JOIN USThe nation is crazy about him. Be it a 10-year-old or a 60-year-old, his fanbase just cannot be compared to any other star in Bollywood.
Yes, that’s because he is ‘the’ Salman Khan. Although people are waiting in anticipation for the release of his upcoming film Kick, there is a filmmaker duo Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farooqui who is coming out with a documentary Being Bhaijaan – a story of a Salman Khan-lookalike.
Being Bhaijaan explores Indian masculinity by mapping the emotional, spiritual and philosophical contribution Salman Khan makes in the lives of men in small-town India, who are disassociated with the changing country, its competitiveness, and its new woman.
Talking about the film, Hassanwalia, said, “We have been exploring masculinities in India, especially how it’s affected by changing gender relations in a changing country. We were curious about what shapes dominant Indian masculinity, and that started when we heard a story. A friend’s friend caught the release of Wanted in a cinema hall in Meerut. He said that the moment when Salman Khan tears off his shirt in the climax moment, all the men in the hall stood up and took off their shirts too. He described it as a ‘wild testosterone’ frenzy moment. And this moment was our trigger and we wanted to explore the story behind that moment.”
Talking about the large fanbase of Salman and why they did not choose any other star for their film, the filmmaker, said, “Who has a larger fan following than Salman Khan? And it wasn’t the number of fans that was the criteria for the film, but the kind of relationship Salman’s fans have with the star that we were interested in.”
Hassanwalia and Farooqui are graduates from Jamia Milia Islamia’s MCRC, batch of 2005, where they both discovered their love for documentaries. They formed Hit and Run Films soon after to explore new ways of non-fiction storytelling.
“We have always been curious about people, certain eccentricities in the ordinary, or shall we say, the extraordinary in the ordinary. We have been working on gender and masculinity for the last couple of years, and Being Bhaijaan is a continuation of that work. It’s our attempt at making sense of how masculinity is constructed in India, through the fandom of Salman Khan.”
So, is Salman Khan aware of the fact that you are making a film on him?
“This documentary does not discuss or document Salman Khan’s personal or professional life. It is not a documentary on his career. It is a film on three of his fans, one of whom looks like the star, and is called Junior Salman in Nagpur.
Although,we are not in touch with Salman Khan directly, but we have contacted his manager, Reshma Shetty and have kept her in the loop about the film via email. We would love to meet Salman Khan though, along with the protagonists of the documentary and have him watch the film with us. We would definitely love to know what he thinks of it,” said Hassanwalia who herself is a fan of Salman Khan.