Missing flavours
Am I a sceptic, or is everything starting to lose flavour? Maybe both, but I think it’s more that things are losing flavour. What creates flavour? Various spices, tastes, fragrances, colours. In this age when everything is sought to be brought on the same level playing field in the guise of equality, we are really creating more beiges, more blandness, more neutrals. Making a statement carries the risk of being discriminatory. And the few who do make statements usually pose for the camera while doing so.
I miss the natural flavours of the past. The homely housewife who cooks with love and care. The magic of the handsome young millionaire who is on his way home after his education in London- neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride. The excitement and beauty of different festivals. The fascination of visiting a big city for the first time. The charm of visiting a village for the first time. The list was endless, but all these experiences have been put together in a blender and what we have now is a tasteless health drink whose benefits are suspect.
The effect that this blending has had on cinema is quite baffling to me. The most baffling phenomenon by far is the “women’s lib effect”. It was supposedly a disgrace to women to be portrayed as chaste, homely, good natured and good charactered (or having any unique characteristics at all). And this disgrace has been remedied by replacing them with a bunch of women who all dress alike and talk alike. Their physical appeal is the only thing that qualifies them to play lead roles in which they all play men in short skirts (also they are supposed to be called female actors now for some reason- I don’t know why the term actress is so derogatory-calling actors male actresses may have been an achievement of some sort, but this… I don’t know why women hate being associated with their gender so much). Women’s lib really has come to mean turning women into men- which is sad to say the least. The movies which do have women playing womanly characters are so artificial that it would be easier to believe alien abduction stories than the sappy characters assigned to these sorry women.
Think of a world where women emerged as the superior race from the beginning instead of men. Judging by these movies and the ladies who play these roles and then go on record to say how proud they are of their portrayals of these so-called strong characters, one would conclude that the world would be no different- it would just be a role-reversal- in which case the whole idea of women’s lib makes no sense. Women then would be no different from men and the world would be the same. And the men would fight for equality until they won the right to wear revealing clothes and dance for the ladies and then talk of the strong characters they were playing.
It is truly appalling that women consider it desirable to be viewed in this light. I mean who are we kidding? Turn on the television and there is a skimpily clad woman dancing suggestively around a man. I would rather take the old pati-vrata, devi-type woman image over this “liberated woman” image. And somehow the old image is pretty messed up in our minds. I remember many strong women-oriented roles in the past. Suchitra Sen, Nutan, Nargis, Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rehman and many others played real women- with real strengths and weaknesses, faced with real life situations and dealt with them in ways that portrayed their inner strength. Nutan was spectacular in Bandini and has many other great performances to her credit including Seema and Sujata. Suchitra Sen captured the spirit of Paro in Devdas to perfection- she was proud, strong-willed and endlessly graceful without having to rely on endless monologues to make it a convincing act. She was captivating in Aandhi, Mamta, Bambai ka Babu and many other movies. Although I am not a huge fan of Meena Kumari’s acting talent, she gave us some memorable characters in Saheb Bibi aur Ghulam, Dil apna aur preet parai, Dil ek mandir etc. Nargis is immortalised in her role in Mother India, and played the strong modern woman in Anari beautifully. Waheeda Rehman played the character of Rosie, a woman with her own strengths and weaknesses with natural ease and grace.
Brilliant and Versatile Tabu
In these times, barring a few actresses and a few roles, the only preparation that a heroine would need for her role is regularly going to the gym, beautician and dietician- nothing to do with acting. Tabu is definitely one special lady in these times who has managed to play real women and quite ably at that. She was simply astounding as Nimmi in Maqbool- a real character with shades of good and bad played to perfection. As Meenaxi in MF Hussain’s Meenaxi- A tale of three cities, she was spell-binding, portraying many shades of a woman with stunning accuracy and mesmerizing grace and ease. In The Namesake, she effortlessly turns into Ashima and is once again brilliant. Manisha Koirala’s performance in Dil Se is moving- the complex character of Meghna who is tormented with torture, hurt and tragedy, vulnerable, innocent and childlike on the one hand and toughened, bitter, hurt and resolute on the other, is made effortless, natural and deeply moving by the sensitive performance of the charming Manisha. The struggle of this terrorist/freedom-fighter is touching, endearing and tragic, and Manisha has brought the character to life with her superb performance in the film. Konkana Sen’s performance in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer was memorable- she conveyed her family traditions, values and restraint along with her own sense of right and wrong and spirit of adventure beautifully. It is tragic that such roles are not created more often and even more tragic that these roles are not chosen to define the essence of women and that instead we rely on a clone brigade of lady non-actors to define standards for the liberated woman.
