It’s been long that I spoke my mind like this for something. But I am reading about movie scenes, that are manifestation of reality, are edited out and it makes me cynical as a Sikh(sorry to use name of a religion as a prefix to a term that is free from it) Artist to see values of my faith are named the reason for it.

Manmarziyaan is a good film for me and not more or less than that. This message is mainly to certain people, calling themselves ‘Sikh’ individuals, who were criticising the film, because a character was smoking and a turbaned character was drinking and few other stupid reasons. I am a Sikh and I don’t smoke and drink. But obviously, I don’t have any problems with what was shown because it’s real. It is no question of admission, if there are people wearing turban who drink or a member of Sikh family smokes. Robbie is a character and not a hero that your child might mimic. I strongly preach against drinking and smoking to my fellow sikhs and I did not notice it. Why should anyone? I was watching a scene that’s happening in Amritsar’s terrace. Now look out any night and tell me if you won’t find someone smoking in that holy city. You spoke about a girl’s desires. So where are you, when hundreds of Sikh girls marry the boy their parents choose for her and she is in love with someone else. Did you then forget that your faith celebrates love?

Before I make my point for which I wrote this, let me be honest and tell you how or when before, I was mildly or deeply bothered by some of representation of Sikh characters in celluloid. It hurts. It genuinely hurts when a non Sikh Actor is made Sikh to be a Joker. It hurts when actors like Vir das and Boman Irani plays Santa and Banta. The jokes we fought hard against. Jokes that hurt. There are many such example in different films. It’s offensive and hurtful when people find it funny. It affects mildly, when in a movie, an old Sikh is lying and begging to feed his wife in the hotel that his wife is in the hospital in critical condition. It does come in my attention, when a Sikh is laying on the floor while others are just praying to the idol, when it’s written at many places in our scripture, to not pray an idol, but only one who is inside you and everywhere. You forget some of them because it is unintentional. But in all these years, we were jokers or heroes (only in the army or a sports biopic)…But believe me this doesn’t hurt as much because of you.

Some of it might hurt but what hurts the most is because of you, no one can make something to counter it. Not anymore, when even making a story about a great sikh, you might argue that they didn’t make him Sikh enough. You might play against the language they use. You might play against the person playing the character. You might play against the distortion of history. Are you happy with the representation now?

So when someone shows a reality, honour it before you spoil something big. If someone shows, expresses the beauty of punjab by a Gurudwara, Anand Karaj or poetry of Amrita Pritam, don’t say ‘No’ for their next time. You might not but I urge to see those visuals and hear those poems again. The truth that is painful is you can’t accept a social evil because Guru Nanak taught you to fight it and you can’t. So you fight someone addressing the evil. Here, I am not talking about Manmarziyaan. I am talking about an expression that tells you that you are attention seekers, you are playing a pure faith’s name to get something our Guru calls “Jhute maan”(False pride). So stop and fight the evil within before it’s too late.