{"id":3153,"date":"2016-04-08T13:35:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T08:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3153"},"modified":"2016-04-08T13:35:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T08:05:04","slug":"patriotism-in-my-veins-why-clerk-is-the-greatest-deshbhakti-film-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3153","title":{"rendered":"Patriotism in my Veins: Why Clerk is the Greatest Deshbhakti Film of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p>f you aren\u2019t particularly fond of the weird and wonderful, you must have probably missed the news of a <\/span>mysterious sarcophagus<\/span><\/a> being unearthed in Alexandria a few months ago. When word spread that one of the exhumed bodies could belong to Alexander the Great, a set of people had an interesting request: They wanted to drink the liquid that was oozing out from his tomb so that they could gain the powers that made Alexander almost undefeatable on the battlefield. <\/span>\n\nBelieve it or not but I could relate with those crazy dudes because that\u2019s exactly what I wanted to do when I discovered the HD version of <\/span>Clerk<\/span><\/i>, the 1989 cult masterpiece on a streaming website. You see, I was desperate to taste the genius of writer-director-actor-producer, Manoj Kumar\u2019s twilight years. After all, it takes extraordinary skill and a maddening vacuum of ingenuity to be the first filmmaker in history to carefully craft a film about virtuous <\/span>nationalism<\/span><\/a>, victimhood, and self-inflicted celibacy of a sarkari clerk. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nClerk<\/span><\/i> ranks among Bollywood\u2019s dubious classics and is probably our answer to Tommy Wiseau\u2019s <\/span>The Room<\/span><\/i>. By that, I don\u2019t intend to imply that Kumar is a bad filmmaker or an actor. But it\u2019d be fair to assume that at the fag end of his career, Kumar let his vision run free without a quality or logic check \u2013 just like the last two decades of Rajesh Khanna and <\/span>Dev Anand\u2019s<\/span><\/a> career for instance.<\/span>\n

Like a true bhakt, Bharat also upheld the tradition of being unable to process rejection and labelling women as inherently loose and characterless.<\/blockquote>\nThe film came at a time when the actor had just capped off two other terribly awesome movies: <\/span>Kalyug Aur Ramayan <\/span><\/i>where Kumar was the reincarnation of Hanuman, and <\/span>Santosh<\/span><\/i>, a film in which he made Prem Chopra sit on Hema Malini\u2019s back. And he completed the holy trinity with <\/span>Clerk<\/span><\/i>, where he played Bharat, the quintessential <\/span>urban bhakt<\/span><\/a>. Since it\u2019s 1989, you could label it as a beta stage for bhakts, but Bharat echoes all the formidable qualities and aggravated fursat that one may encounter in a modern bhakt. He\u2019s a government clerk who loves the system irrespective of how it has made him and his family a fossil, bringing them to the point of hunger, or \u201cthaali mein aansoo\u201d to be exact. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s astounding how watching a film of a particular era unknowingly ends up reflecting the present mood of the country with polarising characters who capture a peculiar essence of the discord. One of the first dialogue that Ram (Mohammad Ali), Bharat\u2019s <\/span>brother <\/span><\/a>utters in the film is, \u201cJab bill bada ho jaaye na toh dil chota nahi karte.\u201d<\/span> It\u2019s a reaction to the paltry pension he gets as a pilot that\u2019s not even enough for him to pay his brother\u2019s fees. And yet he lectures Bharat to be thankful, instead of questioning the exploitation. If you thought that was theatrical, picture this unforgettable scene that has long acquired a priceless reputation in the hallowed halls of <\/span>WhatsApp groups<\/span><\/a>. In it, their father (Ashok Kumar), a war-veteran is having a heart-attack and doctors refuse to visit their house, because creative liberty in a capitalist dystopia toh banta hai. Just when all hope is lost, Bharat comes to the rescue by suggesting that if they play \u201cKadam Kadam Badhaye Jaa,\u201d it might ease his irregular cardiovascular system.