An open letter to Akshay Kumar from a devastated fan

Dear Akshay Kumar,

I dig your dumb blond looks. I really do. It’s for people like you that the term himbo (as opposed to bimbo) was invented and you come across in public as strong, dumb, polite and rich, which as a woman I find swoon-worthy.

We’ve grown up blushing for you and crushing on you in Khiladi and Mohra. There was a time when we wanted to be Ayesha Julka and Raveena Tandon even though we knew being Elizabeth Bennet was our higher calling.

But acting talent? As explosive as a soggy dog biscuit I’d say.

Very charitably I try to appreciate your now-famed comic timing. Very charitably I try to understand how it is that you are supposed to have successfully reinvented yourself in films such as Special 26, Airlift and Rustom. I am charitable, as you are a part of my schoolgirl fantasies when reading Stardust under the blanket and a chemistry book over the blanket had a sinful charm of its own.

But actor? Seriously, Akshay?

It’s lovely to win awards I know, especially when you haven’t won many, but when a nation honours you for wearing a white uniform and a chalky expression for three hours, it’s a tad embarrassing I’d say.

Just because a close friend is the jury chair? Just because you are a Hindu superstar and Ajay Devgan was worse than you in the disaster called Shivaay? Just because they couldn’t give it to a Hindi Brahmin actor for playing a gay professor sacked for his orientation? Just because they really couldn’t give it to a Muslim superstar for playing a double role very competently in Fan or another Muslim superstar for being an ageing wrestler in another? Just because they couldn’t pick someone from regional cinema because they also want some Bollywood shine!

Me, I would have given the award to Manoj Bajpai for Aligarh. (I hated Dangal and haven’t seen Fan entirely).

But I am a filthy ‘sickularist’ which as you know big people like the National Award jury can’t afford to be. In fact, even little people like me can’t afford to be that nowadays, which is why I don’t have a public blog or even a Facebook account where I can be trolled.

Just to reiterate. I like you Akshay. You were my crush when it was fashionable in my school to have a crush on Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. Unapologetically, I found you dumb and hot and brown. (I think you got married to a fairly intelligent woman because of these very qualities.) I still do.

But National Award for acting, doled out ideologically? No Akshay, you deserve better.

With love,

Your fangirl