Table Of Contenta
m
HarperCollins Publishers India
Con tents
Introduction
Bollywood's Burden of Love
The Angry Young Man
The Anti-Hero
Angry Young Love
The Wild Cat and the Wimp
Index
Introduction
AMANDA: But, why - why, Tom, are you always so rest-
less? Where do you go to, nights?
TOM: I - go to the movies.
AMANDA: Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?
TOM: I go to the movies because - I like adventure. Adven-
ture is something I don't have much of at work, so I go to the
movies.
AMANDA: But, Tom, you go to the movies entirely too
much!
TOM: I like a lot of adventure.
(The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams)
7P
opular cinema is currently in the throes of a second
coming. Bogged down by the video and the television
blight in the mid-eighties, it was suddenly engulfed in a
state of emasculation, People had stopped going to movies;
movie moghuls had stopped weaving their spells on
screen. It was the proverbial chicken and egg situation
where film makers blamed the vanishing crowds and the
Introduction
AMANDA: But, why - why, Tom, are you always so rest-
less? Where do you go to, nights?
TOM: I - go to the movies.
AMANDA: Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?
TOM: I go to the movies because - I like adventure. Adven-
ture is something I don't have much of at work, so I go to the
movies.
AMANDA: But, Tom, you go to the movies entirely too
much!
TOM: I like a lot of adventure.
(The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams)
??
opular cinema is currently in the throes of a second
coming. Bogged down by the "ideo and the television
blight in the mid-eighties, it was suddenly engulfed in a
state of emasculation. People had stopped going to movies;
movie moghuls had stopped weaving their spells on
screen. It was the proverbial chicken and egg situation
where film makers blamed the vanishing crowds and the
2 Ire in the Soul Introduction 3
crowds blamed the bad cinema for the empty auditoriums Then there was the grand arrival of the Khalnayak, the
in an industry which produces nearly 900 films annually. anti-hero. Films like Khalnayak, Baazigar, Darr seemed to
Here, where the film makers blamed the viewers for have lifted the curtain on an entirely virginal terrain. Here,
deserting the cinema and viewers indicted the film makers for the first time, there was a hero who was irresistible
for the indifferent quality of films being churned out from because he was bad; a plot that was engrossing because it
the movie mills, even the allure of Amitabh Bachchan was crooked and a treatment that appeared fresh because
seemed to work no wonders. This despite the fact that his it dared to venture into the grey areas of the psyche. The
image had whipped up a mind-boggling charisma since terrorist of Khalnayak, the demented lover of Darr and the
Zanjeer hit the screen in 1973. Even that seemed to have shrewd homicidal hero of Baazigar who maintained his
lost its power over the popular imagination in the age of charisma hespite ruthlessly flinging his beloved from a
television. The debacle began with Ganga lamuna Saraswati, high-rise building: these became the icons of the changing
Toofan and ]aadugar and haunted the superstar throughout times.
