Many films named ‘Bachpan’ have been made in Bollywood. One of these was ‘Bachpan’ in 1963 which was directed by Nazir. Among its cast were David, Jeevan, Manorama, Daisy Irani, names that are known to many even today. It also starred Salim Khan, who turned actor-turned-screenwriter and dialogue writer after doing a few films, and everyone knows how his pairing with Javed Akhtar created a ruckus during that period. The Salim-Javed pair had then turned the stream of Hindi films. In those days, the name of Salim-Javed was written on the posters of films. The name of a screenwriter on the posters was a miracle in itself which neither happened before nor after.
Salim Khan’s eldest son is his Salman Khan, whose present-day TV show ‘Bigg Boss’ is going through a controversy these days. This is the sixteenth edition of the show and can’t remember when there was no controversy with it. Many people believe that these controversies are deliberately created by the producers of the show so that somehow the rating of the show remains intact. But this time the matter has become somewhat serious and no one can say for sure whether it is being made serious on purpose.
The controversy is that this time Sajid Khan is also among the people who were selected to live in the ‘Bigg Boss’ house. Sajid Khan is a TV presenter and has directed light-hearted films like ‘Himmatwala’ and ‘Housefull’. These people were accused of sexual exploitation by at least ten women associated with films, modeling and journalism under the ‘MeToo’ campaign in 2018. Due to this, the Indian Film and Television Association banned Sajid for a year. But now the matter has flared up again as soon as he is selected for ‘Bigg Boss’.
Some of the women who made those allegations have objected to her selection in ‘Bigg Boss’. Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal has written a letter to Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, demanding that Sajid be ousted from ‘Bigg Boss’ in view of the allegations leveled against him. In response, Federation of Western India Cine Employees has defended Sajid. This federation has also written a letter to Anurag Thakur, stating that Sajid Khan was banned by the Indian Film and Television Directors Association for one year after receiving complaints about ‘MeToo’ and he has served his sentence. This ban was completed only in March 2019. The federation says that Sajid cannot be punished for the same crime again and now he should get a chance to resume his career and earn a living. But Sherlyn Chopra and Kanishka Soni are opposing the return of Sajid. Out of these, Kanishka is the same TV artist who came in news some time ago for marrying herself. No one will call both Sherlyn and Kanishka as big actors, but in the case of ‘Me Too’ it is not necessary that the woman complaining is an artist or a big artist.
In fact, many women are ready to do anything to get a break or a big break in films. Seeing this, many of our small and big filmmakers start considering it as their right. Well this problem is in every field and in every profession. Also in journalism. A few years back, late story writer Rajendra Yadav had brought out a full issue of ‘Hans’ on this problem going on in news channels. Everyone also saw the story of MJ Akbar and Tarun Tejpal. Countless such stories are present in their TV industry. Elite people of every profession should think about how to deal with this problem. Producer-director Karan Johar recently announced his withdrawal from Twitter. He has done this to avoid negative energy and to accumulate as much positive energy as possible. But big filmmakers like him should also think about eliminating the negative energy that women aspiring to work in films and TV have to bear almost daily.
Sajid Khan, who is in controversy over his cast in ‘Bigg Boss’, is the brother of well-known director and choreographer Farah Khan. Their mother’s name is Maneka Irani who married Kamran Khan. In this Maneka Irani had also worked in many films and what is considered her most important film was ‘Bachpan’ from which we started this discussion. What a strange coincidence that the composer of this film was Sardar Malik, whose son and today’s big music director Anu Malik also got accused of ‘Me Too’. You cannot do anything about this coincidence and no one can be responsible for any act of his grown children.
