Bol­ly­wood’s Man­marziyaan has chal­lenged the Sikhs and it is time to re­spond. It is an ab­solutely sick flick which de­fames Am­rit­sar by por­tray­ing how Am­rit­sar girls are: drunk­ards, de­bauch, un­car­ing and dev­il­ish. The writer, pro­ducer, di­rec­tors and ac­tors have crossed the line. It is time that Sikhs re­spond to this bat­tle of Sikh mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and blas­phe­mous char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion in the name of free­dom of ex­pres­sion. The movie must be fully banned.

Tears rolling down my cheeks, I saw Ab­hishek Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu smoke while play­ing Sikh char­ac­ters in Man­marziyaan, two days ago, fol­lowed by two sleep­less nights. The deroga­tory scenes had not been deleted. The film is shame­less and sick­en­ing. Each frame is in­cen­di­ary and re­volt­ing. Every few min­utes, I felt like vom­it­ing.

Man­marziyaan show­cases Sikhs liv­ing in the by­lanes cheek-by-jowl to holy Golden Tem­ple, Am­rit­sar. Through scenes, it mis­p­re­sents the lives of Am­rit­sari girls through Rumi, played by Taapsee Pannu. The song in the back­ground gen­er­alises this for all Am­rit­sar girls. Taapsee Pannu takes pride in be­ing called a dayan -devil; in­dulges in pre-mar­i­tal and post-mar­i­tal sex at the drop of a hat, right in her own home with a neigh­bour­hood junkie; she smokes and drinks and her sis­ter stands guard. Her par­ents know all this and still do noth­ing. The tur­baned grand­fa­ther seems to say, “what can I do?” And the re­sponse is like, “What can you do?

The sick hero­ine Taapsee Pannu smokes and drinks like a moll from a cabaret club. The par­ents and the par­ents-in-law are spine­less and don’t stop her! The grand­fa­ther catches the grand­daugh­ter and her junkie beau red-handed in their very house, and all he says to the boy is, “Wear your shirt prop­erly!”  Do you want us to be­lieve that since she has Sikh lin­eage, it is okay to do this? The en­tire Sikh house­hold looks on and she holds every­one to ran­som. The scene holds the en­tire Sikh com­mu­nity to ran­som.

De­fend­ing her story, cre­ative writer -Kanika Dhillon al­ludes to anti-he­roes of Pun­jab-Am­rita Pri­tam and Pash. These “ide­o­logues” stoked fires in Pun­jab, a few decades back, den­i­grat­ing Sikh value sys­tems and be­ing ac­com­plices of the state in Sikh geno­cide.  Sadly, Kanika has fallen prey to that school of thought. In her de­fence, she talks about the hero­ine’s love life and ig­nores the is­sues of smok­ing, drink­ing and promis­cu­ity. Se­lec­tive am­ne­sia?

“The film is shame­less and sick­en­ing. Each frame is in­cen­di­ary and re­volt­ing. Every few min­utes, I felt like vom­it­ing.”

The grand­son of Khazan Singh and Teji Kaur, son of Amitabh and Jaya -Ab­hishek Bachchan dons the tur­ban and drops it umpteen times as if it was a fash­ion­able tool. Amitabh Bachchan tweets to his son that his grand­par­ents would be happy to see him play­ing a Sikh. No, Mr Bachchan. They must be turn­ing in their graves. Ret­ro­spec­tively, Teji Kaur must be re­gret­ting that she mar­ried in your fam­ily.

Aanand Rai of Yel­low Colour Films jus­ti­fy­ing dele­tion “as it does not af­fect the genre” told the Cen­sor Board to delete three scenes ob­jected to by Sikhs, yet di­rec­tor Anurag Kashyap has made a big hul­la­bal­loo through twit­ter. He was joined by Taapsee and other un­seen as­so­ci­ates of the movie on Twit­ter. 

