We are all living in difficult times. The dollar is taking the rupee’s case, our next Prime Minister will probably have the nickname of either Pappu or Feku, Chetan Bhagat is a bestselling author and Arnab is the most watched TV journalist. While all this can be digested, there are some things which are digested as easily as a midday meal. And no, I’m not talking about Sajid Khan announcing his next film but the fact that Kamaal R Khan, actor, director and producer of the epic Deshdrohi, has almost 1.4 lakh followers on Twitter. Within a year, KRK (which is the name he goes by) has become a phenomenon – followed by no less that Uday Chopra, Abhishek Bachchan and I. He is also followed by passable actors such as Amitabh Bachchan.

For the longest time, I thought that everyone took KRK lightly. Recently though, when I read reports about requests to put a ban on the man, I knew he is not to be taken lightly. According to The Times Of India – which if it gets one thing correct is entertainment news, given Vineet Jain’s love for all things celluloid.

As TOI reported, the film fraternity in Mumbai has “approached the apex body, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE)” to ban KRK. According to Mint, the film fraternity wants to “take some kind of action against his tweets, which are often critical of most new releases, and abuse film-makers and actors with abandon”.
So what explains KRK’s deep insight and effect on the film fraternity? Is he a scion of some great film family or a stellar actor or director or a respected intellectual? KRK whose initial claim to fame was that he shared two-thirds of his name with SRK, first came to prominence with his 2008 release, Deshdrohi – a movie which even Torrent refused to upload. Clearly, nobody in India was intelligent enough to understand it and the film bombed at the box office. However destiny had its own plans and KRK ended up becoming a household name when he entered the reality show, BIGG BOSS.  KRK’s visionary skills came to the fore at this time. He identified Vindoo Jack Singh’s match-fixing abilities before anyone else did.

But no visionary becomes legendary without a voice (barring a few exceptions who become Prime Ministers) and KRK found a voice on Twitter. And thereafter he’s used Twitter to express his extremely valuable opinions on topics of national interest like his love for Asin, Neil Nitin Mukesh’s facial expression and next season of BIGG BOSS. He also speaks about some lame topics like the elections, politicians, conditions of minorities in India, riots, poverty and match-fixing.

KRK claims to be an entrepreneur and every great entrepreneur spots problems and offers solutions. And in a fashion which might put even Digvijay Singh to shame he discovered that he has a deeper understand of Hindi films than most film trade critics. Thus, was born the Roger Ebert of India.

And as movie after movie was released, KRK he kept doing what can only be called destroying. But while everyone made fun of him at first and he was ignored by the film fraternity – for some strange reason none of his predictions seemed to go wrong. And once he realised how accurate he was, he decided that he might as tweet with all guns blazing. He’s mocked stalwarts from the film fraternity like Tanuj Garg and Taran Adarsh. His interactions with them can be read here-

http://br.tweetwood.com/conversation/kamaalrkhan/tanuj_garg

http://tweetwood.com/conversation/kamaalrkhan/taran_adarsh

Realising his forté, KRK also started a youtube channel – KRK Live – which features reviews and predictions such as this:

And as we all know nothing hurts more than the truth. Which is why the film industry seems to have decided to request for a ban on the man. So while he makes the film fraternity quake every time he tweets or releases a video – the rest of can sit back and let KRK entertain us. From my side, it’s a kiss to all those who like KRK and kick to all #2rs people who don’t.