Who knew PK was a symbolic film about ghar wapsi? But it is, in the literal sense.

By now, we all know that the film is about religious frauds and god men. Aamir Khan is an alien, who comes to Earth to study humans and gets stuck here because someone filches his remote control which looks like a pendant. After which he goes on a search for the pendant and keeps finding people who tell him that only “bhagwan” can and will show him the way. And all Aamir wants to do is go back home.

Along the way, he makes friends with a band-wallah played by Sanjay Dutt (who I’m heartened to see put his many holidays from jail to good use, by working hard) and a guiding star in Anushka Sharma.

I was also glad to discover that in PK, Aamir’s name is not Tipsy – contrary to what the LA Time’s reviewer wrote. If you haven’t read that review, you should. Simply to commiserate with the poor reviewer who was done in by the curse of dodgy subtitling when every time Aamir appeared on screen, his name PK must have been written as Tipsy.

While watching PK, I had an epiphany. Aamir Khan is our generation’s answer to Manoj Kumar. Much like Manoj Kumar, Aamir is also the Conscience Of The Nation. I’m not a fan, but was surprisingly favourably inclined to PK after watching it. This is a film that needed to be made and to be headlined by a super star like Aamir.

All organised religion is taken apart – other than the poor Parsis, who are left out in the cold – as are all god men. Which makes you marvel at how the Fates aligned with Aamir Khan and brought a frozen baba and a militant fraudulent baba into the limelight just weeks before PK released.

The film though, isn’t just about the dodgy ways of Babas and their followers. It also shows the role media plays in disseminating information and forming public opinion. Anushka Sharma, whose lips should have been given a separate billing, plays a journalist for a news channel called India Now. She also sports the same hairstyle as Barkha Dutt. I don’t know whether the latter should be flattered or not, but it is what it is.

Aamir should be pleased that Rajat Sharma didn’t watch PK before his 21^st anniversary celebrations, because I’m assuming he wouldn’t have done a towel dance with Aamir after watching the film.

We are introduced to Lippy, aka Anushka, who is studying journalism in Belgium. She then falls in love with a Pakistani boy who she thinks jilts her at the altar, and returns to India only to be disowned by her parents. Like almost all of us who lived on our own in Delhi when we were in our early twenties, she is shown living in a barsaati. Of course her barsaati has a Good Earth sofa and looks as impoverished as Konkona Sen Sharma’s apartment in Wake Up Sid. Anushka also wears Mango shirts and Zara trousers while scouting around Delhi for stories for her channel. If you thought journalism pays badly in the early years, think again.

She works as a reporter for Hindi news channel, India Now. Which is doing a breaking story on a suicidal dog called Niku. Hmm. Sounds a little too close to India TV reality? Her boss, Boman Irani, who runs the channel wants nothing to do with news on religion. And is shown to have some editorial integrity to speak of and agrees to take on one of India’s most popular god men on his channel.

This is one of the few films in which you see a female character actually going to work. Like in Happy Ending where Ileana D’Cruz is shown as a popular Indian fiction author who knows exactly how to package and market herself, or Mardaani where Rani Mukerji actually seems to work and not just prance around in her uniform, we do see Anushka going in to work, pitching her story to her editor and then hosting a show that looks suspiciously like We The People – a live news talk show which then devolves into an Indian version of Dating Game. Because in the middle of a face-off between the god man and PK, the TV channel calls up Anushka’s Pakistani ex-paramour and they have a conversation on air. But hey, you have to give some leeway for Hindi film drama.

As an aside, we also have a slightly X Files moment, when you wonder whether like Dana Scully, Anushka will also have an alien baby. Maybe that’s in PK 2.

All in all, this is one of the few films which doesn’t get it all wrong about what goes on in the world of TV reporting. (If you leave aside Anushka’s luxurious living conditions and wardrobe.)  By staying away from taking on an actual news channel as a partner, and creating a make belief one instead, PK doesn’t fall into the Who Killed Jessica Lal or Peepli Live problem where the films became PR plugs for the channels they are associated with. And unlike in those films, we don’t have to suspend our disbelief even more than usual. Anushka’s haircut is an obvious doff of her wig at Barkha. Thankfully, Boman isn’t shown with a comb-over, or it would be more than a passing reference to our favourite bhoot-pret news channel.

There is of course a Satyamev Jayate feel to the entire film, but that’s because Aamir has decided to take on the mantle of showing the country the light. Better than making Ghajini for sure. For once though, and I’m really no fan of Satyamev or of Aamir’s sanctimony, I feel that he may have done the country a world of good by hitting audiences over the head with his proselytizing of religion and belief in god being a personal affair. And most importantly, the lack of requirement of middlemen between god and those who believe in god. Maybe Frozen Baba’s followers will pull the plug on his refrigerator now.