“In the Twit­ter war, Taapsee Pannu is pok­ing fun of Sikhs by say­ing that drink­ing is okay! It is not. Years ago, she taunted she would never marry a Sikh! Rabbi Shergill tweeted, “mar­ry­ing a Sikh does not come easy, it has to be earned.””

Anurag Kashyap wants us to be­lieve that “they sought guid­ance from the crowd that used to gather to wit­ness the shoot­ing.” He says in his lame-duck apol­ogy, “do not make it po­lit­i­cal.” By choos­ing to make a film in Am­rit­sar and the Golden Tem­ple, he at­tempted the po­lit­i­cal, not the Sikhs. He said that he was over­whelmed with the hos­pi­tal­ity of Pun­jab. Next time, it is go­ing to be dif­fer­ent.

Anurag Kashyap has taunted the Sikhs by say­ing that “dele­tion of the scenes will solve the is­sues of Pun­jab.” He cer­tainly has added to the prob­lem. To add in­sult to in­jury, Taapsee Pannu con­tin­ues her vil­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign, ridi­cul­ing Sikh val­ues and de­mean­ing Sikh fam­ily sys­tems in the reel life as well in real life.

“Amitabh Bachchan tweeted his son that his grand­par­ents would be happy to see him play­ing a Sikh. No, Mr Bachchan. They must be turn­ing in their graves. Teji Kaur must be re­gret­ting she mar­ried in your fam­ily.”

Her clos­ing lines in the movie are that “I am a devil.” Un­doubt­edly, she is. Years ago, when she was a no­body at­tempt­ing to be­come a some­body, she said, “I did not like long hair and I cut them. My fa­ther who is a Sar­dar did not say any­thing.” Is the same im­po­tency re­flected on screen?

In the Twit­ter war, Taapsee Pannu is pok­ing fun of Sikhs by say­ing that drink­ing is okay! It is not. She taunts by say­ing that Sikhism is the best re­li­gion! Sikhs don’t need ser­mons on re­li­gion from her. Do we not re­mem­ber that she had vented her feel­ings ear­lier too by say­ing that, she would never marry a Sikh! It was Rabbi Shergill who tweeted her, “mar­ry­ing a Sikh does not come easy, it has to be earned.”

A sick so­ci­ety fos­ter­ing a sub­cul­ture of smoke, drink and promis­cu­ity is not ac­cept­able. Am­rit­sar is not like that. Sikhism is def­i­nitely not like that.  Anurag Kashyap, the Bachchans and the Pan­nus should be pre­pared to face the Sikh wrath. They have done a grave in­jus­tice to Sikhs. They should not be sur­prised if Jathas of Sikhs land up in front of their doorstep to protest.

Sikh film-maker Sukhwinder Singh, writ­ing on Face­book has strongly ad­mon­ished those Sikhs who played petty roles and who did petty tasks in the movie are elated about it. He is cat­e­goric, “there is an en­tire sys­tem out there to de­fame Sikhs and the only way we can counter is to keep away from such machi­na­tions.”

“The en­tire crew of Man­marziyaan is guilty of de­fam­ing and mis­rep­re­sent­ing Sikhs. They owe an un­con­di­tional apol­ogy. The Sikhs will not rest till the movie is com­pletely banned. It can­not be al­lowed to en­ter our draw­ing rooms through satel­lite chan­nels.”

SGPC should stop shoot­ing of films within the Golden Tem­ple precincts and put a full stop to host­ing and ho­n­our­ing film folk. Any­one can come to pay obei­sance but to use that to pro­mote films is in­tol­er­a­ble. Can some­one cite a Bol­ly­wood scene where a Hindu be­liever eats beef and a Mus­lim be­liever eats pork?

The en­tire crew of Man­marziyaan is guilty of de­fam­ing and mis­rep­re­sent­ing Sikhs. They owe an un­con­di­tional apol­ogy. The Sikhs will not rest un­til the movie is com­pletely banned. It can­not be al­lowed to en­ter our draw­ing rooms through satel­lite chan­nels.

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It’s time for some “Man­marziyaan” by Sikhs.