 "Bollywood's secular heart")
To be sure, Bollywood's heart has been more or less secular. Back in the first flush of Nehruvian idealism, there were couples like Nargis and Sunil Dutt who had tied the knot, though by and large their's was the exception rather than the rule.
In the reigning triumvirate of Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor, no one had broken religious ranks. It took the next generation to do that: Shashi Kapoor married Jennifer Kendall, a British-Christian; Feroz Khan and his brother Sanjay both married outside their communities - a Sindhi and a Parsi, respectively; Javed Akhtar married Honey Irani, a Parsi; and his writing partner Salim Khan married a Hindu lady. Then there seemed to be a respite in this secular love fest. Except for Vinod Khanna, who married a Parsi, the rest of the actors of the following generation like Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and Randhir Kapoor stuck to girls of their own community.
No one could have imagined the avalanche that was to follow: both Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh married Hindu women, whereas Hrithik Roshan chose to marry a Muslim girl. Feroz Khan's son, Fardeen, married a Hindu as did his cousin Zayed. Meanwhile Akhtar's son married a Bengali-British girl and Arbaaz married Malaika Arora.
So much for its personal ethic. In its work culture, Bollywood was overwhelmingly secular. Script writers like K A Abbas inspired and collaborated with Raj Kapoor; Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote lyrics for directors like Yash Chopra; singer Mukesh rendered some of his finest songs for Khayyam; and Salim-Javed conspired with Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra to create one blockbuster after another.
If its work culture was decidedly secular, Bollywood's message was even more so: films like Amar Akbar Anthony in which three protagonists gave blood to save the life of a single woman were only par for the course. Bollywood's heart was in its right place and its blood was the colour of Nehru's red rose.
Sure there were a few bad apples that stank up its basket - a famous trio of brothers who were suspected of Jan Sangh allegiance, a music director whose CV reveals a communal bias that could not possibly be a coincidence; an actor rumoured to have thrown a party to celebrate the bringing down of the Babri Masjid. But these cases were few and far between. Even though its founders hailed from the north of India and were exposed to Partition's most brutal face, most of Bollywood to its credit has risen above the past.
It can be accused of many things but communalism isn't one of them.
Shah Rukh's choice of name for his son is only the cherry on the cake.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer
malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com