We are now dealing with an army of Priyanka Chopras, Deepika Padukones, Kareena Kapoors, Bipasha Basus and the likes- all tall, made up to perfection- like life-size Barbie dolls, dancing to songs that all sound alike with steps that all look alike in movies that are all the same and then gushing about their strong roles in interviews and never failing to endorse Shah Rukh Khan.
It is further surprising how star-kids have turned out. Hema Malini is followed by daughter Eesha Deol. Suchitra Sen’s clan consists of Moon Moon Sen, Riya Sen and a bunch of other nondescript Sens. Nutan and Tanuja have been followed by Kajol and Rani in Bollywood- though not an utter disgrace, but definitely not in the same league as Nutan ( Although the disgrace has not been entirely averted thanks to Tanisha). The Raj Kapoor clan has produced the unimaginative Kapoor sisters- with a couple of decent roles to save the family name.
The whole situation is just too twisted. I wish someone would just hand me a remote control, so I could go back and erase all the Mamta Kulakarnis, Karisma Kapoors, Shilpa Shrirodkars, etc who deserve much credit for this new-age image of “female actors” and bring back real actresses and the age when men were men and women were women, and thankfully so.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
nice post! reminded me of a dialgoue from “Before Sunrise” where Celine says to Jesse that – “You know, I have this awful paranoid thought that feminism was mostly invented by men so that they could like, fool around a little more. You know, women, free your minds, free your bodies, sleep with me. We’re all happy and free as long as I can fuck as much as I want. ”
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As far as my take is concerned I think what we see on screen is almost a mirror image of the society .. the girls have changed in real and hence also on reel ..or vice versa …answering this is impossible:)
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True… The importance of success and commercial viability has distorted so many definitions- including that of self-esteem, achievement, recognition and talent. Hopefully as time goes on women will wake up and smell the coffee… one can only hope!
I don’t think a lot of these roles or characters represent the real girls and women walking out on the streets at all. The real women may imitate the reel women as far as the clothing and some mannerisms go, but are much strong and different in all other more important aspects.
While I agree with your comment, I feel that in some aspects women are starting to move in the direction of these reel-life women for a lack of more accessible role models. It is hard to define accurately, but the former oneness of women with family and their role in society is being shunned by them as inadequate. Instead, poorly defined individuality is becoming more important. While there is no folly in individuality, the fact that this is so poorly defined, constantly leaves them with a feeling of dissatisfaction. After having achieved what they set out to achieve, they still feel that they have been short-changed when they realize that this wasn’t what they had in mind. I guess women are only starting out trying to identify their true nature and what they want and it will be a while before goals are established and efforts are made in the right direction. Right now there is a lot of insecurity and confusion in the minds of a majority of women who come from traditional families regarding their own definition of emancipation.
I think the women are still in a transition phase as far as their own identity is concerned.
Had this discussion with my father just two days ago. We as a society have just started to move from a model where only men earned and fed the entire family. Clearly, the women did have less say in a lot of things because at the end, she was not the final decision maker.
From that haalaat, to today’s female we have come quite a way. I agree this is nowhere close to what we as a society would’ve accepted, but I am sort of an optimist who likes to think that things will be better, even if that requires hiding my face in the sand.
Absolutely brilliant post!
Thanks Ayush
. Very encouraging to see positive responses to my first post!
Superb Article. Why are girls alaways so fascinated by this tomboy image. Vidya Balan in Parineeta was her defining moment and we thought here is one actress who is comfortable with who she is and then she turns around and torments us with Hey Baby and Kambakht Ishq.
