Roaring Forties Storm B-Town

For, she has her own movie to hardsell at the moment. “Today, we will talk about Jhanvi’s mom; we will talk about Jhanvi later,” the veteran actress tells the media at a promotional of her latest venture, Mom, slated for release next week.

The middle-aged triumvirate of Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan may still be holding the fort as reigning superstars more than 25 years since their debut, but it is now the turn of their once-upon-a-time leading ladies to bounce back and soak in a fresh spurt of stardom—some after years of matrimony and motherhood, others after a prolonged spell of inertia in tinsel town.

In a male-dominated industry notorious for pulling the plug on the careers of 30-plus heroines regardless of their talent, a bevy of yesteryear divas in their forties and beyond are turning back the clock lately, doing pivotal roles just the way they did in their halcyon days. As a matter of fact, they are getting far better characters to portray in their new avatar than they ever had. Defying age as well as age-old mores of an otherwise straight-jacketed industry, they are all ‘forties going on twenties’ depicting powerful characters being conceived and written for them by the dozen.

Mom, for the record, happens to be Sridevi’s 300th film (her first in Tamil as a child artiste, Kandhan Karunai was released in 1967.) It stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Akshaye Khanna in stellar roles but the focus is primarily on the eponymous character played by her. Directed by Ravi Udyawar, it is being released on July 7, barely a month or so before she turns 54. But that has not inhibited her from proclaiming that she feels like an absolute newcomer ahead of its release.

Mom has, of course, been produced by her husband Boney Kapoor, but Sridevi had not chosen the easy route of the home banner for her comeback. Five years ago, it was debutante director Gauri Shinde’s English Vinglish that catapulted her back into limelight, more than a decade-and-a-half since she quit the industry for the sake of family. But then, she did not go on to accept all the offers coming her way, notwithstanding the success of English Vinglish, spurning even tempting ones such as S.S. Rajamouli’s to play a key role in his epic Baahubali series (eventually, that role was essayed by Ramya Krishnan). But Sridevi was hooked on the script of Mom from the moment she heard it.

And Sridevi is not the only senior act­ress from a bygone era to have ret­urned to the marquee for a fresh tryst with stardom. Others such as Raveena Tandon, Kajol, Manisha Koirala, Tabu, Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai—the heart-throbs of the Eighties and the Nineties—are all making the most of the changing times, doing women-­centric projects on their own terms.

Filmmaker Onir of My Brother Nikhil (2005) fame says this surge in demand for older actresses is a ref­lection of the changing attitude of the film industry and the mindset of the society at large. “Society’s changing, with more and more women becoming financially independent. The audiences are also making their choices and want to see women represented in a certain manner,” he tells Outlook. This changing face of society is empowering women.”

Onir has worked with several senior actresses such as Juhi, Manisha and Urmila Matondkar in the past, when they were all past their supposed ‘prime’. Now, he has come up with Shab (also releasing next week), which features Raveena Tandon in a glamorous role. The 43-year-old heroine, once known as the ‘mast-mast girl’ of commercial cinema, had played a deglamorised mother fighting to ensure justice to her daughter in her last outing, Maatr in April this year. But Shab brings her back in a bold character that oozes oomph and attitude in equal measure. Onir, however, says that he cast Raveena because she suited the character to a T. “An actor’s age is not a factor at all for me. I chose Raveena because I needed somebody with a multi-dimensional, multi-layered personality, somebody who would look bold but also have something fragile about her,” he says.

Kajol, Raveena’s contemporary, is not only returning to the big screen, but also moving beyond her comfort zone. She’s playing a chic character in the upcoming Tamil film, Velai Illa Pattadhari 2 (VIP 2) opposite Dhanush. The 1974-born Kajol, who had done her last Tamil film, Minsara Kanavu way back in 1997, was initially not keen on doing Velai because of language barriers, but Dhanush and Soundarya persuaded her to play the part of a powerful businesswoman in the sequel of their 2014 blockbuster.

Kajol has been doing movies on and off after her marriage to Ajay Devgn, her last release being Shahrukh Khan-starrer Dilwale (2015). Among her contemporaries, Manisha Koirala recently made an impressive return after a prolonged sabbatical. In her comeback venture, Dear Maya, released in June, the 46-year-old delivered a knockout performance playing a lonely woman of her age. The Kathmandu-born actress will portray Sanjay Dutt’s actress-mother Nargis Dutt in an upcoming biopic on him.   

Sunaina Bhatnagar, the young debutante director of Dear Maya, says Manisha was perfect for the role. “Manisha is brilliant, an actress who can carry off any role in any movie of any genre,” she says. “Besides, she has also not been typecast in any particular image. And she had been missing from the scene for a while. There is certain enigma, certain mystery about her which made her my first choice.”