the end of the 1980s. But for Hum, the rest of the films made The 1990s then bear witness to a scenario, when the
in the early 1990s - Akayla, lndrajeef - all failed to match crowds are returning to cinema on the one hand. And on
the early hysteria of his films. the other, cinema is being imbued with a sense of explo-
The fog began to lift at the turn of the 1980s, when ration. No superstars, no super showmen, just pure
Mansoor Khan made Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. A small film cinema, where a film succeeds on the strength of its
with new stars and loads of melody, Qayamat Se Qayamat storyline, dramatic content, characterizations, music - in
Tak marked the beginning of a new genre in mainstream short, on its overall appeal. An age when Hum Aapke Hain
cinema. The anger of revenge and individual rebellion was Kaun, traditionally described as a family social, runs shoul-
replaced by the anger of love. Here was the time-tested der to shoulder with Karan Arjun, the timeless pot-boiler
story of love-against-odds, but the treatment was entirely that revolves round the leitmotif of revenge through re-
new. Love became a synonym for rebellion and the lovers birth. An age when an actor like Nana Patekar is able to
were no longer the mild dulcet pair of the 1960s who create a furore at the box office with his fiery rantings in
accepted everything, union and separation, as a quirk of Kmntiz~eera long with the scintillating presence of the new
fate. The success of Qayamat Se Qayalnat Tilk was followed stars on the horizon - Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgan,
by an unstinted applause for Tezaab, Dil, Smzaln Bea)afa, Salman Khan. A period when stalwarts like Yash Chopra
Maine Pyar Kiya, Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahirz and the and Subhash Ghai co-exist with the brat pack of new di-
like. It was 'Action' all over again: cameras were rolling, recLors like David Dhawan, Sooraj Barjatya, Mansoor
tickets were selling, profits were spiralling and cinema was Khan. A decade when the Supreme Court realizes the
rising from its slumber once again. importance of cinema and indicts it for its ill-effects on the
Until every other film became just another Qayillnat Sr personality of the real life criminal Auto Shankar who
Qayamat Tak - a pair of new faces, a load of music, now blamed cinema for his excesses (murdering six prostitutes
sounding insignificant, and love strewn with impediments. for which he was served the death sentence in 1994 and
Cinema again began to reverberate with a sense of dija 71u. was hanged in 1995) during his defence.
The present st~td\lis an attempt to cnpt~rrct>h e glor-vr
:I(
popular Hindi cincrna; to look bchinii thc pllai~tasmngori~~
and find out ~vh)t.h e n~ag-ic~ .\.orksM. 'li:~ does Ti~ml ike to
go to the rnox1ies again and again? Far ad\.cnturc alone?
The discussion is centre-d arouitd co~~ternporar!m- ain-
stream cinema and colrers the iast three dt.cades ;vhicli
have been divided into three broad categories: the age 01
the angry young man, angry young love and the cinema
of the anti-hero. Since the ht-.roine has al~\ravsb een an
integral part of the cinematic clisco~~rtsh~er,e i.; ~is c.t~aratt1 Bollywood's Burden of Love
discussion cjii the changing hues of the heroine's irnpi~r-
tance in poy~tlarc jnema.
e
an cinen~ac hCingea pcoplc, 1' soiiet); an incli\.ld~~al?
Does the moving iinngt. ha\,c the poTver to il-icjnic sl~iits
in stands, ideologies, \,aluc. s)~sti~rnIss? iilrn thari
1' ll\i)r.c,
fantastical form? -A mctnphor i\,ithout meCining?
During tl-ie C;rcat Ucprc~ssioni n tlte lL130s,i lic i\rnc>ricCl~l
print media was full oi ijrst pcrson accounts of h01v i~idi-
viduals were copi~;g1 vit11 scarcitl.. Tlic~rr 'ln in tht>i ~llo~~r-
ing manner.
"We were prCictisingt or a chorus and ,I littlc bo\., ; l i ~ ) ~ t
12-ye'irs-old, Tvns in the tront li11c1. F1tl is ile,ll~i n his
overalls, but didn't 1ta1.c. n i ~ ~0c11 i ~un der tlicl~lt.H e, 1 ~ ~ s
standing in the lint1 \vl-ic>na 11 at once, pitilled ior\v;lrd
111.
in a dead faint. 'This \\.as t~vcof cic>cki n the c~iti.r~loonI .i.e.
had not had anything tc, eat siiiccs the day before."
"Five l-iuncircd s'11c)c)I cI1ildr~1- In, os L i\ritll liagg~irci
faces and in tattereil clothes, pnr;ltic>~tih rough C llii'tgo's
dowl~to~vsnt'c tio~tt c: cjemcind th<itt ltc) schooi s>.h~c%[1?1I1-0 -
\ride them ~ vti1i fooLi."