It should be Kismat Konnection, not Kambakth Ishq.
This trend only reveals the deep insecurities that women have today. They feel secure only when they start to imitate men… I wonder if at some point when women see what’s truly going on they will feel bitter and if the rift will get deeper and more severe… or if they will realise that they equally deserve to be blamed.
Awesome post!
Jyoti – one more actress I would add to your list of real-strong woman is Smita Patil. In fact I was so mesmerized with how she presented the woman I wrote this – http://passionforcinema.com/mirch-masala-1985-sonbai-walks-tall/
Hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed reading this article.
Thanks for your comment and for adding to the list. Smita was spectacular in this movie and also in Manthan where it is almost impossible to tell that she isn’t truly a villager, and in Arth where her sense of guilt drives her insane… and of course one cannot forget Shabana Azmi in Arth and her stupendous performance in Masoom where she says so little but conveys a spectum of emotions with such dignity!
Dont forget her movie Bhumika-The role. Awesome performance by her. Realistic depiction of a woman, struggling for her identity.
I will have to see this one… thanks
The picture of Tabu looking in mirrors reminded me of a exactly similar scene in that movie too. It created a much more powerful scene in that movie.
Nice post but I have this feeling that same stuff coming from a man would have been panned as chauvinistic.
You know, I had assumed all along (dunno why) that this was a guy writing and then I was scanning through the comments to see a bevy of females bashing the author, and then I came across your comment and re-read the name of the author.
seriously…just looka t the wardrobe…They rarely give the woman more than a “bra” to cover up….and yet we cannot see one regular Indian women dressed like that…!!!
And whats with the latest celeb obsession with draping sarees as to flash one boob side!!!!!
My aunt seriously though these guys didnt know how to wear it properly.
Havent we had enuff of buttcracks, g strings and cleavages on display for eternity already…
@darkndusky
I can still spare them in movies but I seriously have a problem when these celebs wear those kind of clothes in their public appearance as well, yesteryear’s actresses (e.g. MD etc.) didn’t do that.
MD ’s talent spoke more than any of her clothes did !!! She shone in designer Devdas more brilliant than the sets and the beauty queen herself.!!
Everything pales in front of raw talent …
Inteligent women are percieved as nerds, feminists(scary !!!)and plaque in general….
That’s the reason I am in two minds, whether I should share this article with friends.
I think the point you started your piece was interesting – it is indeed true that charm seems to be disappearing from our lives and being replaced by excess.
However, i was disappointed that your piece turned out to be so gender insensitive. Take a good look at young male heroes in the industry – you’ll find that they all ascribe to a similar homogenous notion of good looks. Earlier it was super-buff, now the consensus seems to be a leaner physique. The beautician, dietician and gym bills of these young turks I’m sure rival their feminine counterparts.
Famously, when Danny Boyle tried to cast an India actor in the male lead in Slumdog, he failed to find a young Indian actor who could look convincing because every young wannabe hero looked like they had stepped off a conveyer belt where everyone spoke, flexed and acted the same. He ended up casting Dev Patel, a British national.
I think what is happening is that the body is being marketed, both to male and female audiences as an object of aspiration. Our cinema, never really an artistic pursuit of truth at the best of times, now is more than ever like a lifestyle catalogue – with the idea being that everything you see in it from the exotic locations, to the clothes, to the dance moves, to the bodies being things you should be able to aspire to, buy or buy into.
I wouldn’t beat down women’s lib. It’s the free market that’s screwing us over.
You said about Dev Patel, well that reminded me yesterday’s article published in The Hindu about Imtiaz Ali and why he casted a brazilian model in the role of Harleen in Love Aaj Kal. He said he couldn’t find any innocent looking shy girl for this role so he went for her. Here it is
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/02/stories/2009110250530200.htm
It left me with thought that all the people have become caricatures with no distinct qualities to separate them. Refraining myself here.
and what was Imtiaz brilliant excuse to take Deepika I fail to fathom…..Seriously …That woman is just a mannequin…
Does he think he is a magician or god himself????
