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Shah Rukh Khan prides himself for largely playing the good guy on screen and the few times when he has played the bad guy, the actor has tried to make sure that his character does not get a happy ending, so as to not send the wrong message via his film but, his 1993 film Darr continues to be a hotly debated film for the way it portrayed his villainous character on screen. The film romanticised stalking a woman and had a song which said ‘Tu haan kar ya na kar, Tu hai meri Kiran (You say yes or no, you are mine Kiran), stressing that consent from the woman wasn’t high on the man’s list. In a new chat, educator Dr Vikas Divyakirti, questioned the film and wondered out loud if the man being glorified here was a lover or a rapist.
Directed by Yash Chopra and starring Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, Darr had Shah Rukh playing a mentally unstable man who is obsessed with Juhi’s character. In a chat with We Are Yuvaa’s YouTube channel, Vikas said that the film “tried to show masculine love” and added, “These Animal and all came much later.” He said, “It has Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla. She says no and he sings ‘Tu haan kar ya naa kar, Tu hai meri Kiran’. Which means that he doesn’t care for her consent. If you say yes, or you say no, you are mine. Yeh lover hai ya rapist hai? Yeh kaisi sense hai? (Is he a lover or a rapist? What sense is this?) This is crude masculinity.” These lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.
Vikas then spoke about the “complicit” kind of masculinity which is usually accepted culturally. He then gave the example of another Yash Chopra film Kabhi Kabhie and the lyrics of its title song, written by Sahir Ludhianvi. “Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai ki jaise tujhko banaya gaya hai mere liye (Sometimes I think that you are made for me). You are an object that has been made for me. Tu ab se pehle sitaro mein bas rahi thi kahin, tujhe zameen pe bulaya gaya hai mere liye (You were living in the stars before this. You have been called down for me.) What kind of bossiness is this? What a boss has called her down from the star. She doesn’t have her own life? She doesn’t have her own career? Her own dreams? You just have to be the person who gives me a sense of completion, that’s your only purpose on earth,” he said.
Vikas added that even women can be heard speaking in this way but socially, it is largely seen that men speak this language. “Men also get objectified sometimes and objectification of men is just as bad as objectification of women. But usually, you will see that this kind of stuff is said in male voices . It absolutely does not mean that women are always right,” he said.
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