This is not a column about the colour of Deepika’s bikini. Noting that the baal-ki-khaal politics of saffron paranoias are stupid does not prove we are clever or even progressive, merely subservient to the left-right-left rituals of rattebaaz politics. The word on the rang surely belongs to journalist Namrata Zakaria, who tweeted, “It’s called Hermes orange guys!” What you see in the nazara is all a matter of your nazar.

I followed the trail of online sighs to the nazaras on offer in Besharam Rang, the first song from Pathan, Shah Rukh Khan’s first movie in years.  Who can deny Shah Rukh Khan’s hotness, his signature aadaab slowed to seduction speed, the hard planes of his bared body and weather-beaten eyes telegraphing a cynical sexual-ness?  Different shades of cynicism have flashed through his earlier characters—Harry, Zero, even the Rajs and Rahuls all cycled through frivolity, ambivalence and non-committal emotions, before arriving at a tryst with sincerity (which we sometimes call love), but we have never seen him quite like this.