For once, the entire film fraternity has to applaud the robust stance taken by India’s Censor Board of Film Certification for not buckling under the pressure of the self-professed guardians of Hindu religion who are baying for a ban on Aamir Khan’s latest release, PK.

The irony of this insistence can’t be missed. Within 10 days of its release the film has already set a record at the box office collection —over INR 200 crores in the Indian market! So any claims by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev and some Hindu outfits that the film hurts the sentiments of Hindus referring to a particular scene of a stage actor attired as Lord Shiva, is in itself laughable.

Adding to this were the tweets by ruling political party BJP member and former Cabinet minister Dr Subramaniam Swamy who claimed that the film was funded by the ISI and some people from Dubai. Always a controversial politician, he got a lot of flak on social media for this claim.

From ET to PK, Bollywood gets its own popular alien

The audience knows that the film is a satire, and nowhere questions the existence of the Almighty. In fact, it goes on to raise questions about self-styled religious zealots exploiting the common fears of the public at large and the inconsistency among different faiths in regard to rituals, customs, dress etc.

After all it’s a Rajkumar Hirani film so naturally one expects it to be entertaining but at the same time talk about social issues. Remember his first three films — Munna Bhai MBBS and its sequel Lage Raho Munna Bhai, and then 3 Idiots? In PK, Hirani tackles the highly sensitive issue of religion, self-appointed men of God, their divisive religious practices and exploitations of people’s fears.

Expectations are very high of anything from the house of RHF (Raju Hirani Films). Sadly PK isn’t one of his best, but even with all its drawbacks, the last big release of the year is still far above the clutter of nonsensical cinema we have had in 2014 from Bollywood.

The film says something very relevant and after coming out of the theatre makes you want to discuss religion, faith and divine existence. Even if you are agnostic, the questions raised and tackled in PK makes you think, if not at an intellectual level, but at least at a Bollywood level.

One thing very laudable, and I really wish other script writers would learn from the duo of Hirani and his writing partner Abhijat Joshi, is precise script and dialogue writing. Except for a romantic unwanted song, there isn’t much one could have done away in the story.

I mean after all it’s a Hindi film and so songs and dances are important ingredients of it. That is one of the jarring notes of the film; why make an alien sing? Yes, the story is all about an alien (Aamir Khan) visiting planet Earth and trying to decipher the idiosyncratic behaviour of earthlings. He is bewildered by their actions, which makes him comment, “Hamri goley (planet) pe koi jhoot nahin bolta. Yeh pe to lul hoi gayi hamri life.”