Crysvenne P.

Bislig

Reflection Paper
“Pk”

The movie “Pk” tells us about the story of an alien investigating the Planet Earth who was robbed with the
most important and the only item he has when he arrived at Earth which is his remote controller to the
spaceship. He uses it to communicate with his fellow aliens to get home to his planet. While on his
journey to find his remote controller, he experienced things that what a common human should be and
how to things work here on earth. But to find his remote controller, he must learn to blend himself to the
humanity and interact with humans. Part of which is to learn their language. He learned it by holding
hands and read their minds and download it into his own to communicate or else he would have not
succeeded. After learning human language, he went on with his journey to find the remote control only to
discover that it was very hard to find. On that part, he was advised to seek counsel of “God” to be able to
find his lost remote control. To be able to communicate with God, he realized he had to do some
experiments to look for “God” so that God can help him find his remote control. He went through tedious
and meticulous plans to communicate with God but to no avail. He went to some sorts of trouble and
always being told that “are you “Pk”? (Pk in Hindi means tipsy or drunk)?” and he adapted this term as his
identification. In Pk’s journey of looking for the remote, he tried all the religion there is on Delhi so that he
must find the God who can answer his plea to find his lost item. What makes this movie interesting is that
it stirs up to what really religion is to us. We tend to define religion as group of people who believes in a
deity that has its rules to follow, place to worship, systems of belief to implement to our lives and how it
controls us to live to either fit in to the group or sect we are in. The movie tells us about how worshipping
to deities is being done by various religions and how does it function in our society as a group of
believers. Traditions that are being celebrated by the faithful in order to find answers to our problems, to
look for inspiration, guidance on how to live an honorable life, and moral etiquettes to follow so that we
could function morally in the eyes of other people. As what the movie revealed to us, it raises up
questions as to what really the role of religion to man? Pk shared an insight as to how religion begins
from, was it established by God himself, or is it just made up by humans? What are the implications of
these religions being created one after another? Who bears the true religion in the first place? The role of
religion to man for me, is that it shows us what to expect from a human being as a person to the society.
As what Pk also showed us on that part as to how one tradition is being compared to another, he points
out that religion can be confusing at its finest and how looks can be deceiving to those who does not
know its background or its context as a religion. Religion can be bias and racist in its essence because of
history. Religion can also turn against each other because of conflict of believe and this what makes Pk
confused in all sorts of angle and puts him in danger. Pk’s confusion as to how worship is being observed
put him to danger most of the time because of these misconceptions, this implies that religion when being
observed by someone from the outside will turn into a dangerous place for the observer in a sense that
you can easily be deceived by its tradition like “Why do they sell their deities in sizes?” “How does it
answer your prayer?”. As what the movie implies, people respond to religion by being faithful to its deities
that the believe in for that fear of being damned (for the lack of better term). It was shown in the movie
when Pk created a pseudo-shrine in front of a notorious university for failing students and wherein
students are seriously stressed out of fear to failing the entrance exam. They found out that believers will
do anything to succeed even if dropping themselves on the ground to worship on the shrine just to pass
the exam and let the One they worship control the situation. Offering some money to the fake shrine Pk
created and he realized how believers act without validating first if that shrine really was a shrine at all.
They just follow their faith on that shrine and go on with life. While on the other hand, a vendor with lots of
capitals invested to his business is having a difficulty making business. It tells us one thing about the
responses we do to our deities we believe in that do we really do these things because of reverence to
the One whom we believed, or is it because we want something in return to the worship, we offer unto the
One we believed in? The essence of worshipping to our God shows what we really do with our faith and
how it affects us with our relationship with God. The newscasting program who initiates the movement to
be critical in those religions showed us how religion instigate fear unto people, Pk’s theory confirmed that
fear itself leads to profit because of religion’s teachings and that is if you do not follow the system of belief
the religion has established, you will burn in hell. People fear eternal damnation, most of all those who
believe in the afterlife and the eternal life whether if it is a cycle of rebirth or an eternity of either heaven or
hell. Religion also affects our relationship to God because of the concept of “wrong number” as what the
movie showed us. People tend to have a mediator like what Pk called the managers of the religion when
we can directly contact God at all. He questioned those kinds of managers who act as if they are the ones
who must present the people’s problem unto God and give the solution to their problems or give comfort
to them. Pk realized when Jaggu, the newscaster played a pranked on an unknown caller, that the people
who act as managers of God must be dialing a “wrong number” to communicate with God and are
advising the public to engage in meaningless rituals. As what Pk stated, “if your father loves you, will he
intentionally make you roll on the floor before answering you?”. Jaggu realized that the religion she is in is
a fraud and want to expose their fraudulent, so she made a segment to expose the reality, making her
religion admit that they are fraud. She also is driven by the fact that religion is the reason of her grief
towards relationship with the Sarfaraz and her family especially her father, the man she met at Belgium
and whom she loved but was separated because of her religious leader who brainwashed her family in
believing that there is no good thing about having a relationship with a Muslim. It became a popular mass
movement, citing as to why should religion do things such as why their religion does not allow woman to
go to school. Religion can affect our relationship to God in a way of unnecessary rituals and traditions
which are impose to its believer, making them do such things which raises up questions like are these
rituals significant? Does this tradition worship God at all? Does God appreciate these kinds of rituals? Do
we really need to do these things in order to be accepted by God in Heaven? Religion also affects our
relationship to God the fact that most of the religions were established by humans implies that most of the
rituals and traditions we have experienced are unnecessary or what Pk calls as wrong number to God
that is being dialed. It also affects our lives because when we became too immersed with religion, we
became fanatic and tends to detach to what’s important in our lives, believing on solutions instructed by
so called the managers of God. As shown in the movie, the father of Jaggu was so fanatic in his Hindu
religion that even the most basic needs that he must accomplish tend to be relied upon the decision of
their leaders of the church which is deemed unnecessary and disturbing. The Movie Pk is an eye-opener
that too much of being religious without being critical thinker tends to bend the logical aspect of our faith
in believing God and can be twist in fear for financial corruption. This movie also that if we really have
strong faith in God, we must be praying or communicating it directly unto the God we believe, for God
created us all and we are His children, therefore He will not create such unnecessary rituals and tradition
that may hinder our communication unto Him. If we believe in that God, we should question some
traditions that makes no sense and that hinders to the progress of man because those traditions might be
the cause of fear. Did humans instigate these rituals for the sake of worship or did we made these
traditions to instill fear and make business out of it. In the concept of offering, people think that offering
money on the donation box, or giving money to the church is enough but is it really good enough for God?
Did God need your money? I believe that it is not the money God needed but we, we ourselves as a
person is what God needs to restore relationship unto Him. In conclusion, religion plays a role in human’s
co-existence within the society and is based on how humans define what religion is to each of their own
context. We, humans respond to religion depending on what the religion has established all throughout its
system and its basis of faith belief. Religion affects our relationship with God depending on how we
execute its traditions, rituals, other expressions of our faith and what are the basis of its execution to
justify it. Religion can also divide the society and create conflicts and barriers that hinders us to be united
and classify us with the labels we tend to create for ourselves to differentiate us from others.