 8, 2015
what’s your take dr.rangan?! –
‘ As Dr Sundar Sarukkai, director of the Centre for Philosophy and Humanities at Manipal University, says: “Religions are the first examples of cinema and gods are the first film stars; they are presented as colourful pictures, are unreachable and remain the last hope. So why be surprised when film stars become godlike figures? ‘
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/may/06/salman-khan-bollywood-star-stay-out-of-jail
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JPhilip
May 8, 2015
I was listening to BBC’s radio 4 yesterday and a brief panel discussion on his arrest. He was described by one of the panellists (in an attempt to characterise him to the native listener) as Tom Cruise with the mystique of John Wayne. The conviction notwithstanding, he went on about his charity work.The latter – the public display of wealth sharing and logos on Tshirts – has always manifest to me as a gimmick and the ‘Being Human’ flag waving in poor taste.
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Rm
May 8, 2015
“I think the personality-worship culture came to India fairly early. For we may claim to follow Hinduism as an abstract “philosophy,” but what we actually do is follow Shiva or Vishnu or Murugan or whatever. We worship these “personalities” as idols, and extrapolating this, it’s not difficult to see why we begin to worship our “human” idols too, sometimes with temples and palaabishegams.”
Attributing hero worship to the idol worship culture is blasphemous. If I take myself for instance, I am level headed enough to differentiate the reel from real. I am a fan-boy of both Lord Krishna and Kamal Haasan. But just because I prostrate in front of the idol of the Lord doesn’t mean I do not have the common sense enough to not do the same in front of thalaivar. I admire him for what he is on the screen/stage and that’s it.
What do you think about the scores of those ‘educated’ Ajith and Vijay fans who take their fights out on the social media trolling each other with expletives?
I think somewhere inside, it becomes a question of identity wherein an individual feels his own sense of whom he chooses to endorse by idolizing, is challenged. And in turn they affirm it strongly by continuing to associate their identity more and more with their star, in all things they do. So it becomes a personal thing.
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Anu Warrier
May 8, 2015
A comment from someone who’s met him, not as a fan, but as a journalist. We tend to evaluate the stars by how their employees speak of them, and how they treat those who are ‘lesser’ – their employees, the unit hands, the extras, etc. Salman Khan’s employees will probably die for him, he treats them like they are human. The unit hands (of several units) swear by him, the extras have tales of how much he’s helped them. That part is not a carefully cultivated image because no one interviews the unit hands or extras.
I’m not a ‘fan’ of his by any means, but of all the ‘heroes’ I met during my career as a journalist, he was one of the most chivalrous. And I have a soft spot for Mr Khan because when I was stranded at Film City after an interview with another ‘hero’, and was talking to the security guard to find out whether I could get an auto or cab from there at that time of the night, it was Mr Khan, passing by, who stopped his car to find out what was happening, and asked his driver to drop me home, while he hopped into a friend’s car instead.
So, yes, I’m glad that he’s facing the repercussions of his actions and that justice (of sorts) has been served, but I will still remember that he took the time to help a stranger.
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chhotesaab
May 8, 2015
Very amused by the ridiculous things fans of Salman, in this case, but fans in general can do. My extent of being a fan extends to eagerness to watch a movie or a cricket match starring a particular icon. But the comment by Anu Warrier hit a chord and made me smile, and made it a little more understandable as to why diehard fans would do seemingly ridiculous things for their icon.
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vijay
May 8, 2015
why wouldn’t they trust? He is already out on bail, something which even Amma couldn’t muster
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sachita
May 9, 2015
I can think of quite a few times when the western world has stood by its celebrities too.
Michael Jackson was tried for a more creepy crime – fans stood by him in flocks.
To a lesser extent, britney spears and others have strong supporters – no matter how low they fall.
I think Anon is probably right – “Accepting that I idolized a wrong person is tantamount to admitting to stupidity and not worth risking further damage to our fragile self esteem. Hence we probably continue to hero worship and live in denial.”
I don’t get the the idolizing a person at all – why cant people just say they like so and so for this particular characteristic and rest of it is irrelevant to me.
Thanks Anu warrier for the last line. If he has committed a crime and should face the time, pretty sure courts have provisions to consider how bad or good some one is, while deciding the sentencing. (whether they repent…)
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Pranesh
May 9, 2015
One thing I have to say (and I might be hated for this) is that Salman is in a lose-lose position here (in terms of moral high ground). Suppose he were innocent, and a court acquits him sometime in the next 10 years, very few of the people in this thread (including me) are going to consider him innocent.
