Dilemma of the Common Man

Is Akshay Kumar using an invalid RK Laxman to promote a movie?

It is true that when a product is made using vast amounts of money, there will be strenuous efforts to sell it. It is also true that human beings, no matter how many trails they blazed, will grow old and decrepit. Both truths are unconnected unless you are Akshay Kumar selling his next movie.

Recently, the Kumar-Who-Wants-To-Be-Khan went visiting RK Laxman, the most famous cartoonist India has ever produced and creator of the enduring Common Man. Akshay behaved with utmost respect and held a book while Laxman scribbled something on it. It would have been a nice little gesture given that Laxman has had a series of strokes and is an invalid in a Mumbai hospital. But then came the kick-off: the next day, there were photos in a newspaper of Akshay and Laxman, with an accompanying article about the star playing the Common Man in his forthcoming film, Khatta Meetha.

It would take a blind man to not find something distasteful about it, and led to one film critic, Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN, calling Akshay a jackass, largely due to his toothy grin, whose design, it must be admitted in Akshay’s defence, is something human beings have little control over. Masand’s observation led to another drama where Amitabh Bachchan found not the act of using a hospitalised person to promote a film tasteless, but the calling of Akshay a jackass, and he tweeted about it. We can discount Amitabh because he was only fuelling his usual obsession with media behaviour, but still, the incident is not as black and white as it seems. 

Though a smile does not a jackass make, neither does a seemingly distasteful act tell you why it is wrong. For, what exactly was objectionable in what Akshay did? He surely had the consent of Laxman’s family. Who among the interested parties comes out unhappy in the deal—not Akshay, not the filmmakers, neither Laxman’s kin or even Laxman.

But here is the niggling nub: would the visit have taken place if there was no movie, and no promise of publicity? Wasn’t this then a commercial transaction, at least from Akshay’s end? In which case, is it not only fair that Laxman, who in effect is helping sell tickets, gets paid? If Akshay does that, then it is perfectly alright. Otherwise, it is not. Were Laxman able to, quite possibly he would have seen the irony of it and perhaps even drawn the Common Man with a jackass grin.

Akshay KumarRK Laxman