Love aaj Kal was a humongous disappointment from Imtiaz … I hope he makes better choices next time.
I do agree that the male image is taking as severe a beating as that of women. They are portrayed in poor light chasing after women, lying, cheating, conniving and two-timing. They are depicted as having low or no morals and lacking in integrity. However, I have not taken any stand of men vs women in the article. The post was intended to present a comparison of the image of women in Indian cinema- past vs present- though there have been movies in the past that have presented women in a less than desirable light, these roles and actresses were never before presented in such a contorted fashion before- derogatory in reality and yet hailed as positive and strong. Another thing to bear in mind is that male stars’ careers span over a much longer period in comparison to their female counterparts. Women have a short duration to make themselves noticed, go through their struggle, earn success, money, fame and possibly squeeze in a couple of substantial roles when they have earned the right to call the shots. On the other hand, a John Abraham can go through scores of movies, playing the same cool dude, flex his muscles movie after movie and then years and years later decide to turn to movies like Water and No Smoking when he’s good and ready. Saif can go from being the same weird looking cool dude for a long long time and then, at an age when most actresses can at best find supporting roles, or get married to producers or something, redeem himself with Dil Chahta Hai, Ek Haseena Thi and Omkara. Obviously women do not have that kind of opportunity- if you’re out of the loop for a few years, you may never even hear of some actresses. What that means is, women have a short duration to make any impact at all- by the time they are ready to do movies that mean something, their time is up and the next struggler is ready to do the exact same roles. Thus the responsibility of women stars has become quite great in making sure that we are at least moving in the right direction. My point about women’s lib is just how things are misrepresented. The non-acting ladies of today are all just current day replacements for the Mamta Kulkarnis and Shilpa Shirodkars from a few years back. However, a few years back, we could see the exploitation, while today we fail to see it. Today these women go on record to say they do these movies because they believe in entertainment and it’s all good fun and that they pick movies with care and only do movies where their role is substantial- and lies when repeated often enough or spoken loud enough do start to seem true. So women’s lib is really the false pretence under which things that have been objectionable in the past have all been redeemed- I do not “blame” women’s lib, I just think it is a term that is twisted and mutilated to mean anything but the improvement of the status of women.
This is good observation. BUt have you considered that the majority of the women want to be Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor or Bipasha Basu, rather than Suchitra Sen or Waheeda Rehman or Smita Patil. Just like guys would aspire to become a SRK or Akshay rather than Naseeruddin Shah. The market is serving what the majority want.
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Films and books always reflected the mindset of the current generation, and so it is now. In fact just like the previous generation’s culture and mindset, the older movies too depicted a lot of inhibitions and hypocrisy, which is done away with in current movies, which I welcome.
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An equal role to a woman is mostly awarded in romantic movies. Older romantic movies meant first half dealt with how the boy and girl met, second half with villains (parents or classmates), and climax fight. Currently romantic movies first half deals with mean boy and girl, either hating each other or the guy trying to bonk the girl, and then second half dedicated to succumbing to love.
What exactly do you wish to see as a truly liberated woman!
Very very good post. I was complaining a few months ago, to a friend about how in most of my favourite movies, women were merely props and removing the characters from the script would not affect the story in any manner, quite opposite to real life!! And I am totally with you about the women’s lib part. It has been twisted to mean liberation from clothes and the way the actresses talk about their roles makes me laugh and cry! Shedding clothes – how far can it go? When are we going to see regular women as opposed to these dressed down factory-made overly made-up mannequins in our mainstream movies?
A very well written and thought provoking post… Your point is absolutely valid that we hardly come across any good female actress these days and only left ones are Tabbu (where is she..missing a lot..) and Konkana Sen. The brutal truth is that cinema reflects the mindset of society… jo bikta hai wohi parde per dikhta hai… Time of Nutan, Smita Patil, Meena Kumari, Vaheda Rehman, Shabana Azmi etc. was different, in those days audience loves to watch performances of these gems of cinema but today most of the people (barring few) are not interested in such kind of stuff…what they want is masala. Few days before, I was with some of my friends and we were discussing that to whom you thay want to watch on cinema and barring one or two no body was interested in Tabbu and Konkana, what they want is Katrinas, Bapashas, Deepikas etc. and this is fact of today, most of the people wants masala and this what we are getting in our films. Why should somebody burn midnight oil preparing for the role when no body wants to see them in such avatar.