<\/span>\n\nThe ensuing scene is a work of art, nay, a moment in time as mesmerising as the discovery of gravitational waves. After the song is played, Ashok Kumar has a nationalistic version of \u201cIsko toh maata chadh gayi\u201d and does march past on his bed and makes his mourning family dance with him. Think about it: Is it any different from BJP spokesperson and <\/span>hate siren Shefali Vaidya <\/span><\/a>ascribing the easing of a difficult pregnancy in a foreign land, to the magical powers of the national anthem? I wish she and Bharat were friends.<\/span>\n\nLike a true bhakt, Bharat also upheld the tradition of being unable to process rejection and labelling <\/span>women<\/span><\/a> as inherently loose and characterless. After being rejected by Rekha for a much affluent Shashi Kapoor during college, Bharat becomes as asexual as a fake egg paperweight in government offices. As a result, he routinely throws shade at Anita Raj whenever she tries to establish any human contact, and tells her to cover up during her gymnastics training. And more importantly, he inexplicably covers his own face whenever Rekha tells him to get his game up. <\/span>\n\nWith every passing minute in<\/span> Clerk<\/span><\/i>, Kumar\u2019s deshbhakti trajectory takes bizarre leaps: He croons about the difficult life of a clerk with the lines, \u201cEk kameez jo tann ghasti hain, usein sabun bina dhulata hoon\u201d. He wraps Anita Raj in a flag and makes her twirl in it on August 15. And in the most ignored scene in the history of ignored scenes, he makes Om Shivpuri\u2019s character commit incest to prove that <\/span>upper-class society<\/span><\/a> is completely immoral.<\/span>\n\nYou might be wondering what a borderline B-grade movie made by an ageing filmmaker that goes to such theatrical extremes has anything to do with right-wing fanboys and girls of today. To be fair, it\u2019s not a specific layer, scene, or character, but the film\u2019s entire narrative. In <\/span>Clerk<\/span><\/i>, the indefatigable, stubborn, and unchanging attitude shown by Bharat is representative of anyone and everyone who makes dialogue impossible. One who takes immense pleasure in not just brandishing his or her patriotism, but also guarantees that he distinguishes the<\/span> \u201canti-nationals\u201d<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Clerk<\/span><\/i> is a sepia-tinted mirror that truly predicts a generation. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone remembers Manoj Kumar\u2019s Clerk for that iconic scene where Ashok Kumar recovers from a heart attack thanks to a shot of nationalism. But Clerk, the story of a government servant who loves the system irrespective of all its ills, is like a beta stage for modern super patriots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":3154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[6158,6159,5300,6155,6160,6161,489],"class_list":["post-3153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-august","tag-clerk","tag-day","tag-independence","tag-kumar","tag-manoj","tag-patriotism"],"yoast_head":"\nPatriotism in my Veins: Why Clerk is the Greatest Deshbhakti Film of All Time<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everyone remembers Manoj Kumar\u2019s Clerk for that iconic scene where Ashok Kumar recovers from a heart attack thanks to a shot of nationalism. But Clerk, the story of a government servant who loves the system irrespective of all its ills, is like a beta stage for modern super patriots.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3153\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Patriotism in my Veins: Why Clerk is the Greatest Deshbhakti Film of All Time\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everyone remembers Manoj Kumar\u2019s Clerk for that iconic scene where Ashok Kumar recovers from a heart attack thanks to a shot of nationalism. But Clerk, the story of a government servant who loves the system irrespective of all its ills, is like a beta stage for modern super patriots.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3153\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arr\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-08T08:05:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1534332852.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aseem Chandaver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Patriotism in my Veins: Why Clerk is the Greatest Deshbhakti Film of All Time\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Everyone remembers Manoj Kumar\u2019s Clerk for that iconic scene where Ashok Kumar recovers from a heart attack thanks to a shot of nationalism. 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