"1 lo\,c: c\ljlcjrcxil cll~i1i Iitl\'t' 0!tt,!1 ;\r'inti.d 10 11;1\,0
children of my own. But to ha1.e one now, as I a111 going ,=hreM,din telligence that lies behind this deliberate creation
to, is almost more than I can stand ... I have four step of the image of the other side of reality. During those years
children, so there are six in my family. I need fruit and of gruelling poverty and starvation, Hoover's juxtaposition
vegetables. I need rest. I need yards of material for shirts
of the image of the undernourished American child against
and gowns. I have no blankets. I need baby clothes ... I hate thirty-five million rosy-cheeked cherubs was not only
charity. ..b ut my condition now not only forces me to take
timely, expedient and ingenious, but showed how easy it
charity but even ask for it."' was to obfuscate reality by creating a powerful counter-
"Mrs. Schmidt took her five-year-old son Albert into image in the face of an existing unpleasant one.
the kitchen and turned on the gas ...' I don't know what I Charles Eckart, in his seminal essay on Shirley Temple
am going to give the children to eat,' said a note she had elucidates this power of the moving image. He points out,
written for her husband. 'They are already half starved. I "as the days greuTs horter and grayer, it became obvious
think it best to go into eternity and take little Albert that for the millions, the hardest days were still ahead.
al~ng'."~ Those already mentally and physically stunted by years of
The most persistent image of the Depressiori, as it turned malnutrition rvould know. many more years of diminished
out then, was neither FIitler nor Mussolini, but that of a existence before the economic boom of World War I1 would
small child, dressed in welfare clothing, unsmiling, unre- turn the depression around. And a few parents, broken
sponsive as he pauses to stare through the windows of a under the responsibility of caring for hungry, ill and con-
grocery store, his legs noticeably thin and his stomach stantly irritable children, rvould kill one or more of them
slightly swollen. Almost like a gaunt Jackie Coogan. - and sometimes, themselves.
In November 1930, during an emergency White House But then, on the other hand, there was Shirley Temple."'
meeting on Child Health and Protection, President Hoover Shirley Temple, who in the mid 1930s, when 20 million
was forced to admit that six million American children people were on relief, awoke in the morning singing the
were chronically undernourished. Nevertheless, he imme- song 'Early Bird'; whose econoinics declared that a nickel
diately added that there was no need for the policy makers was worth more than a dollar; whose message of lolre,
and mandarins to be discouraged since at the same time, caring and sharing merely reiterated President Hoover's
there are thirty-fi~rem illion reasonably normal, cheerful observations about Deprt:ssinn being 'only a state of the
human electrons radiating joy and mischief, hope and mind .'
faith. Their faces are turned towards the lights - theirs is During the Depression, it was cinema that became the
the life of great adventure. These are the vivid, romping saviour both for the people and the policy 111akers. While
everyday children, our orvn and our neighbours. politicians directly cliarged Hollyrvood with the task of
Stark, almost brutal insensitivity, this inay seem, on first "cheering Americans up", studio ideolog.-~esl ike Jack
appraisal. But a second look is all it takes, to reveal the Warner and 1-ouis R.M ayer studiouslv took up their new
roles as shapers of public attitudes. The phenomenon of
1. Peter Stc[.cn, ed., "lump Cut" in Rc~ticlc,c~rTi lrcl 1.ort~( 1985),p .37
2. Ibid, p.37 3. Ibid, pp. 42-43
8 Ire in the So111 Bolly7~1ood'Bs urden of Love 9
Shirley Temple was carefully nurtured to create the counter also.