The same is the case with male actors, everywhere there is same stuff. Ask girls whom they want to watch and probable answer will be Jhons, Ranbeers, etc.. oouu..he is so cute..sexy..uff.. look at his smile..this is what you will hear and very few will say Pankaj Kapoor, Naseer Saabb, KK etc…
The root problem is with the mindset of the people. As once said by Javed Akhtar when somebody questioned him… aaj kal achi shayari nahi likhi jati… on this Javed Saab responded aaj kal achi shayari suni bhi nahi jaati…sun ne wale kahan hai bhai…
I love to watch more Tabbu, Konkana… but my options are minimal because I am in minority…
What you have stated is correct but then I have this ques. that from where does this change come in this generation? India was not such materialistic country. I guess these are the side-effects of capitalism, free market and liberalization.
@ Jahanpanah- I think apart from capitalism, free market and liberalization, this is also the outcome of freedom. Initialy there was restricted freedom but now days the situation is different. Probably everybody will missuse the freedom, if given the chance (this is generalised statement). In olden days there was also restriction on freedom to think… everything was under scanner, but this is not the case now and result is in front of everybody. In the name of freedom of speech and expression sometimes shit is also served. This is a gradual process and it will continue unless there is some revolutionary change for instance communism taking over democracy etc.. but that too will be totaly in disinterest of development of human race.. and it should’nt happen. So, these all are the fruits of development, modernisation and freedom…u have to eat…
So the thing is that we were like this always but this too much of freedom has done all the demage and it did’nt happen overnight, its a gradual process…
Welcome welcome welcome to PFC! I really loved reading your thoughts ‘coz these are things I frequently think about myself.
Hi Kenny,
After reading your comment, I was curious to read your posts and I picked your review of Barah Aana. I was totally blown away by it. The point you made about the birth lottery is so true. I have often thought the same, especially in the context of religion and nationality, which we are born into and are automatically assigned to. It is a mere coincidence and yet we feel a sense of ownership towards these things, which is ridiculous. Most of us go through life learning nothing new about these things, but will go to any length to support our own kind and put all others down without any real analysis of our own. We fail to see our own follies and spend most of our lives justifying them rather than taking a third person perspective and making fair judgements and trying to make positive changes. I will continue to read your posts- what I liked best is the natural flow, like the mind that moves from one thought to another with unrestrained fluidity. Wonderful.
Thanks for the tareef
And I’m especially happy that you’re writing here because it’s been a long time since we’ve had someone with good language and punctuation
@Kenny
Going through the comments I came to know that there are others as well who often muse on these things. I’ve had long discussions with my friends (no females though) on these issues but have never reached on a valid point or conclusion. But, those things are not possible on a public forum.
Brilliant !! Welcome to PFC, we are desperately short of female writers.
Your analysis is spot on. Barring a few we really do not have any female actors amongst us, the same is true of male actors, we are desperately short of men, what we instead have are overgrown teenagers, and the reason for this is the lack of modern ideals.
I sometimes feel that the movies of the 50’s were more modern. What we have instead is a feudal mindset dressed up in 21st century clothing. Females are just sex toys, objects of fantasy, which is why we have Amitabh Bachhans but no Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon, and the market forces re-enforce this concept by titillating the viewers with faces like Katrina Kaif and Lara Dutta, it’s almost like a personal insult to the Indian woman.
