Let’s face it. Apart from the good people of the Bishnoi community and a few animal activists, no one cares about the two Blackbucks that died a rather unseemly death about 20 years ago during an outdoor shoot of Sooraj Barjatya’s sanskaar orgy, Hum Saath Saath Hain. Not Bhai fans who are condemning Jodhpur trial court’s verdict against Bhai with tweets like these.
Bhai k upar jalne wale bhot hai.. politicians kill so many people but no one bats a eye …but Salman Khan k tym par sabki gaand jal jati hai.aur wo 4 log ko chod Diya waah.@narendramodi sir Bhai is innocent.. please do something
— Sharukh Xec (@XecSharukh) April 5, 2018
Muslims aren’t safe in India under Modi govt. If We can worship Lord Rama who killed an innocent Deer just for his wife then why we can’t worship our own Bhai afterall he’s been saving many lives? His last name “khan” tells u the story#doubleStamdard#BlackBuckPoachingCase
— Rohit Tiwary (@Imrt227) April 5, 2018
Salman Khan had to visit Jodhpur for 20 years on regular basis for case hearings, He has suffered enough. Though Law is equal for all , but i feel Salman doesn’t deserve to go in Jail. Hope upper court will dismiss the lower court verdict . #BlackBuckPoachingCase
— Sumit kadel (@SumitkadeI) April 5, 2018
Honestly, I am feeling bad for Salman Khan because others were equally culpable and should not have been acquitted. Why should he suffer alone?
And rumour mills say he wasn’t the one per se but took blame for all female actors to safeguard them.
— richa singh (@richa_singh) April 5, 2018
Not the Bollywood brethren, who are now in the first stage of grief. Denial.
Andha kanoon!!! https://t.co/Y4kDAP51qD
— Kamya Punjabi (@iamkamyapunjabi) April 5, 2018
I know for a fact that @BeingSalmanKhan has not killed the #BlackBuck. I am 100 percent sure he will be declared innocent finally. #BlackBuckPoachingCase
— Priya Gupta (@priyagupta999) April 5, 2018
And definitely not the liberal types who are celebrating the verdict with memes like this.
In fact, the only time I personally spared a thought about the blackbucks was when I first heard of the case. My thoughts centred around poor Sooraj Barjatya, the upholder of pooja ki thali, shaadi ka ladoo and sanskaar. How can something so un-vegetarian happen in the sets of a person who probably eats prasad for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Yes, I reduced those beautiful, sacred and endangered animals to their meat. What can I say, I am Bong!
But even Bhai’s worst critic will have to agree that the general feeling of comeuppance that seems to have permeated social media has very little to do with those two innocent blackbucks.
Let’s address the Land Cruiser in the room. We are all reacting to the incredible amount of mysterious things that surround Bhai. Like self-driving cars, bruised girlfriends who were never assaulted and disgruntled singers who were NOT boycotted for refusing to fall in line.
If you ask me, in such a magical line-up, blackbucks with suicidal tendencies are a natural addition. Let’s refer to the 2009 interview to NDTV where he revealed his side of the story. He claimed that he and his co-stars rather “fed the deer” when they came across a group on a day they had an early pack-up during the shooting of Hum Saath Saath Hain. “We saw a deer stuck in a bush. The whole herd was there. It was a fawn and was petrified. I took him out of there. We then gave him some water. The deer ate some biscuits and later went back in the forest,” Salman said in the same interview.
As a particularly erudite Twitter user pointed out, the black bucks probably decided to end their lives after being subjected to such unexpected kindness by a Being Human, I mean human being.
Eventually, the blackbucks were all but forgotten. Bhai went on to become Bhaijaan. Even Sooraj Barjatya risked revisiting Rajasthan with Salman again for another sanskaar orgy, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo (2015). Until now, of course.
Kudos to the Bishnoi community for keeping at it.
