On February 7, as India mourned the passing of one of its greatest singers, Lata Mangeshkar, a photo from the funeral went viral. Against the backdrop of a Mumbai highrise stood Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, his eyes concealed by a pair of sunglasses and his hands raised in a dua. His manager Pooja Dadlani stood next to him, her eyes closed and her hands folded in prayer. The picture created an instant buzz. Many said on social media that it moved them, provided them a glimmer of hope, captured the country’s diversity in one frame and harkened back to a time of greater tolerance.
At a time when the politics of polarisation owns the headlines and keeps countless Indians in a state of fear and uncertainty, and Opposition parties think twice before defending pluralism and secularism, a simple photo, which would in another time have been seen as ‘normal’ or indeed ordinary, came to be viewed as extraordinary.
