SAVING IC 814 AND OTHER FLIGHTS OF IMAGINATION

AFTER hitting a few air pockets, Anubhav Sinha's series IC 814, about the Kathmandu-Delhi Air India plane that was hijacked by ISI agents in 1999 and force-landed in Kandahar, is now cruising well.

- CP SURENDRAN

The air pockets were due to the 'hurt sentiments of Hindus'. The terrorists were referred to by code names-Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar. The last two names, associated with Lord Shiva, were 'politically motivated', they said, to extenuate the terrorist elements.

The OTT platform duly issued clarifications and disclaimers. 'Sorry' is the collective password for our times. IC 814 is not the first such product subjected to a social media boycott: Anubhav Sinha's own Article 370 ( problem: Kashmir sensitivities), Aamir Khan's Lal Singh Chaddha (majority community unfairly seen as intolerant of minority rights), Akshay Kumar's Raksha Bandhan (adverse remarks on sanatan dharma), Ranbir Kapoor's Brahmastra (hero's meat-eating habits in real life pitted against the character he portrays), and Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan (SRK being 'partial' to Pakistan in the past).

As for the efforts in cancellation sponsored by the liberals: Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Kabir Singh (toxic masculinity), Vivek Agnihotri's The Kashmir Files (gaslighting the Muslim community), Sudipto Sen's The Kerala Files, (exaggerating the threat of love jihad), Reddy Vanga's Animal (toxic masculinity), and Vinay Sharma's JNU (politically unfair and regressive), to name a few recent instances.

A cancellation call is a drumbeat of execution by other means. The underlying motive is always to censor imagination.