Dear Karan Johar,
Shame on you!
First for taking a casual ‘coffee show’ comment and making into a ‘moment of the show’, and then outrageously venting your heart out against one of the most talented actresses of today’s times at a forum such as LSE where she wasn’t co-invited or had an opportunity to put up a defense. If you felt so strongly about the ‘nepotism’ comment, why not respond to it on your show in a face-off? Why not walk out or have your invitee walk out? Leave behind the negative energy there and then?
Second, for having the limited artistic capacity to take the comment literally as offering your ‘brothers, sisters, daughters’ roles in films you make. In that limited discretion of yours in understanding the noun you have completely omitted the ‘close friends’ who also come covered under the favouritism umbrella. I have captured the dictionary reference for your quick perusal:
nepotism
/ˈnɛpəˌtɪzəm/
noun
1.
favouritism shown to relatives or close friends by those with power or influence
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/nepotism?s=ts
If anyone is to study your directorial career, most of your actors would make up the ‘close friends’ list and probably more than half have some roots linked to the film industry. I had also heard (probably just hearsay) that you won’t be making any films without SRK. I like how you have defended your choice of directors for Dharma production who are outside the industry. Well, fyi, that’s just business and an acute businessman like you knows that’s the passage to money.
I also heard you defend your 1/3rd choice of ‘Student of the Year’ to a newcomer. If rumours are to be believed, it was a brilliant ‘barter’ economics, a win-win for both of you, than ‘equal opportunity’ to an outsider of Bollywood. I am simply calling it, based on rumours, if nobody else did.
Third, for the elitist comment that you open the interview with, “I am glad she knows what it all means”. Such a bully! You are now a father of two and I am certain you will be a wonderful one. But I also hope that you will teach your kids to see the best in people and where they come from rather than gloat of ‘entitlement’ and ‘birth’. Over the years, Kangana has only become a fortress of powerhouse strength empowered by similar critic in the past. Your comment will unfaze her but I am shocked that you, who has been a victim of bullying, is doing the same to another person. It shows more of your character than her knowhow of English language.
Given her upbringing and what she has made of herself, even to have that undeterred point of view in a language she probably mastered only later, people see her as a shining star despite your nastiness.
The ‘Nepotism’ comment seems to have really hit a nerve. After the show have you ever tried to reflect as to why? You are presently in season 5 of the show and I am appalled that the diva of the 80s hasn’t made a debut all these years? Does it have to do with your intimate friendship with a popular Bollywood family or are you simply bitter because Kangana called it. Well, ‘Nepotism’ may not be literal but this exemplary evidence of completely dismissing Rekha all through the five seasons makes a lot of metaphorical sense. Do I hear you say, “It’s my show! I will call whoever I want.”
I already see some of your close friends (or kids your launched) stand in your support and defend the ‘Nepotism’ comment. Many more of those may rise in the near future. It makes me glad you have friends who stand by you. Some of those successful friends are also very talented and rightly deserve to be where they are. I am definitive Kangana wasn’t taking a dig at them or their successes. She is too classy for that. Therefore, I write this to apprise you that more than a million Indian masses will stand by Kangana like your friends do for you.
This is me, just one person of the million masses standing in support of Kangana.
Yes, like you said, you were gracious enough to keep everything but I do not recollect when did you start with Kangana to be actually done with her? Did you direct her in any of your films? And I don’t have even a fleeting memory of when has Kangana played the ‘victim’ or ‘woman’ card. Is it possible that it is simply your perceptive discretion? I have only heard Kangana be referred to as a ‘muse’ on your show, never a victim or a woman - in Aamir Khan’s references, in Ranvir’s when he would pair up Ranbir and her for sparks to fly, or when Varun jocularly mentioned that he just had two people as competition: Kangana and Mr. Bachhan. Was she playing a ‘victim’ or ‘woman’?
Please replay your own interview to yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXKmDWQ0No
You are the only one who is feeding off words such as ‘victim’, ‘woman’, ‘terrorising’, ‘chane ka zhaad’.
I must also tell you that I am not a hater. I don’t hate you. Personally, I attribute ADHM as your best film thus far leaning on a perfect 5. Alizeh is a character that will live with me as long as I live. I enjoy your coffee show which is an hour of absolute entertainment (with some selected invitees).
However, when you took a coffee show comment and outrageously used it against Kangana in your interview, it made my blood boil. That is merely something I had to let you know. When Roohi grows up, I hope you have gathered a good explanation as to why you were so rude to a ‘woman’ – who will be remembered centuries later by generations that succeed us – just a few days ahead of Women’s day.
Or is it simply because she called out a latently hidden perceivable ‘truth’ that had refused to surface earlier?