The small-budget Dear Maya, ­released on a limited number of screens, may not have set the box-office on fire, but it brought Manisha back into contention as a serious actress, months after her battle with cancer. Sunaina says there are many young filmmakers who want to tell fresh stories with actresses like Manisha. “Traditional romantic roles may no longer be written for them, but these actresses are getting interesting and central characters,” she says. “And why sho­uldn’t they? After all, Manisha’s co-stars like Aamir  (Akele Hum Akele Tum­/1995), Salman (Kha­m­oshi/1996) and Shah­r­ukh (Dil Se/1998) are still doing lead roles. Why do only women actors have to take the back seat?”

Trade analysts admit that these actresses have carved out a niche for themselves in the multiplex era. “Once an actress, always an actress,” says veteran trade analyst Atul Mohan. “But they should carefully select their scripts keeping their age and persona in mind.”

He talks about how the audiences could relate to Sridevi’s English Vinglish (she played a middle-aged mother in a middle class family), while Madhuri Dixit’s films on her comeback such as Aaja Nachle (2007), Dedh Ishqiya (2014) and Gulaab Gang (2014) could not impress them. “Script is the key to success. At their age, they have to be selective. Some of their movies may hit the bullseye, others many not, as it happened in case of Aishwarya (43), whose Jazbaa and Sarbjit turned out to be duds, but Ae Dil Hai Mushkil became a money-spinner. ,” he adds.

Mohan, who’s also the editor of trade journal Complete Cinema, attributes the reason behind this trend to the changing taste of the audience. “They like realistic movies now, unlike in the past when only formula films were churned out,” he states. “This has automatically created a unique space for these new films.”

It is, however, a new phenomenon in Bollywood, unlike in Hollywood where seniors such as Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts remain on the list of the highest-paid actresses regardless of their age. “Age has never mattered in the West, nor is anyone bothered if an actress is married and has children. They get good roles bec­ause they are considered fit for them,” says Mohan. “Unfortunately, except for some exceptions, only a few actresses here have been accepted after marriage in the past.”

But now, a married act­resses like Aishwarya, who is a mother of a five-year-old kid, remains as sought-after as any other actress, still doing romantic roles with actors much younger than her on screen. Onir finds nothing unusual about it. “Why does the romance of an older actress with a younger co-star get frowned upon? It’s all in the mindset. Has anybody ever asked any male star why he is romancing with actresses half his age?” His new film has Raveena ­cast opposite a much younger actor, Ashish Bisht in a dynamic role.

But then, have 40-plus actresses also emerged as box office mascots like their illustrious male counterparts from the Nineties? A co-star like Salman Khan, who has worked with almost all of them, says that the charisma of someone like Sridevi remains undiminished. The Tubelight (2017) star claims that his contemporaries such as Shahrukh, Aamir and Akshay Kumar may have done about 250-275 films in all, but their combined repertoire cannot be compared with the oeuvre of somebody like Sridevi. “There is one legend, Sridevi, who is extremely talented, dedicated, hard working and professional. Somebody who has completed 300 movies since starting her career as a child artiste,” the 1965-born star gushed about her Suryavanshi (1992) and Chandramukhi (1993) co-star while unv­eiling Mom’s poster recently.

Although things seem to be changing for the better, Bollywood has always discriminated against its actresses on the basis of age. Yash Chopra had offered the role of the mother of Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan (eventually played by Nirupa Roy) in Deewar (1975) to Vyjayanthimala when she was still in her early forties, only five years older than Shashi. Rakhee played 40-year-old Bachchan’s mother in Shakti (1982) when she was only 35 years old. The act­ress had played his heroine only a year ago in Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981).

But times and mindsets appear to be changing with the new crop of act­resses refusing to accept the double standards prevalent in the industry. Recently, Swara Bhaskar, 29, is rep­orted to have turned down an offer to play Shahrukh Khan’s (51) mother in one film.  Another veteran in her forties, Tabu (who we last saw in Fitoor, 2016), is playing a parallel role with Ajay Devgn in their forthcoming project, Golmaal 4, 23 years after they played romantic leads in Vijaypath (1993). Kajol continues to play the love interest of Shahrukh (Dilwale), 22 years after their golden pair struck a purple patch with Baazigar (1993).

The fact that these actresses continue to play the leads opposite heroes with whom they had shared the screen space more than two decades ago redefines woman empowerment in the industry in a certain way. Juggling between home and careers, they have done well without having to bow to the diktats of the male chauvinistic industry. Some of them, such as Shilpa Shetty (42), remains fit enough to give heroines half their age a run for their money. But at the end of day, more than the help of beautician, dietician and fitness trainer hired by them, it is their steely resolve to hold on to their exclusive space in showbiz that has helped them turn age merely into a state of mind. For them, life has really begun afresh after 40.