The buck who belled the Bhai

Dear Blackbuck (ji)

I wonder in all those times you were harmlessly chewing a mouthful of grass, you thought that one day you would become the topic of national interest. Twenty years ago, you were killed in cold blood by a group of privileged, drunk on their own awesomeness individuals. You see, often with great power comes zero sensitivity, and in the case of the man who killed you, this has been proven true several times.

Did you know that over the past twenty years, he has become the victim and you the tormentor? Really, it’s true. His fans and fearful colleagues; whom he bullies like the mean kid on a playground, all feel killing you was no big deal. I mean come on, you were just a deer. When he crushed people to death with his car, blamed them for being poor and sleeping on a pavement and got away with it, what’s the big deal about killing a blackbuck, right?

I heard a brilliant line once that’s so applicable here. It’s hard to put a leash on a dog once you a crown on its head. Once you celebrate a man for his mediocrity and alpha male personality, it doesn’t take long for him to become an omni-bullying god. That’s right, you haven’t been his only victim over the years. No sir. With biceps larger than his brain and a crotch that can thrust itself anywhere, the audience wants to see it, your killer has been around the abuse and murder block and notched up quite a few impressive victories.

Take his girlfriends for example. Women have gone on record to talk about his abusive behaviour and orthodox possessiveness. One of them was on a movie set when he barged in, poured a coke on her head and manhandled her. Now her mother-in-law stands up in support of this man. I mean talk about an all-pervasive fear or a complete lack of feeling.

Since bullying her was not enough, when she dared to get involved with another man, coincidentally an actor, your killer called him 41 times and abused him for daring to date his gal.  But in a cinematic twist, the young bullied man who called out Goliath for his instability, lost his career overnight for daring to take him on.

Remarkable, isn’t it? I mean it was such a sight to see the poor chump go around apologizing to someone who had abused him. When a playback singer dared to open his mouth and crack a joke at the bully’s expense, possibly in a moment of insanity, his voice was choked out of an upcoming movie and a gag order has been placed on him as far all forthcoming movies are concerned. 

You feel sorry, don’t you black buck ji? He can destroy anyone on a whim. Like an underworld don who kills one to scare the rest into obedience, this man and his mafia can turn any perceived slight into a carefully crafted career suicide that can scare the ethics out of anyone.

But you know who makes me feel sorry and angry at the same time? Women. The supposedly evolved feminists who appear at fora to talk about women’s rights, the ridiculousness of karvachauth and the importance of being independent, but cannot bring themselves to say a word against a man whose reputation has been singularly awful.

If any rising star, non-film family folk, or even a mid-level star had compared physical training for a movie to a woman getting raped, the same women would have autographed pitchforks to have the man lynched by social media. But when it comes to your killer, they just chose to act ignorant, or deaf. What good are principles or women’s rights in the face of having your career Oberoi-literated? One international fashionista put up a social media post in his support saying she was by his side. Really? The hypocrisy will make you want to laugh and cry and lose the battle to being cynical.

Perhaps you feel black buck ji that I am passing the buck around. I am blaming other people for his misdeeds or him getting away with the things he does. Perhaps you feel that nothing will come of me saying all this. But when everyone dons a cloak of invisibility or ignorance, the powerful get away with murder. You have to bell the Weinstein.

A bully has a rather symbiotic relationship with the people he torments. He grows strong on their fear, nourishing his megalomania with the compost of careers, dreams, fear and the decayed carcass of truth. Your killer is a symbol of everything that ails the movie business. Of how the careers of are still controlled by a few powerful men, of how mediocrity passes off as entertainment or worse still cinema, and how a male star’s persona can blind his fans to his not so pleasant reality. 

Men fight in life-threatening conditions on our border and lose their life only to become a statistic, but here is a film actor who is celebrated after being jailed for a crime. I mean is it just me who finds the situation frightening and bleak?

Which is why I wish to congratulate you black buck ji. You and your lawyers managed to finally send a powerful man to jail and face the consequences of his actions. To me, you became a symbol of justice and accountability. Even if it happened twenty years ago, even if he has set up an NGO to ensure he doesn’t return in his next life as a beetle, and even if an entire fraternity of artists have buried their heads in the sands of disbelief, this case is a symbol of hope and a rather bleak glimmer that the powerful are still accountable for their actions. He had to feel the truth of what he really is. Just another petty criminal who should not have killed an endangered animal.