Shahid Afridi is a proud Pakistani: Fawad Khan

Fawad Khan talks about the vagaries of plucking a simple statement out of context, why there is no truth to rumours about him having rejected PK, and more.

Even as the debate around Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi’s “India love” rages across real and virtual platforms, fellow Pakistani Fawad Khan has stepped in to back the sports star up with his own take on the matter. On a promotional visit to the capital for his upcoming Bollywood release, Kapoor & Sons, the actor opened up on the issue and termed it a classic case of the snowball effect. “I think this happens all the time — the way I see it, koi ek banda ungli karke chala jaata hai about something that may have been said in an entirely different spirit from what it is ultimately being construed to reflect. I travelled with Afridi on a flight once, and I have seen for myself the kind of love and adulation he receives from Indian fans. He was nearly swamped by the Indian air hostesses! What I think has happened here is that he was just trying to say something simple that was plucked out of context and turned into something else altogether. The question he was answering was about whether he feels worried about going to India and playing there at the moment and he had said that he isn’t worried because he has received so much love from his Indian fans sometimes more even than fans in his own hometown. It’s a simple way of easing up the atmosphere, an expression of good-natured bonhomie to diffuse the tension, that’s all. If someone has picked it up and taken advantage of it by turning it into a much bigger deal than it really is, then I believe it is something that will just die its own death. It’s not like Afridi’s patriotism is any lesser now than it was before he made the statement. He is a very proud Pakistani and we’re very proud to have him as a representative of our country. This whole thing should be taken with a pinch of salt,” he affirmed.

Fawad added, “Similar things happen here in India too and they’re just in bad taste. We’ve made this whole issue so much bigger than it is, and made it so vehemently about India vs Pakistan that other more important sentiments have been lost. Afridi said what he said very affectionately and in response to a specific question. From there, it has just had a snowball effect and this can happen anywhere with anyone.”

Asked, then, to comment on the tension that surrounds India vs Pakistan cricket matches in general, he said, “There is always excitement surrounding cricket matches between the two countries. I think they’re the most exciting matches in any series, and it’s fun competition. Bachpan mein hum dil pe liya karte the but now we’ve grown up and calmed down. Competition should just be good fun.”

With time, Fawad has managed to build a fairly vast Indian fan base since he debuted on the big screen with Khoobsurat last year and his Pakistani shows Zindagi Gulzar Hai and Humsafar took the small screen by storm around the same time. Talking about the entertainment industry back home and how it compares with the entertainment industry in India, he shared, “One foundational difference is that the Pakistani film industry experienced a certain demise in the 80s and then went into oblivion for about 25 years. Now it has rebooted again, but because of that demise the scale of the industry has been reduced a lot. The investment had, at one point, become nearly non-existent. It is only now that theatres are mushrooming across the country and beginning to flourish. Investment is, therefore, growing day by day. This scenario is going to change with time — the finances will change, I mean. The craft, on the other hand, is the same everywhere.”

On a lighter note, the actor responded to two statements of his that have recently been spoken about in the media, but only one of which is actually true. The one that isn’t, he clarified with a hearty guffaw, is the one where he revealed his decision to turn down Rajkumar Hirani’s PK to do Kapoor & Sons. “It is very funny, actually. When you answer several questions in quick succession, sometimes many answers get strung together as one long answer that they weren’t actually meant to construct. First of all, PK was being cast for around the time that I did Khoobsurat. It has nothing to do with Kapoor & Sons. One lovely reporter had been insistently asking me why I had left PK for the latter and I had asked her in return who had given her that piece of information. Then, immediately after her, someone else had asked me if I had any regrets about leaving any roles or projects, and I had said yes, I did. But that project was not PK. For the sake of clarity, I never refused PK because PK was never offered to me. If I had the chance, I would have loved to be a part of it!” he explained.

The second statement in question involves him finding Kapoor & Sons co-star Alia Bhatt “intimidating”. He laughed a little more at the mention of it, but affirmed that it was fairly accurate. “During the initial days of shoot, the ice had not broken between me and Alia. And I quite understand that. After a shot is over, there’s always a slight bit of formality in such a scenario. You start getting over that formality gradually, after a point. But really, the ‘intimidating’ bit comes from the fact of her being such a bang on spontaneous actor. She comes on really strong in scenes, like a metaphorical pounce out of the blue. And it wasn’t something I was prepared for. Main bada kaccha le raha tha pehle, but eventually main khud hi kaccha ho gaya!” he chuckled.