Bloated Egos in Bollywood

The latest example of bloated egos in Bollywood is provided by the verbal duel between Aamr Khan, Idiot No. 1 in Three Idiots and the pseudo-secular intellectual  Javed Akhtar.

Aamir Khan Highbrow and bloated

It is true that both of them have reached a certain stature in the film industry and have contributed their bit to the movie world. They also have a lot to contribute still. It is also true that both of them have their share of admirers and detractors alike.

But it does not mean that those who try to poke their noses in everything are the only ones who can contribute.

The argument arose from a discussion on who contributed more to the success of a movie song. The occasion was a meeting to sort out worldly royalty issues between producers and lyric writers.

Aaamir Khan, just as he had tried to intervene in the Three Idiots dispute with Chetan Bhagat, tried to intervene saying that lyric writers did not have much to contribute to the impact of a song. While he tried to downplay the role of the lyricists and claimed that only the star actor makes a contribution to the success of a song, Javed Akhtar took umbrage and a heated argument followed.

If truth be told, film songs become popular more by the sense of hearing than by the sense of sight. Not everyone goes to see the movie whose song becomes popular. Many songs become popular even before the movie is released everywhere and many a song played on screen by mediocre stars  or of miserably failed movies  become popular. It is the combined effort of the lyricist and the music director that creates the maximum impact of the song. Of course, Aamir Khan is totally wrong in giving more credit to the actors. Even Javed  must know also that without good music composition, a superlative lyric will also remain effective only with a small number of people.

So where both are wrong, it is not proper to take sides on the issue about which the debate became ugly. The objective of both sides primarily revolved around money rather than a debate purely about merits.

But considering the actions of Aamir Khan thereafter where he sent in his resignation from a certain committe about Copyrights, it does seem that the actor is going overboard. His ego certainly seems to be bloating rather much as can be seen from his letter to the Hon'ble Minister for HRD Kapil Sibal.

Aamir wrote that though he felt he had a lot to contribute, “I cannot make any meaningful contribution in this atmosphere. Aggression of this type leaves me feeling very disillusioned and sad and I am unable to function.”

Well, the Minister or the Government can be hardly concerned in his personal arguments with Javed Akhtar and the offense taken by him and it would be inadvisable for the Minister to even attempt to keep him on the Committee. If he wants to resign, let him resign. He is not the only one who feels he has a lot to contribute, there will be a hundred others more brainy than him even within the industry.

Let such bloated egos be deflated as soon as possible.

Three Idiots in One

Aamir, the all-knowing Bollywood hero has done it again. (see previous)

At first, he got some cheap publicity by traveling all over the country in different attires to attract attention. The film 3 Idiots for sure, has done exceedingly well and Aamir may be giving a pat on his own back thinking that it was his gimmick that resulted in the Box Office success.

By all accounts, it is a movie well made and all those involved should get due credit. It is another thing that true to typical Bollywood style, the producer, director and actor have ignored to give due credit to Chetan Bhagat, whose book Five Point Someone provided the base for the movie.

Understandably, the author of the book is aggrieved that his name appears at the end of the title credits almost as an “also ran”. Now that the movie has done well even beyond the wildest expectations of the makers, they are upset that Bhagat is making noises in public.

Both Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra took great pains to tell the world that the story is written by someone else working for them. They also got flustered and angry amidst persistent questions raised by the media.

Unfortunately, the truth cannot be hidden by angry shouts and assertions. As early as February 2008, a Bollywood blog had reported that the Hirani was going to make a movie adaptation of the book with Aamir in lead. See here. Even when the movie was released, many reviewers clearly mentioned that the entire movie was largely based on the book. See for example here:

And yet, the movie makers insist that the movie is developed by their own genius. Aamir, the other genius who has acted in the movie, suggested during the media meet that Chagat was raising objections to gain publicity. Well, the idiot should know that whatever he (Aamir) did was all for cheap publicity, only for having acted as one of the three idiots in the movie. So, the person based on whose book the movie is made has every right to speak out which is far from saying that he is doing it for publicity now that the movie is such a success.

It is difficult to tell Aamir, the irrepressible, to shut up and keep playing his movie roles which he is good at. Self-styled geniuses are like that.

And as for plagiarism, Bollywood is known for it for so long. Making clones and copies is an obsession with Bollywood –it is truly the Ulhasnagar in movie world.

Even reputed movie makers like Mahesh Bhatt (another self styled genius) are not known to be averse to plagiarism. The song Ya Ali from his movie Gangster was a straight copy from an Arabic song by Guitara which he must have known. Listen



There are many sequences in his other movies which were straight copies of Hollywood movies which has already bee reported widely. Even Aamir starrer Rang De Basanti is said to have been based on All my Sons and Jesus of Montreal.

Bolly - the clone masters

So Bollywood has always been shameless and brazen when it comes to copying whether movie themes or music. It is not going to make any difference to them if people like Bhagat keep believing in Gandhi and Truth. The irony of it all is that this controversy is actually further helping the movie even if it will help Bhagat sell some more copies of his book to people curious enough to make a comparison between the movie and the book.

Idiotic Promotion

Our friend (not a great friend of some bollywood colleagues) Aamir Khan is up to his antics again.

This time, in order to promote his film THREE IDIOTS (he being one of them - why did he not perform all the three idiots himself? One wonders.) he is visitng various places in India with a dress change tactic.

The tactic is obviously not intended to hide his identity or his idiosyncracy at all. In fact, he is going out of his way to make sure that media is made aware of all his moves and his visits to various places is given good coverage.

No wonder, his arch adversary Khan Shahrukh is not amused and is passing snide remarks against Khan Aamir. Other rivals may just be waiting for the right opportunity to give him a jab here or a jab there.

The media, like the fools they sometimes appear to be, eagerly gobble up such opportunities and give him free publicity, just to fill up their own time slots. One suspects that media must be charging him normal advertisement rates.

Judging by the manner in which our public also rushes to see such movies simply based on idiotic publicity stunts, Aamir Khan and the likes of him laugh all the way to the bank.

Let us hope that the public will become wiser and more mature, unlike those who indulge in such stunts only to fool the people.