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bong
May 9, 2015
greatbong.net – His blog is much more hilarious than your baddi
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Madan
May 9, 2015
It is an interesting argument that our 33 crore (or how many is it exactly) God system might fuel the extent of idol worship we see in India. It raises the question whether our own understanding of Hinduism is often shallow and comprises of convenient shortcuts. When orthodox Brahmins that I meet hold forth on Hindu mythology, they show off their ability to recollect minute details of incidents in the epics that I might personally regard as rather trivial but seem to have little insight into the mistakes that these Gods are shown to have made. Especially the Mahabharata is full of mistakes and misdeeds and not far removed from Wall Street from a morality perspective. But I am not sure this is the lesson most people do in fact draw from Hindu mythology. A guy who I know from my CA apprenticeship days actually believed Lord Ram, Hanuman and Pushpak Viman existed and was shocked at my skepticism at this opinion. So don’t be too surprised when Modi or or even our beloved science minister Harshvardhan ji come up with the most amazing ‘scientific’ ‘insights’ 😛 because they speak for this huge, silent conservative lobby. It seems to me that this lobby appropriated Salman from an early stage what with his good boy act in tame films like Maine Pyar Kiya and HAHK (where Shah Rukh played the volatile, passionate anti hero in Baazigar, Dar, Anjaam). That SRK later adapted Yash Raj isshtyle is a different story. But Salman in some ways mirrors the image of the ideal, conservative Indian male. And of course the ideal conservative Indian male hits-and-runs and fobs off the police, right? Ideal Indian male is an adarshvaadi so he can never be wrong and he will always find somebody to blame for his misdeeds. I don’t think, looking at the state of traffic in our country, that I am exaggerating too much here. Salman did what many other wealthy ‘Bhartiya’ brats would have done but too bad he is such a big celebrity that he couldn’t get away even after dodging the legal system for 13 years. And Harish Salve & Co might still get him off, so there’s hope for the Bhai ____ (fill in the blanks as per your imagination).
I found the reactions of some Bolly big shots pretty disturbing, though. More thoughts on that here:
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Madan
May 9, 2015
As for whether women are included in the “masses” that Salman appeals to, I distinctly remember when I was in 10th standard and Mission Kashmir had released, our coaching class tutor came back to say that sadly, the movie was disappointing and Hrithik hadn’t acted well. Immediately, the girls went up in unison. They said they weren’t sad, they were happy because they were Salman fans and they didn’t want Hrithik to do well. I rest my case. As to what exactly they find appealing about Salman is not for me to say. 😛
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aparna
May 9, 2015
One other point that probably played a role in the response to Salman’s verdict. In any celebrity trial, the public perception of guilt is less than in a non celebrity trial.
“A presumption of familiarity takes hold. However what is usually known about the celebirty is merely a public image, not the more complex, fleshed-out knowledge generally found in one-on-one, reciprocal relationships. If a celebrity’s public image is successfully “manufactured,” this familiarity is often positive, providing a halo effect for future judgments and inferences about the celebrity regarding other favorable character traits
Such a halo effect is particularly advantageous in high-profile criminal cases, e.g., those involving O. J. Simpson or Michael Jackson. With both Simpson and Jackson, the public has tended to view charges against them (homicide and child molestation, respectively) contextually, weighing the consistency of such charges against the celebrity’s presumed familiarity and positive public persona, e.g., “O. J. is such a nice guy, he couldn’t commit such a gruesome crime,” or “Michael Jackson loves children, he wouldn’t molest them.”
(Los Angeles Times, 1994, August).
http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/oj.html
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SR
May 13, 2015
A penchant for wearing bracelets, muscle revealing/tight clothes, frequent shirtless pics with men, misogynistic behavior, mama’s boy tendencies, numerous girlfriends with no marriage in sight – a Western psychologist would recommend coming out of the closet. Locking him in jail full of men is probably his version of paradise.
Wonder if his legions of fans would accept this (probable) version of him – a man’s man in the biblical sense 😉
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brangan
May 19, 2015
Got this via email (to my Hindu ID):
‘Shah Rukh Khan, with his NRI romances and designer duds, embodies aspiration or escapist fantasy. Aamir Khan is the thinking man’s actor. But nobody speaks to the real India that wants godlike heroes and modern-day myths like Salman Khan. He is the Rajinikanth of
North India’
My comment: For Mahavishnu and its ‘disciples’, anything in films deemed +ve has to have a Kamal connection and anything deemed -ve has to have a Rajni connection. There is always an ‘intellectual’ air about Kamal, Aamir etc. It is not air, just gas…you know what it is!
This is the actual modern-day myth. I am afraid with this perspective or ‘compass’, no article related to films can raise ‘its level’, Salman case of otherwise. I had been till recently in Noida and have discussed Hindi films with my colleagues and local population but I didnt perceive anything closer to what this article mentioned.
I of course see a political angle in the silence and support in this issue to the actor, which has been mentioned in the other article in The Hindu – http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/2002-hitandrun-case-basharat-peer-on-salman-in-films-and-real-life/article7181527.ece
He is definitely not the Rajnikanth of North India – of course, there was one Amitabh Bachchan and maybe it can be said Rajnikanth is Tamil Nadu’s Amitabh Bachchan (no, not Rajesh Khanna!). There is nobody to follow that in Hindi cinema. Salman Khan is what is usually called in South – just B/C centre hero, which definitely Rajni is not.
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brangan
May 19, 2015
Got this via email (to my Hindu ID):
Salman Khan’s infertility may be due to azoospermia (seedless state) or venous leak (penile coma) or both. D.H.Lawrence was certainly seedless, though even the so-called extensively researched biographies never hint at this possibility. Bhisma and Hamlet suffered from one of these maladies.
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Iswarya V
May 20, 2015
Er.. I wonder that the last comment came past your spam filter! At least Bhishma’s existence is probably in the realm of the debatable, but Hamlet? Azoospermia? How about syphilis/AIDS?
Wish I knew what the writer was smoking! 🙂
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