'There is an extraordinary love story in every jodi' proclaimed the publicity
for
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Aditya Chopra's box-office winner, which marked
his return as the high priest of Hindi film romance -- a position he first won
with
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
Jodi broke the mould in more
ways than one; and sometimes disturbingly so. Anushka Sharma is forced into a
marriage with well-meaning dweeb Shah Rukh Khan, but cannot bring herself to
love him, thus prompting him to get an alpha male alter ego who sweeps the girl
off her feet.
| | | | Earlier, incest was hinted at, as in Zameer; it was less contrived in J.P. Dutta's Yateem. | | | | |
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Alas, Khan's character is so disturbed by this that he develops a
feeling that his wife is cheating on him with another man, conveniently
forgetting that his wife's lover is none other than he himself. If we factor in
the fact that Anoushka's character is fooled by the removal of spectacles, a
moustache and the addition of hair gel and gaudy T-shirts into believing that
her lover is a different man, we have here a couple who would keep an army of
shrinks in business for years.
The annals of Hindi popular cinema are littered with romances that are
atypical, if not quite reaching the bizarre heights of Jodi. Given the
history of the subcontinent, one of the fascinations for filmmakers has been the
Hindu-Muslim romance, a subject forbidden enough for directors to turn to again
and again. While films like Anil Sharma's Gadar, Yash Chopra's Veer-Zaara
and Randhir Kapoor's Henna took the safe way out and made the male
Sikh/Hindu and the female Muslim (and Pakistani to boot), Chandra Prakash
Dwivedi, using Amrita Pritam's excellent novel as a base, turned the tables in Pinjar
and made the male protagonist (Manoj Bajpai) a Muslim whilst Urmila Matondkar
played the Hindu female. Recently, Ashutosh Gowariker followed suit with Jodhaa
Akbar where the Muslim emperor Akbar (Hrithik Roshan) marries the Hindu
princess Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan) in a strategic alliance.
| | | | While films like fire portrayed lesbianism head on, male gays are still trapped in mirth. | | | | |
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Interestingly,
while the Chopra and Kapoor films are treated as straightforward romances, with
the protagonists swearing undying love for each other fairly quickly, in Sharma's,
Dwivedi's and Gowariker's films at least one half of the couple has to learn how
to love the other over some period of time.
Hrithik and Aishwarya in Jodhaa Akbar
So, on to the love that dare not speak its name, namely incest. In Raj Khosla's
Bambai Ka Babu, due to various circumstances, Dev Anand has to
impersonate someone and he falls in love with that character's sister Suchitra
Sen, leading to an incest scenario, which, of course, is not real. Similarly, in
Ravi Chopra's Zameer, the impersonator Amitabh Bachchan falls in love
with his 'sister' Saira Banu. These however, were contrived circumstances. A far
more real scenario was enacted in J.P. Dutta's underrated Yateem, where
Sunny Deol's foster father, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, marries a much younger woman,
Sujata Mehta. The trouble is that Deol's new stepmother lusts after her virile,
handsome, muscular stepson, makes advances to him and cries rape when spurned. A
potential incest quagmire was explored in K. Balachander's Ek Nai Paheli,
a remake of his own Tamil film Apoorva Raagangal. Here, a young Kamal
Haasan falls in love with the older Hema Malini and they plan to marry. But,
throwing a spanner in the works is the revelation that Hema's daughter Padmini
Kolhapure is planning to marry an older man Raaj Kumar, who happens to be Kamal
Haasan's father. Incest, real and not contrived this time, happens in Sukhwant
Dhadda's Ek Chadar Maili Si, where after the death of his elder brother,
Rishi Kapoor is forced to marry his sister-in-law Hema Malini, whom he had
always looked up to as an elder sister.
Another Paheli, or conundrum, is posed by director Amol Palekar in his
adaptation of Viyayan Detha's story, earlier adapted by Mani Kaul as Duvidha.
In this scenario, a newly married Rani Mukherji is distraught when her husband
Shah Rukh Khan has to go away on business for five years. Much to her delight,
he returns in a few days, but she doesn't know that in reality it is an
infatuated ghost who has taken her husband's shape. Love blooms between the
ghost Khan and Mukherji and soon she is pregnant. Of course, matters come to a
head when the real husband returns.
Urmila Matondkar and Manoj Bajpai in Pinjar
The older man-younger woman theme and vice versa is another well-explored
topic amongst Hindi filmmakers. In Ramesh Talwar's Doosara Aadmi, the
older Rakhee falls in love with the younger Rishi Kapoor as she sees in him
elements of her deceased husband Shashi Kapoor; while in Farhan Akhtar's Dil
Chahta Hai, Akshaye Khanna is smitten with the older Dimple Kapadia. On the
other hand the 60+ Amitabh Bachchan falls for the 30-something Tabu in Balki's Cheeni
Kum and the 18-year-old Jiah Khan in Ram Gopal Verma's Nishabd. No
slouch in the older man stakes, Victor Banerjee is attracted to the much younger
Perizaad Zorabian in Anant Balani's Jogger's Park.
Hindi films have also explored different aspects of love within the confines
of a marriage. In Basu Chatterjee's gentle Piya Ka Ghar, the newly
married Anil Dhawan and Jaya Bhaduri are very much in love, but are unable to
consummate their relationship, living as they do amidst a joint family in a tiny
apartment. In Manik Chatterjee's Ghar, matters are altogether more
serious as married couple Vinod Mehra and Rekha must rediscover their
relationship after she has been abducted and gang-raped. The presence of an
ex-boyfriend within a marriage has been explored in films like Basu Chatterjee's
Swami, Bapu's Woh Saat Din (based on K. Bhagyaraj's Andha Ezhu
Natkal) and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam where Shabana
Azmi, Padmini Kolhapure and Aishwarya Rai respectively must choose between their
boyfriends (Vikram, Anil Kapoor and Salman Khan) and their husbands (Girish
Karnad, Naseeruddin Shah and Ajay Devgan). In these cases conservatism prevails
and the staid husbands are chosen over the maverick boyfriends.
And finally, on to the love that dares speak its name in Hindi cinema these
days -- homosexuality. While films like Deepa Mehta's Fire and Karan
Razdan's Girlfriend have portrayed lesbianism head on, and Kamal Amrohi's
Razia Sultan portrayed Parveen Babi erotically caressing Hema Malini,
their male counterparts have been rather more coy, usually mining the theme for
laughs rather than issues. Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham managed a
convincing pretend gay act in Tarun Mansukhani's Dostana, and Shah Rukh
and Saif Ali Khan's so-called gay subtext in Nikhil Advani's Kal Ho Naa Ho
was hilariously sent up by the actors themselves at the Filmfare Awards. On a
more serious note, Onir tackled homosexuality and HIV in My Brother Nikhil
while Sridhar Rangayan's Gulabi Aaina, which focuses on two transsexuals
and a gay teen trying to seduce a straight man, remains banned in India. Mahesh
Dattani's English-language gay-themed Mango Souffle, starring Atul
Kulkarni, remained largely unseen in India. As for the central male-male
relationship in India's most celebrated film Sholay, it is best described
in the words of Ted Sheen, writing in the Chicago Reader who says, "the
male bonding borders on camp." To add to this debate, Sunaina Kumar, writing
in the Indian Express, heralded the rise of the 'Bhai-sexual' in Hindi
films saying, "The Bhai-sexual shares a chemistry with his best pal that often
even overshadows his chemistry with his lady love."
Worth discussing.
Naman Ramachandran is the author of Lights, Camera, Masala: Making
Movies in Mumbai. A shorter, edited version of this appears in print