Thanks Vineet for the warm welcome. I totally agree with your statement that movies from the past were much more modern. In Anari, Nargis tells off her guardian who has brought her up after her parents’ demise when he asks her to forget the hero- no ehsaan business. Faced with a similar situation in Dil Chahta Hai, Shalini was unable to take a stand like that! In the 60s movie Mere Sanam, which wasn’t even one of those ground-breaking movies, Aasha Parekh is approached by the hero’s father with the standard mere bête ko bhool jaao ladki dialogue, and Aasha simply tells him where to go- she tells him in no uncertain terms that he was crossing the line and should be discussing this with his son and not with her – which I thought was incredible compared to what we see today. And your point about the male stars is so true. Integrity, personal beliefs, strength of character, political beliefs, etc, which defined male leads in the past have all disappeared. Cool and hot are probably the only two terms required to define men and women and it’s all I can do to stop myself from pulling my hair out.
Be it acting, music, direction or whatever creative field we tend to get nostalgic and put a halo around the past thus somehow under appreciating or totally not appreciating the present. IMO, movies and the women in them tend to reflect, may be a bit exaggerate the state of the society in those times. You did pick a handful of movies in the past and I can do the same from the present lot as well. How about ebullient, yet introspective Kareena in JWM, practical yet romantic Deepika in LAK, gritty Priety in Salaam Namastey and a wonderful Rani in Hum Tum. For every short skirted bimbo that you lament about, I am sure I can find equivalents from the past as well. In a way, I am defending the present generation (including portrayal of women) of film making which you might nostalgically refer to in an article 20 years from now. As an anecdote, my friend would keep on listening to K.L Saigal and totally seemed to be enamored by his voice 12 years ago, the last I met him, he was listening to 80s Kishore Kumar songs. Impressed with the progress he made :-)
You need to re-read the post and comments. We seem to be at cross-purposes.
Jyoti, I was referring to the following from your article. Guilty as charged regarding not reading your comments. Getting back to your style of writing, you are pretty gifted and definitely would love to read more of them coming from you, even though I may disagree. Each of the folks that you mentioned below thankfully are very talented and have played roles that I can quote nostalgically 15 years from now, not as eloquently as you put it.
“We are now dealing with an army of Priyanka Chopras, Deepika Padukones, Kareena Kapoors, Bipasha Basus and the likes- all tall, made up to perfection- like life-size Barbie dolls, dancing to songs that all sound alike with steps that all look alike in movies that are all the same and then gushing about their strong roles in interviews and never failing to endorse Shah Rukh Khan.”
I don’t think anyone is getting nostalgic here…..we are discussing ideological implications of having weak characters in movies.
Awesome post Jyoti! You just weaved my thoughts so beautifully into words … aah, I wish I were so talented
Waiting for your next one.
Thanks Shriya- so rewarding to get a comment like this.
Fabulous post Jyoti, and some lovely thoughts from your side. Now regarding stronger female characters, i think right now we are seeing a kind of split, while most of the mainstream movie makers still tend to cast females in the bimbette roles, females are getting better roles in the non mainstream movies.
Say what you may about Madhur Bhandarkar, but the fact is that every movie of his has featured strong female characters, Tabu in Chandni Bar, Konkona in Page 3, Neetu Chandra in Traffic Signal. Even Bipasha and Raveena, were much different in Corporate and Satta.
Also Nagesh Kukonoor, Juhi Chawla’s character was excellent in 3 Deewarein, and both Gul Panag/ Ayesha Takia in Dor. Even in Iqbal, the hero’s kid sister, was much different from the standard filmi bahen we see, some one who loves her brother, but strong, and not a helpless damsel. Also recall Juhi’s character in My Brother Nikhil, some one who supports her brother, when every one else has disowned him.
Also some time back,it would have been inconceivable to see a movie like Black( no songs, heroine oriented) to do well. But i feel right now there is a talent crunch, and it’s not just with the heroines, its with the heroes also. Movie makers are not willing to look beyond star kids and fashion models, inspite of the fact that most of them can’t deliver in any way. I guess this year should be a wake up call for our movie makers, with most of the Big Star Movies, getting a massive Thumbs Down from the audiences.
Inshallah…I am rooting for ppl like Divya dutta,Shefali shah and Sandhya Mridul to make a mark…
would love to see some of the luckthat Konkona had to rub on them……
Pankaj Kapoor and Naseer sahab to wow audiences with their movie sand performances
Madhuri dixit to show her jalwa again ….. :-)
many beja fries…luck by chances…and in general every move of Dibakar bannerjee and waiting for Farhan to bring back Oye its friday…. :-)
May other other beauties and hunks learn to ACT….
