One of the familiar tropes of a Salman Khan film is the star exposing his torso. Over the years, scriptwriters have run out of ideas to make the act look plausible. But Ali Abbas Zafar has conceived a legitimate reason to keep the star uncovered and his fans fawning. “I have ensured that he not only takes off his shirt but also pants!” chuckles the writer-director of the much-awaited Sultan.
Zafar, maker of mass entertainers like Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and Gunday , says he has attempted to push the boundaries of the genre. “The most difficult thing is to rediscover a superstar while keeping his strengths intact. Salman has the body type of a wrestler, and he looks convincing in the mud pit. His audience wants to see him as a wrestler, but we had to do it with a lot of class and put him in a credible space.”
It was not difficult to convince the star to not just do the hard yards but also shed his vanity. In one of the scenes, he is shown with a bulging waistline. “Salman Khan is in this business for 25 years. The character has to be bigger than Salman Khan to excite him. Only then does it become a challenge for him,” he says. “He thought his audience will like it. Also, half of his family in Indore has indulged in wrestling. A number of his uncles and cousins are into wrestling. So he went all out for training and made a serious attempt at learning Haryanvi. But ultimately it all came down to the story.”
Breaking stereotypes
Khan also agreed on casting a female lead whose character would go beyond being a showpiece. “As his love interest, we wanted somebody who is equal to Sultan and is not a fangirl.” Of course, you can’t have a simpering female lead from Haryana. In came Anushka Sharma as Aarfa. “Haryana is one State where girls are representing the country in almost every important sport. And they come from a society where the purdah system is still prevalent and girls are not allowed to study.”
Isn’t there a dichotomy here? “The film deals with it. There is a subtext.”
But we usually don’t associate subtext with a Salman Khan film. “ Bajrangi Bhaijaan had it, and Salman pulled it off with flying colours,” he says. “The language of commercial films is changing. People want their superstars to be showcased in a new way. With layers of language, character and sport, they get something new to connect with their icon, but Sultan will also break some stereotypes.”
Despite the Khans ruling Bollywood, mainstream Hindi cinema has mostly shied away from having Muslim protagonists who are central to the story. Shah Rukh Khan starred in Chak De! and My Name is Khan , Manoj Bajpayee played Sardar Khan in Gangs Of Wasseypur, but that seems to be about it.
Then there are films like New York and Kurbaan, where the backdrop is 9/11. “India is a secular country and the main character can be from any religion. The examples are few but as I said, the change has to come from somewhere. It is not just about showing people drinking Rooh Afza and saying ‘ salaam walequm’ . Sultan will show a new face of Muslim protagonists for whom Indian identity is above any other identity.”
Zafar says, “I want to reach out to the last man in the crowd. It is not about the genre, it is about how well you connect that genre with the audience. You make a bad ‘massy’ film and the audience will not come back. The sensibility and language should be such that it reaches the last man.”
Zafar believes Raj Kumar Hirani, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Rohit Shetty are in this league. The strength of making money at the box office, he says, lies in the way everyone watches it in the theatre.
It is the same in Hollywood. “When you make Avatar , Transformers or a superhero film, the business of these films is higher than those which are high on content because these films are able to pull people out of their homes to have a theatrical experience. That has something to do with sensibility. I also like telling little larger-than-life stories which are universal.”
Sultan
will show a
new face of Muslim protagonists for whom the Indian
identity is above
any other identity