image in films like Littlr Miss Marker, Bright Eyes, Curly Top, The power of the medium was recognized both by Hitler
Our Little Girl, The Littlest Rebel, Poor Little Rich Girl. As a and Mussolini, who cultivated it as an ideological weapon
tiny, adorable, warm ball of love that was in a state of to further their own political interests. The occupation of
perpetual motion - dancing, strutting, beaming, whee- Denzig was deliberately done in a way that would allow
dling, chiding, radiating, kissing - her principal function the use of the best camera angles to the film crew. For a
in all these films was to soften hard hearts (specially the similar purpose, Hitler commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to
wealthy, to intercede on behalf of others, to effect liaisons make Triumph of the Will, a film that would later serve as
between members of opposed social classes and occasion- the official Nazi record of the Nuremberg party rally of
ally to regenerate an emaciated populace). 1934. Preparations for the rally were made along with the
Thus on the one hand, there was reality starvation, preparations for the camera work. The objective was to
-
privation, unemployment, death. On the other, there was present Hitler and other Nazi leaders in the best possible
the image - Shirley Temple, bouncing, jumping, singing, light, for which a staff of 120 was employed. They included
40 cameramen. Again, at the peak of the war, when de-
dancing, full of a natural joie dr z~iure,p resenting the only
struction was the order of the day, the German newsreels
solution to the current malaise in film after film: the trans-
forming power of love. showed beautiful parks and lawns peopled by handsome
As Eckart points out: "And now we hear her voice men and beautiful women, moving around to the accom-
announcing that the Depression is over; that it never ex- paniment of the soft sensuous music in the background.
isted; that it is ending in each and every of her films; that An image which denied the existence of fighting, blood-
shed and human brutality of the worst 'kind.
these films are playing at our neighbourhood theatres and
Shirley Temple's burden of love has not been laid to rest
that we should come and see them, and that we must learn
through all these years of cinematic history. Cinema con-
to love children and to weep for them and open up our
tinues to play the role of the traditional healer of society
hearts to them, that we mustn't hate rich people because
and the studio ideologues have never stopped churning
most of them are old and unhappy and unloved, that we
out a cinema of pacification and passivity: the twin objec-
should learn to sing at our own work and dance away our
tives of the media. If Temple could talk abbut the trans-
weariness, that anyone can be an old sourpuss about rick-
forming power of love in the 1930s during the peak of the
ets and protein deficiency but only Shirley Temple fans can
Great Depression and endearingly urge that everyone
laugh their pathology away.""
would have enough if the haves learnt to share and the
Cinema then isn't actually what it is taken to be: an
have-nots learnt tbbear, then Mani Ratnam re-echoes simi-
impermanent tryst with make-believe, regurgitated with a
lar sentiments in 1995, when the country had yet to ward
diet of popcorn and ice creams, its succulence lasting only
off the communal scourge.
till the lights are turned on. Somewhere along the regur-
Set against the Bombay riots of 1993, which followed the
gitation, there is assimilation, affirmation and actualisation
demolition of the Babri Masjid, the film Bombay reiterates
Temple's message of love as the only panacea for all ills.
4. Ibid, p. 51
10 Ire in the Solrl Bolly7i~ood'sB urden of Love 11
Trapped in the thick of a mad riot, with mobsters lusting
fathers who turn out to be the true prototypes of the com-
for blood-closing in from all sides, the hero breaks into a
mon Indian, the hoi polloi for whom religion is an undeni-
song which urges the sword ahd the trident-wielding
able part of daily life. At the onset, they begin as natural
people to stop. Ruk ja, ruk ja! blares the background music
enemies. Bred in a rural society, seeped in tradition, the two
as the soundtrack repeatedly gushes forth about the essen-
obviously meet under the shadow of incipient antagonism
tial brotherhood of all mankind. This at a time when the
and communal distrust.
word 'Hindu' came to stand for the trident-wielding
Muslim basher and 'Muslim' meant the hard-boiled fanatic
with his pro-Pakistan ideology. The film obviously recog-
nizes no such differences of religion, caste and creed as the
background song declares:
"Apni zameen, apna gagan yeh
Dushlnan bane, apne hi hum
Mazhab ko chodo, 7~atank i socho
Hindustani hain pehle hum
To ruk jao ..."
(This is our land, this is our sky; why then are we our
own enemies? Forget about religion, think about the na-
tion; we are Indians first and foremost, so stop, just stop.)