Bachhan sahab should start charity and tuitions at HOME !!!
2 bakre to hain hi unke paas …aur bhi mil jayenge…
And lastly saomebody hit Subhash Gai on the head….or he will make Yuvraaj 2
One thing for sure, the state of heroines in Bollywood is better than the Telugu movie industry. It’s been ages since i heard one heroine actually speak her own dialogues in Telugu. Every actress speaks the same, walks the same, talks the same. And regards the acting skills, the less said the better.
I agree with “talk the same” as the same dubbing artist is pretty much used for all the heroines. But Tollywood had its constant supply of heroine oriented movies be it in 80s and 90s (thanks to Suhasini, Vijayashanti) and now Anushka (Arundhatathi), Bhumika (a bunch), Charmi (a few). Ofcourse, none of them ever spoke their dialogues :(
Hey!Jyoti certainly a fresh approach to something that one keeps thinking about.I do agree that except for a handful of notable performances in recent times, most of the so called female oriented roles have been quite stereotypical.It would be great to actually have a lot more of simplicity and honesty portrayed in movies, kind of a throwback to the earlier days.
Hey Jyoti… would ve actually been the first one to comment on this your blog… had like one huge blog kinda response… for some reason the site showed up a page with some kind of an issue, a back option, did not show up what I d typed… n then i thought ll re type and post it whenever possible… lekin shaaala abhi woh josh hi rahaa.. lekin wanted to convey in.. very nice post… a thought invoking one… i agree with a few comments, disagree with a few.. and thats the best quality of this blog… nice write up.. keep it going…
That’s why always copy it before you post or use keylogger. Would have been nice to see your response.
I agree. It has happened so many times with me that it has been a habit since then to create a back up!
hey thanks Jahanpanah…. more or less have tried putting up views similar to what I had typed out here, in a different perspective in the another response that I just typed up in a Tamil Movie blog… hey BTW i was reading your response to Labor Day Sale.. when you mentioned abou Maine Maara Dhruv ko and Hathyara Kaun… wow… reminded me of great days…. somehow I thought then and I still think, the guys who made Raj Comics should have taken the next step or somebody should have noticed and made those characters into cinemas (though that might have gotten focus into Nagraj being a rehash of Spiderman and Dhruva being a rehash of Robin from batman and kinds…).. hopefully Anurag Kashyap and Doga should infuse Indian Comic characters into large screens for a long upcoming time…
Hindi comic industry went downhill since 1997. Only Raj is in business and some publishers occasionally pop up like Irith comics etc. Yup, Dhruva is inspired by Robin, Anupam Sinha is a Batman fan. Once visited to his Raj comics office where he had collection of Bat comics.
I still read them though but it is only limited to Nagraj, Dhruva and Doga comics. Quality has surely degraded. The peak time of this publication house was in 1997-98.
I was planning to write a comprehensive post on Doga as many would have been interested in the character after AK’s announcement but it needs a lot of work. Anyway, I have got lot of time to make up my mind.
u visited Raj Comic office? awesome!!! I still remember as a kid my mum had taken me to the delhi book fair and in one part cartoonist Pran was personally signing books… wanted desperately go there, (like it would ve made any difference to me at the age of 7) but my mum tried taking me over, but he’d left by then… ‘uss din se aaj tak maine soch ke rakha tha ki ek din kisi comic book publishing house jaroor jaunga’ …. never man…
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I remember we had like 3 big comic companies.. Diamond, Raj and Manoj …. Chacha and gang were all time ones…. they could be read by everybody, but head on head competetion for growing young boiys was Nagraj gang from Raj and Tausi Angara from Manoj.. Fauladi Singh and guys never fitted into the competition… surprisingly I learnt a lot from these comics, be it about ultra violet rays and infrared rays of the pin hole camera concepts… even if the comics never spoke about them in details, reading them once there mad esure I paid attention when these were dicussed in my science classes….
this is the best part about PFC… there are tons of things that I thought, did, or tried that somebody else has done and share it over here.. its fun to reminiscence those…..
