Art & Entertainment

Not Beyond K-K-Kiran?

In Bollywood, stammerers are rarely portrayed realistically

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Not Beyond K-K-Kiran?
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When it comes to ridiculing stammerers, Bollywood is a repeat offender, sinking to perhaps its lowest depths in the recent Golmaal 3, which offended The Indian Stammering Association so much that it went to court. The case is still pending. In the film, Shreyas Talpade’s stutter is the target of ‘witticisms’ like “abe jaldi bol, kal subah Panvel nikalna hai”. In the same vein were Phir Hera Pheri, in which Sharat Saxena and Ravi Kisshen play stammering mobmen who can’t communicate with each other and Awara Paagal Deewana, in which Johnny Lever’s stammer is a situational comic device. Shakti Kapoor, as is well known, has played  inept stammerer in film after film. Too often stammerers are shown as weak, like Anju, the frightened sister in Chaalbaaz, or the underconfident Pooja Bhatt in Sir. (Making it worse, Naseeruddin Shah’s character in Sir dishes out simplistic advice, telling her to “not be nervous”.) Less offensive are films which don’t lampoon the stammerer, and touch on his trauma, if only in passing, such as Darr, with Shahrukh Khan’s “K-k-k-Kiran” character, and Shahid Kapoor in Kaminey. But don’t look to  Bollywood for a sensitive, empathetic portayal of the subject.

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