Watched Jawan. I feel I don’t have particularly good writing skills, unlike so many others — but I still felt like penning my thoughts about this movie. Let me reiterate — I am not a film critic and should be given grace marks for my honest outpourings here.

The film is total Bollywood masala blockbuster with a South Indian flavour to it, and for many this will be a complete paisa wasool experience, in spite the absurdities and far-from-real situations it embodies. Yet I loved the intent of the movie, something so important in today’s world. The movie had a spate of strong messages, all imparted as and when the story unfolded — though at times it was tough keeping track. The movie got me dreaming of a beautiful India, though everything looks so unattainable right now; but yet, I gathered hope. After all, “Woh zindagi bhi kya jisme koi mumkin sapna na ho.” We all grew up on Bollywood masala entertainers where father and son were separated during the son’s birth, someone lost their memory which only came back during the climax, son takes revenge on behalf of the father, policemen falling in love with criminals — only to be told that his intent was something else, smuggler dads with innocent daughters held for ransom — and so, the absurdities of Jawan were pretty acceptable only because of the right intent. The film questions the establishment and it draws inspiration from the Bhopal Gas tragedy (which we are on the verge of forgetting) , farmer suicides (we are again oblivious to), the Bofors Scam, the crumbling medical infrastructure of our country (Covid showed us the reality), taking the environment for granted, and above all, selling our own country to industrialists. The movie addresses all these issues and makes a mockery of us, the countrymen, for being blind and not raising our voices. It’s true we don’t question before voting, we don’t understand the power that lies in our hands.

The film’s way of handling each and every issue was definitely crazy, absurd, but again when did Hindi commercial films became real? It was never meant to be and I had no such expectations going in. What touched me is that in today’s day and age someone had the guts to do a film like Jawan and I am sure he wanted to reach out to the masses with a strong message, with the best ingredients to generate mass appeal. The opening scene reminded me of Sholay, the screws puncturing the cars reminded me of Sonar Kella, and so on so forth.

Of course there were glitches, the songs were boring — but the movie stole my heart due to the strong message it conveyed and none other than SRK could have made this possible. There were scenes which got me teary-eyed because I tend to be delusional when I read about farmers suicides, patients dying due to lack of medical support, soldiers dying at the border and coming back in coffins. As I said, the film raised my hopes of a beautiful country and we all need a messiah, like Azad, to bring in the change — or do we have it in us to become like Azad or Vikram Rathod. I really don’t know, but I want to dream and hope — since hope is all we have .

Shah Rukh Khan, take a bow! I love you for everything. Director Atlee, you have my heart for this movie which touched so many chords deep within me, and kudos for having the guts to question our establishment.

Not many people have that.