Rahengi yaad keval inquilabiyaan boliyaan tumko…angreziyat ki har ibarat bhul jaoge… Arre Victoria ke bandaro, yeh haath toh kholo, patak ke itna maarenge ki Bharat bhul jaoge” — just as Manoj Muntashir Shukla orated these lines, a crowd of 3,000 people attending his ‘Maa Matrabhumi Aur Mohabbhat’ event in the sleepy town of Kolkata erupted into applause.
His oratory a response to the people who do not wish to stand when the National Anthem is played in the theatres.
Over two months later, Shukla is facing the wrath of angry communalistic, nationalistic Hindus for the dialogues — “Teri bua ka bageecha hai kya jo hawa khane chala aaya?” among others — in the latest film Adipurush.
Manoj Muntashir has managed to achieve the impossible — bring together India’s political Right and Centre and achieve bipartisan consensus on how Ram is being denigrated. His work is being pilloried by AAP’s Sanjay Singh, Congress’ Digvijaya Singh who cornered BJP for its proximity to Shukla.
Soon after Adipurush, everybody has turned into an investigator digging into Shukla’s life, browsing his old videos wherein he recalled how after adopting the pen name ‘Muntashir’, things were not hunky-dory at home. Shukla can be heard saying that just as his father, a seasonal farmer and priest, would chant Shiv Stotram in the morning, and he would start singing ‘Rasool Allah’. In another video posted on Twitter, in a conversation with a TV channel, he said, “Vo [Hanuman] bhagwan nahi, bhakt hai. Humne unhein bhagwan banaya kyunki unki bhakti mein vo power tha (Bajrang Bali is a devotee, not a God. We [people] have made him into a God because his faith [towards Lord Ram] had that kind of power).” In response to this, someone described it as a Leftist conspiracy and called Shukla a “spy” who was following a “toolkit” to be used in 2024 elections. Some users also pulled out Shukla’s wife, Neelam’s tweets, wherein she applauded Barkha Dutt and Rana Ayyub for their work during the pandemic. The tweet also described the two as “radical communists” and “strong believers on Ganga-Jamuni tehjeeb till 2019”.
Shukla’s dialogues in Om Raut’s film have sparked caustic reactions now but he has been a successful name in the entertainment industry for several years. Lyricist, poet, dialogue writer, and screenwriter, he has penned several blockbuster songs and scripts for many premium reality TV shows such as Kaun Banega Crorepati. He even served as a judge on India’s Got Talent.
On Shukla’s colloquial usage of vocabulary for some of the dialogues in Adipurush, Prabhuda Saurabh, a Bollywood writer and poet who has worked with the former during his live events, said: “When you perform for a live audience, the results are immediate and you instantly know whether they’re engaged or not. But it is an entirely different case if it is for a film. Unfortunately, a writer and performer got mixed into each other.”
Succumbing to the incessant criticism from a significant audience, Shukla recently announced that the filmmakers would revise some of the dialogues which are “hurtful”.
“I wrote more than 4,000 lines as dialogues in Adipurush, some sentiments got hurt on five of those lines. In those hundreds of lines, where Shri Ram was glorified, Maa Sita’s chastity was described, I was hoping to receive praise for them, which I don’t know why I didn’t get,” a portion of his tweet, roughly translated from Hindi, read.
Also read: How many Ramayanas? As tapori Avengers, Adipurush is neither cool nor classic
Thriving television career
Born in Amethi’s Gauriganj in Uttar Pradesh, Shukla comes from a family of farmers and priests. He acquired ‘Muntashir’ as his pen name due to his inclination towards the Urdu language and poetry.
“Manoj Shukla mein vo wazan nahi tha (the name did not have the gravitas),” he had said in an interview with a radio channel.
After graduating from Allahabad University in 1999, he moved to Mumbai to enter the world of showbiz. Owing to his “way with words”, Shukla soon landed an opportunity to collaborate with Siddhartha Basu, television producer-director who is also widely recognised as ‘father of Indian television quizzing’.
“Television scriptwriters mein tum bahubali ban gaye ho (you have mastered the art of TV scriptwriting),” Basu recalled saying this about Shukla, during a show in 2020.
While Shukla worked across platforms and shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati (penned script for Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan), Jhalak Dikha Jaa, Indian Idol, India’s Got Talent, Basu describes Shukla’s work in Sach Ka Saamna as his “best” for TV.
“He is a prolific wordsmith and poet at heart. Not only his command over the language, he understands the music of the spoken word,” said Basu.
Besides his television career, Shukla has penned lyrics for several blockbuster songs Galliyan from Ek Villain, Tere Sang Yaara from Rustom, Teri Mitti from Kesari, Sanu Ek Pal from Raid and Kaun Tujhe from M.S Dhoni: The Untold Story among others. He has won National Film Awards for best lyrics in Saina. He also wrote the Hindi dialogues for Baahubali 2 and Black Panther.
Also read: Adipurush controversy shows there’s no pleasing Hindu groups. They want 100% compliance
Lyricist turned social media influencer
Lyricists, and music composers often remain unnoticed and only a few are recognised by their faces such as Gulzar or Javed Akhtar.
“It has happened after a long time that a lyricist is recognised on the roads,” said Saurabh, adding that Shukla’s stature as an ‘orator’ has helped him get noticed more than usual. He reportedly conducts 20 live shows in six months when not working on a film project.
Speaking about Shukla’s famous video series — which are live shows that are recorded, and uploaded on his YouTube channel — Saurabh highlighted how the songwriter often quotes young poets’ poems on the stage while giving them the due credit.
With over two million subscribers on YouTube, one million on Instagram, and six lakh followers on Twitter, Shukla is onto building his digital kingdom larger by the day.
Some of his videos titled Main Brahman Hoon, Mahabharat Se Jo Maine Seekha, Nirdosh The Ram among several others have clocked in views in millions. Shukla’s immense confidence shows in the way he orates during his performances, videos, and interviews. Often, the delivery of words mirrors the way characters speak in Ram Leela, and his live audience — mostly adults and senior citizens — lap it up with thunderous applause. Even online, the comments on his Instagram reels and YouTube videos reflect his popularity.
“Brahmin hona, sanatani Hindu hona, mera swabhimaan hai jaise bharatvasi hona (Being a Brahmin and Hindu is my pride just as being an Indian),” he said in his video, which raked in 1.4 million views. The comment section is filled with people echoing Shukla’s words and reasserting how proud they are of their ‘Brahmin’ identity.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)