In This Week’s Pop Culture Round-up: From Diljit Dosanjh’s Alcohol-Free Performance To Kamal Haasan Renouncing His Title

The ‘Pop-Culture Digest’ series is a fortnightly catch-up on what’s hot in entertainment.

Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali’s biopic Amar Singh Chamkila, which released earlier this year, tells us about the unprecedented fame and success the Punjabi singer witnessed in the 1980s. We learned that Chamkila’s stardom grew to a point where he could outsell Amitabh Bachchan in a live show. His songs had lyrics that were graphic and sexually-charged. The masses loved it, but cultural gatekeepers wanted to censor him.

Diljit Dosanjh, who essays the role of Chamkila in the film, found himself in an eerily similar predicament last week. On the eve of his performance in Hyderabad, the government ordered him to refrain from singing songs about alcohol and violence. Dosanjh lamented that he released two devotional songs recently which hardly got any traction compared to his hit song ‘Patiala Peg’. He called out the same hypocrisy Ali points to in his film.

Expecting a Punjabi artist to remove all references to alcohol in their work is a tough ask. I imagine the only thing that could be worse is asking them to drop mentions of luxury brands. Dosanjh, who has had a terrific year professionally, handled the situation like a champ, subtly mocking the order and also exposing the loopholes in such diktats. He went ahead with all his big hits — 'Lemonade', 'Case' and 'Patiala Peg' — that mention drugs or alcohol, but with inventive tweaks. The best reworking was of ‘5 Taara’ which is a song about a heartbroken man drowning himself in alcohol after being dumped by his girlfriend. Dosanjh replaced the word ‘theka’ with hotel, ‘daaru’ with Coke (he's also a brand ambassador) and the line ‘Peg peg karde ne’ became ‘Sip sip karde ne’. Addressing the moral police, he warned, ‘mujhe chhedo mat’ or ‘don’t mess with me’. I would listen.

On that note, here’s what happened in pop culture this fortnight.

The Raj & DK Origin story

Filmmakers Raj and DK had two streaming releases over the past few weeks: Citadel: Honey Bunny, the action spy thriller starring Varun Dhawan and Samantha Prabhu, and Flavors, their first-ever feature that was released in 2003. Something about watching these two works, created over two decades apart, made the duo’s hard-earned global success feel personal.

Flavors is a funny, sweet and keenly observed indie about Indian engineers hustling in America. There are multiple characters whose stories tie in at the end in a nice Shor in the City way. It’s possibly semi-autobiographical too. Raj and DK were also software engineers in America at the time, teaching themselves filmmaking. There is a running joke about convoluted Indian last names that definitely came from a real place.

Of all things, I didn’t expect the end credits to make me emotional. It read like a thank you letter by excited first-time filmmakers who weren’t sure if they would get to do this again. I thought of the wonderful stories and sharp one-take action scenes that were yet to come when they made this. Flavors was produced by Anupam Mittal, the founder of Shaadi.com, who is now better known as a Shark Tank judge; he also has a pivotal acting part. Sita Menon, a constant collaborator and creator of Honey Bunny, is credited as an executive producer and songwriter. She’s also credited with acting in a deleted scene. The score is by Mahesh Shankar who worked on The Family Man as well. Friends are thanked for their ‘help in Hindi’ and ‘all the slogging’. There’s a mention of filmmaker Jay Duplass that I’m curious to know more about. Raj and DK double up as actors, albeit fleetingly. Raj also lent his vocals to a song. The sweetest bit is at the end when they thank their family and friends for standing by them even when they didn’t return their calls.

Frozen in Time

In filmmaker Robert Zemeckis’ recent release Here, actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright play a couple whose relationship spans across decades. In a pre-AI world, Zemickis would have probably used different actors to play the younger version of these characters. Instead, he opted for de-ageing tools to make Hanks and Wright look like high school kids. Perhaps the opportunity to invoke nostalgia amongst Forrest Gump fans was too hard to resist.

Zemeckis isn’t the first filmmaker to go this route, but in Here, the de-ageing isn’t just a hack used for flashback scenes. We see a fair bit of a 68-year-old Hanks with a thick mop of hair and slim jaw which some reviews called a ‘terrifying’ and ‘unsettling’ sight. This is true. I found myself disconnecting from the performance and focusing on his creaseless face. You’re constantly aware that the image on screen has been manipulated. Closer home, films like Jawan, Dunki, and G.O.A.T have also de-aged their male leads for select scenes. More recently, something about Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit’s physicality in the Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 dance-off felt altered. It made me think of the days we happily watched middle-aged actors play college boys without blinking an eyelid. Those were the days when it only took a wig to de-age them.

That said, Here does make you marvel at what technology can achieve. The film uses a tool that allows for real-time de-ageing of actors, which is different from what The Irishman (2019), Gemini Man (2019) and the rest have used previously. Essentially, now a filmmaker can see the younger versions of the actors on a monitor as they are performing on set. It’s a remarkable feat, but doesn’t necessarily make the viewing experience more palatable. George Miller recently said he considered reverse ageing Charlize Theron for the prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga but he wasn’t convinced of the quality so he recast the role with the younger Anya Taylor Joy. It was a good call.

The Name is K

Lokesh Kanagaraj’s 2022 film Vikram begins with a tight close-up of Kamal Haasan’s eyes. Actually, it begins with an overview of a globe that gets smaller as you zoom out, and gradually turns into one of Haasan’s eyeballs. S Shankar’s Indian 2, which released this year, begins with an acknowledgement of Haasan’s versatility through images of him in different get ups from his time as a child actor to now. These are tributes by fanboy filmmakers and also a lead up to his name ‘Ulaganayagan’ Kamal Haasan filling up the screen. Earlier this month, soon after his 70th birthday, Haasan put out a detailed letter explaining why he no longer wants to be called ‘Ulaganayagan’ which roughly translates to ‘Universal Hero’. In his letter, he explains that he’s come to realise that no superstar can be greater than the art of cinema. "I prefer to remain grounded, constantly aware of my imperfections and my duty to improve,” he writes. A few years ago, Tamil superstar Ajith Kumar requested fans to not call him ‘Thala’.

Haasan’s moniker was given to him before the release of his film Thenali in 2000 as a mark of respect. But it made me think of the long and interesting history of artists renouncing honours, awards, titles and state recognitions because they thought it unfair. One of my favourite stories is of celebrity chef Nigella Lawson refusing an OBE (Order of the British Empire) with the explanation: “I’m not saving lives”. Comedian John Oliver refused the same honour from the Queen saying, "Why on earth would I want that?"

Filmmaker Danny Boyle was rather angry when he was offered Knighthood for putting together the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony because it was a team effort and not his work alone. “You can make these speeches about ‘this is everybody's work, blah blah blah’. And you've got to mean it, and I did mean it,” he said later in a radio interview. Haasan’s letter echoes the same sentiment. There’s a line in there that goes, “Cinema, like any other form of creative expression, belongs to all. It is the collaboration of countless artists, technicians and audience who make it what it is…”

While Haasan now wants to be called just Kamal or K, other male stars are getting an upgrade. In the teaser for S. Shankar’s Game Changer, we see that ‘Mega power star’ Ram Charan is now ‘Global Star’, post the international success of RRR, ensuring that there’s never a dull moment for our hero-worshipping fandom.