OMG Oh My God! and PK is connected to Umesh Shukla's play

23 Dec 2014

Most critics have not missed the uncanny thematic similarities between Rajkumar Hirani's well-received PK and Umesh Shukla's controversial film OMG Oh My God! that hit theatres in 2012. Both films, remarkable in their own 'write', take hard hitting stinging swipes at organized religion.

In fact, the resemblance between the theological arguments pertaining to God, godmen and godliness as a big business are so similar in the two films that they're almost interchangeable.

While no one can doubt the purity of heart and the excellence of presentation that have gone into PK , there is undoubtedly a connection between the teams behind PK and OMG . "Abhijat Joshi, who has co-scripted PK with Hirani, is the elder brother of playwright Saumya Joshi, who works closely with Umesh Shukla, the director of OMG Oh My God and long-running Gujarati play Kanji Virudh Kanji from which OMG Oh My God is adapted. In fact, Saumya has written 102 Not Out , the film featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Paresh Rawal that Umesh Shukla is directing in 2015." Apparently, Saumya had invited Hirani and Abhijat to see the play. "They saw and were very impressed by Kanji Viruddh Kanji . They immediately began to plan a film on the merchandizing of religion. But then, they got to know that Umesh Shukla was shooting a film based on his own play. Immediately, the script plan was revised and the idea of a "dream snatcher" from Christopher Nolan's Inception was brought in. That's how PK was born," says the source.

In the defense of the PK team, the source says, "Raju Hirani and Abhijat Joshi are brilliant writers. They don't need to borrow ideas from anywhere. They just liked the idea of religion as a commercial enterprise and wanted to use it. The minute they got to know Umesh Shukla was making OMG Oh My God! , they changed tracks completely."