Confronted by this message of love, they stop. Murder-
ous mobs who seemed to have let go of reason, simply drop
their weapons and there, in the middle of the smoke and A tense moment in Bonrbay
the stench of human flesh, the hunters and the victims hold
Shekhar's father, a hard-core Hindu Brahmin, wants
hands, hug each other and celebrate their Indianness. This,
Rahim, Shaila Banofs father, to give him 2000 bricks in-
for the film maker is then the primer's principles for peace
scribed with the word 'Ram'. The bricks, he says, are meant
and communal amity.
for the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. Ob-
At a time when the country was being ripped apart by
viously, Rahim sees red and springs at his would-be
communal fires and when religious fanaticism was on the
customer's throat (Rahim is the owner of a brick kiln) in
rampage, Ratnam chooses to paint the picture of the ideal
a bloody rage. But they don't spill blood. Later, the two
Muslim and the perfect Hindu. While Shekhar (Arvind
fight over the religious initiation of their grandchildren, a
Swamy) and Shaila Bano (Manisha Koirala) - the hero and
pair of twins. But underlying their outward hostility, there
the heroine who rebel against their familial orthodoxy and
is a childlike pique, which lends an innocence to their
marry despite the communally surcharged air around -
rancour so that, when Bombay begins to burn, the two end
may be the protagonists of Bombay, it is actually the two
up as kindred souls, members of a single family or what
12 Ire in the Soul
Bollywood's Burden of Love 13
you will. The Muslim saves the Hindu from a murderous
the chorus Har kararn apna karenge ae ulatan tere liye (we shall
mob and the Brahmin, in turn, lays down his life in a bid
perform all our tasks for your well-being, oh nation!) in the
to save the Koran, the holy book of the Muslims, from
course of the murder and the mayhem let loose by the
desecration. These, the film insists, are true Indians who
crafty alien.
-
take their religion as seriously as the unifying credo of - -v
-
Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai. This at a time, when the polar- .-=
ization of the two communities seemed to have reached a
state of no return and the communal frenzy could hardly
be contained with simplistic messages of love, unity and
fraternity.
Nevertheless, Bombay became a box-office success de-
spite the controversies and the temporary bans. The chi-
mera seemed to have worked again. The good Hindu saves
the Muslim. The good Muslim protects the Hindu. The
good cops shield everyone. And out of the ashes of despair
and .dissonance, phoneix-like, a new India is being born.
Over the ashes of the burning city, rises the human chain
formed by all the city dwellers. One that transcends all
barriers of class, caste, community and religion. National-
ity being the only cementing factor here. Yes, Bombay
proves once again that with a little bit of love, Gods do rest Naseeruddin Shah in Tahnlka
in their heavens and all becomes right with the nation.
In Anil Sharmafs Tahalka and Hukurnat, the enemy was
Over the last decade, a reiteration of this state of national
again the ungodly outsider (Amrish Puri and Sadashiv
well-beir.g has become a cinematic obsession with film
Amrapurkar), who would infiltrate the sacrosanct border,
makers. And successfully so. For, in terms of pure econom-
loot, plunder and disrupt the natural harmony of the
ics, all the films which have talked of the 'foreign hand' that
nation. In Mehul Kumar's Tiranga, there was the swarthy
is responsible for internal dissension and decay have been
enemy from beyond, Pralaynath, Goondaswamy who
sure-fire hits at the box office. Shekhar Kapoor's Mr. India
abducted the Indian scientists to execute his nefarious
blamed the bomb blasts (a series of bomb blasts ripped
nuclear missile plan aimed at destroying the nation.
through the nation which were reportedly held to be the
But the most important in this genre of cinema that takes
handiwork of Punjab terrorists) on Mr. Mugambo, the man
upon itself the responsibility of propagating national well-
from nowhere. Subhash Ghai's Karma pitted the dubious
being are Mani Ratnam's Rojs and Mehul Kumar's
Dr. Deng (Anupam Kher) and his private army against the
Krantiveer. Here, for the first time, the enemy loses his
patriotism of the principled jailer (Dilip Kumar) and his
anonymity and is invested with a face, an identity and a
three sons of the nation. All of whom repeatedly echoed
clear-cut methodology to his mad designs. Set against the
