CREATIVE LIBERTY SANS SMOKING
BY: K.RAJBIR DESWAL
Tucked on to his lips, the cigarette refuses to quit Shah Rukh Khan. It has the pride of place on King Khan’s otherwise common place countenance. More than his love for Lady Nicotine, his “creative liberty” needs the versatile actor.
Most advanced argument in not being able to turn away the stub, as quoted by the smokers, is their difficulty in concentrating on things they are required to. But with SRK, to whom acting comes ‘naturally’, it sounds nothing short of a subterfuge.
Is SRK afraid of role reversal? Would he lose his popularity if he’s seen without that dangle on his lips? Raj Kapoor cast the ‘dreaded’ mother-in-law Lalita Pawar, in a caring mother-figure in Jis Desh Main Ganga Behti Hai. Manoj Kumar’s ‘Malang Baba’ in Upkar was an exact antithesis of the mould, Pran had been portraying in the movies till then. These directors took the creative liberty by a role reversal. Why can’t SRK do the same in appearing more sober, is surely intriguing.
Also, if ‘creative liberty’ be not just a ploy, then I can understand Sohrab Modi’s inability to contract his vocal chords, to lower down his high decibel pitch, while delivering dialogues. Perhaps he couldn’t possibly do that. But why our SRK, exhorting us all with his war cry—Chak de, is unwilling to oblige a well meaning Mr. Anbumani Ramadoss, is baffling.
I remember Dilip Kumar, with a soft reed tucked in his lips and cajoling his onscreen flame, seeking a kind of confirmation of her love for him. Kabir Bedi in Kache Dhage is also seen with a similar reed, rolled with his tongue from one end of the lips to the other, to have the desired effect. Ashok Kumar often removed his spectacles, of which one arm reached unconsciously his lips, while either in deep thought, or if he was to act out disgust.
Jaani Raj Kumar always gently stroked the right side of his nape with his right hand to say a hundred-thousand emotions to bully his detractor, and so gently at that. When Manoj Kumar needed to come to brass stacks, he invariable covered half his face, with his gaze fixed deep down below. This style of the thespian though was ‘allegedly’ lampooned in his Om Shanti Om by SRK himself. Is it this type of a world of creative liberty Shah Rukh is trying to ‘make believe’ for us?
All this adds up to say that there are a plethora of substitutes when it comes to creativity. Dilip Kumar used to enact a scene all differently each time, and the best suited would be picked up by the director, as goes the impression. Why can’t King Khan shun the stub(bornness) and try and put up a façade sans cigarette? Or having been bestowed upon the French title “Officer of the Order of Arts et Lettres” does he think that with Liberty, he can take along the Fraternity of smokers, to the realm of Equality with those who have said quits to smoking. Nah, asie na karo. New title for a SRK movie?
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