OH MY GOD movie explored the corrupt side of religious gurus–money swindling and cheating in the name of religion

OMG Oh My God- the movie with the comedy king pair- Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal-is a laugh riot with a social message no less. You’d expect nothing less than laugh riots and crisp jokes. If that’s what in your mind when you walk in the theatre, then maybe you’ll be a little disappointed. There is subtle comedy and the movie is more like a piece of social commentary which pokes and strikes at just the right places.

The movie is an adaption from the Guajarati play “Kanji Virrudh Kanji” which in turn was adapted from an Australian movie “The Man Who Sued God” which released back in 2001. The movie has been directed by Umesh Shukla, produced by Ashvini Yardi, Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal and written by Bhavesh Mandalia and Umesh Shukla.

All of us face troubles at some point of time, many have made a baba or an ashram our destination, to be promised the easy way out of the troubles- spending a certain amount of money for pujas to appease the gods, stars and their planetary movements. The blind faith that spending that ridiculously big amount of money will solve the problems is where we go wrong. The movie exposes the money making business that the religious gurus and figureheads run after dangling the carrot of a happy and peaceful life in front of people.

As rightly said by Mithun Chakraborty, India is not made of “god loving” people, it is the “god fearing” people that form the masses. The various religions that were discoursed with the intention of setting the rules of living the right kind of life for the people were bent for the needs of gurus and pundits to extract money from the common man. The movie has a scene where a common man asks a pundit to explain the meaning of Sanskrit shlokas which he was very pompously reciting during a hawan. The pundit turns up blank and leaves the puja, offended. How can one expect any good out of a Puja where the meaning of the prayer isn’t clear? One can’t cheat God like that.

The movie does not denounce religion or faith. But it questions the mentality of people of India, who would indeed follow anything and everything that is touted as God. The atheist (played by Paresh Rawal) was converted into God with idols and mantras recited after him reveals the blind nature of following that we just make way for. No one can actually blame the gurus and pundits for living a lavish lifestyle out of extracting money in the name of religion from the pockets of people who would readily give up how much ever they can for an easy way out.

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-MEHUL PATEL - http://www.FB.com/GujaratiKanudo