Akshay Kumar: Right Actor, Wrong Film

​(Aamir Was Supposed To Do The Same Story As Rustom)​

It is ironical that Akshay Kumar has finally won a National award for a mediocre film and performance like Rustom after so many years of consistently capable performances.

​And to think the actor who lost the National award this  was​ year to Akhsay was supposed to do the same story with a different director. That’s right. Aamir Khan was  all set to recreate the celebrated K M Nanavati murder case where a much-decorated naval officer gunned down his wife’s alleged lover.

Aamir was to do the   story with director Ram Madhvani,decorated with the National award for the true-life story of Neerja. Aamir and Ram even flew down to London to meet Nanavati’s widow who had given her approval to the project.

We don’t know what Aamir and Madhvani would have done to Nanavati’s story . They dropped the project when they heard of Akshay Kumar and Neeraj Pandey getting together to do Rustom.

But I suspect Aamir’s take would have been far more authentic.Akshay whitewashes the homicidal naval officer’s character to match the colour of his uniform.By the end of Rustom we are not looking at a man who lost his head when he saw his wife on someone else’s bed. We are looking a demi-God who had to kill the man who was corrupting his poor innocent wife.

Strangely, Rustom doesn’t tick any of the boxes for the National award.It doesn’t have any social relevance or impact on the collective consciousness. And there were at least four other performance  in 2016 by leading men that had a far-reaching resonance: Manoj Bajpai inHansal Mehta’s  Aligarh, Aamir Khan in  Nitesh Tiwari’s Dangal, Sushant Singh Rajput inNeeraj Pandey’s Dhoni: The Untold Story and Randeep Hooda in Omung Kumar’s  Sarbjit.

And let’s  not forget…Akshay Kumar in Raja Krishna Menon’s Airlift.

Aamir was the most obvious choice for the National award. The National awards have ignored Dangal  almost completely except for a Best Supporting actress for Zaira Wasim,a very talented Kashmiri girl whose sole representation  from the Dangal team in the National awards smacks of the politics of appeasement.

Not that Zaira was not deserving. She was. But so was Fatima Saina Sheikh who played the grownup version of the same character.And so was Aamir.

National award jury helmer Priyadarshan says they  didn’t give Aamir the award because  he doesn’t attend awards functions.Obviously Priyan has not read the fine print where Aamirclearly states he doesn’t feel the same disdain for the National award. Not does Priyan seem aware of Akshay’s vocal declaration that he would no longer attend popular awards functions as they promise awards only if he agrees to dance on stage.

The national awards function doesn’t come with the functional razzmatazz. Thank God for that.Akshay won’t have to dance before collecting the best-actor award.He may have to do a respectful Namaste to the President, though.

Apropos of  nothing, Aamir did make that statement not so long ago about his wife and children feeling unsafe in India.He should think about doing his Namaste at the right places.

When it comes to celebrities , we are an unforgiving nation.

Akshay on the other hand has been leaning blissfully towards political correctness: roles that require him to be Indian and heroic, handsome donations to martyred soldiers’ families,vocal support of women’s safety, etc etc.

All this could not have escaped  Prime Minister Narendra Modiji’s notice.

Akshay would have to remain content with the National award, though. Being an overseas citizen,  holding a Canadian passport,he cannot be eligible to run for any official position in the government.So for all those Akshay fans hoping to see him sit in Parliament some day… sorry folks, you just have to make do with Akshay as Lord Krishna on screen

Oh My God.