Veteran actor Om Puri was a force to reckon with. A powerhouse performer, India’s first true-blue crossover artist, a trailblazer in the art house film era and someone who helped improve the quality of commercial films with his mere presence in them. He indeed was a much-loved actor among the audiences and within the industry. However, in the past year, he was hounded by right-wing trolls for sticking his neck out for Pakistani actors. When Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena wanted Pakistani actors to leave Mumbai in the aftermath of the September 2016 Uri attacks, Puri was one of the few Bollywood actors brave enough to support them at the cost of sounding anti-national and politically incorrect.
He said: “Pakistani actors come to India with a valid visa.” This didn’t go down well with many on social media at a time when hypernationalism was being served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on our news channels. The first casualty of this hypernationalism is common sense and perspective. Last year, Puri was busy working on his Pakistani film Actor in Law and he was promoting it in Pakistan too, even when the relationship between the two neighboring countries was at an all-time low. He was all for a better Indo-Pak relationship and he also got love and admiration from people across the border.
However, this perhaps was not a sensibility that suited the times. His friend and compatriot Anupam Kher had started taking a strong stand in favor of the Narendra Modi government with a nationalistic tone underlining all his statements. Puri did exactly the opposite. He spoke about friendship with Pakistanis, he spoke about the rights of Pakistani actors and he spoke against the beef ban in India. Recently, he made a very controversial remark during his visit to Pakistan highlighting how India is the biggest exporter of beef while banning it in the country.
His stance on these contentious issues made him vulnerable to online trolling and name calling. He was pushed to the wall for his support of Pakistani actors. He was repeatedly asked by the social media trolls and badgered by the media: Did he not value the martyrdom of soldiers on the border? Did he not insult the sacrifice of the soldier by supporting Pakistani actors? Puri, not one to be bullied answered: “Who had asked the soldiers to join the army? Who told them to pick the weapons?”. Then he suggested that India should respond to Pakistan’s terrorism with terrorism. He suggested India should train dozens of suicide bombers to teach the proverbial lesson to Pakistanis.
A true orator always banks on hyperbole or atishyokti to make his point. Alas! times are not good for any figure of speech and expression – be it humor, sarcasm or hyperbole. People have dumbed themselves down where we only understand polarization and the game of binaries oscillating between ideological extremes. Sad that Puri couldn’t dumb himself down to that level and give politically correct answers.
Read more: Best films, scenes, and life of Om Puri
Media’s urgency to take on a non-player in Indo-Pak relations like Puri and shred his self-respect into pieces on national television was appalling. You have to watch the wolfish Arnab Goswami feeding on a hurt angry old man’s ego on his show all for the purpose of TRP. Goswami didn’t let Puri go even after he apologized for his comments, even after he said he must be hanged and punished by the army. Incidentally, Puri had played the disgruntled father of a martyred soldier in the film Dhoop and earned a lot of accolades.
Watch this scene.
Even as we mourn the death of this amazing actor who has given us incredible films like Aakrosh and Ardh Satya , many on Twitter are in fact happy that he is gone.
Read more: Om Puri passes away: Why are some Twitterati happy about it?
Can things get any sadder?
Extremely shocked to see how some so called Patriots are celebrating veteran actor Om Puri’s death #OmPuri pic.twitter.com/MufPt2th5O
— Virender Sehwag (@ViirenderSehwag) January 6, 2017
This situation makes Om Puri’s famous rendition of Dilip Chitre’s poem in Ardh Satya, ‘Chakravyuh‘ all the more relevant for today. Particularly these lines:
chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad
main mukt ho jaoon bhali hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein
farq hi na padega.
True, he may be out of the chakravyuh of jingoism woven by the flagbearers of nationalism. But will the construct of this suffocating chakravyuh ever change? Will it stop humiliating other voices who have a different point of view? That’s a debate for another day.
Here’s the entire poem with video, text, and translation.
Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle,
kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha,
yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega.
Before I entered this maze,
Who was I?
I will not remember.
Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad,
mere aur chakravyuh ke beech,
sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi,
iska mujhe pata hi na chalega.
After I entered the war-maze,
there was a life-threatening
proximity between the enemy and me.
I will never come to realize this.
Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad,
main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein
farq hi na padega.
Even if I earn my freedom,
and get out of this maze alive,
it will make absolutely no difference to the maze itself.
Marun ya maarun,
maara jaoon ya jaan se maardun.
iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega.
While within this maze,
to die or to kill,
to be killed, or to take someone’s life,
can never be fairly judged
Soaya hun aadmi jab
neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai hai,
tab sapno ka sansar use,
dobara dikh hi na paayega.
When a man awakens from his slumber,
and starts to walk again,
he relinquishes his world of comfortable dreams.
Us roshni mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai
sab kuchh s’maan hoga kya?
In that light of wakefulness which illuminates his choices,
will there be fair and equal justice?
Ek palde mein napunsakta,
ek palde mein paurush,
aur theek taraazu ke kaante par
ardh satya.
Balancing impotence, on one side of the scale,
with manhood, on the other,
the needle of this perfect balance points us
to a half-truth