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I visited there last year only. Was never fan of Chaha Chowdhary type comics. They were more kids friendly. Those days we used to have comic book stalls in evey gali mohallas. Video game fever was yet to capture. No cable TVs. Means of entertainment for kids were limited. comics were very popular then, kids used to read comics and sometimes news-papers and magazines used to publish articles on comics how they affect children etc. I was very discouraged by my parents to read comics. We used to exchange them in schools with friends, got caught by teacher too. Those were the days.
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Generally Dhruva’s comics contained many scientific facts. Comics helped a lot in improving my Hindi and infuse a sense of morality. I still don’t have an idea why people thought they were bad for kids.
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Tulsi was published from Meerut. The pulp novelists like Ved Prakash Sharma, Rituraj etc. used to write for it. All others were base in Delhi or NCR. have read mainly Tausi and Angara from Tulsi and Ram-Rahim, Crookbond, Aakrosh etc. from Manoj. Have read almost 70% of the comics published by Raj. Then there were also publishers like Radha comics, Pawan comics etc.
@ Jahanpanah… thanks for subtly calling out my mistake… yes Manoj was indeed Ram Rahim and aakrosh … Tulsi was the one with Tausi and Angara and Jambu… Chacha Chaudary, even I thought was kid friendly but now I feel it can be read at any age… its like that 2 pager chutput read smile forget kinds..
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totally agree on hindi skills and morality… they taught me a lot more than what my moral science book could ever achieve… and yes exchanging them in schools, taking them during exams, finish exams in 2 and a half hours and read comics for the rest half an hour… what days man…. somehow when the galli mohallas stopped sellign comics i could never know why… cause the kids then were still buying em… the following gen didnt but at least the ones who were regular were still buying it and the sales could have continued on …
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remember those articles as well..some of them were real anti comics, but some of them emphasised on how it improves creativity in children’s minds… thought Nagraj comics with visarpi and kinds had their share of graphical exposure right then …. i had picked up the words, ‘brute, rascal’ from “khooni yaatra – nagraj” .. .and an innocent utterance of those got me some real tight smacks from my dad
Well, people were turning up to other things even the generation which was reading comics got focused on careers and moved on. Moreover publishers were failing to recover the costs of production so the industry went downhill.
and yes… please please take some time out and get the post on Doga doing… if i can remind you of anything in that… ll be happy to help … even if that includes silly things like how Doga comics used to blend the current movies and characters like ‘tiranga’ where there is character in the comic called Nana Patkar …
eagerly awaiting that post of yours…
@PS
You remember that from Doga’s comic?? Well, that’s impressive. I think there was one more character named Ins. Chandrashekhar Azad. Why they use these names I don’t know, may be to create some light moments amidst all action but comedy with serious action doesn’t always work. As I remember the story was good.
I also couldn’t understand why all the 4 of his uncles are named on peppers etc. Are there shortage of names? May be because people can chuckle for a moment.
My bad Chandrashekhar Azad was in another comic ‘Wardi Waala Doga’ not in Tiranga.
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regarding Tiranga… that was a typical masala comic story … jana gana mana going on .. one woman escaping a potential rape, Inspector patrak quickly unfolds the flag and drapes it around her to know that politicians were trying to rape her, tries to take action, politicians make sure that he is fired under disciplenary action of not following codes while jana gana mana is going on… Doga plans to take revenge to see ins patkar is always one step ahead of him, here was the best part… there are 4 people involved in the attempt to rape… the first one is killed… i dont remember how but he is made sure to turn saffron, 2nd one is killed by firstly giving an anesthescia and then after he is numb slashing his wrists while watching a movie, by the time the movie is over, he has turned white due to blood loss, 3rd one is poisoned and he turns green ….. finally the fouth one is killed by holding a time bomb which will burst in the 24th minute…. man… never was National flag ever conceptualised this way to me…
Ya man you are talking about Commissioner Gokhele. He got retired in some comic before ‘Cheekh Doga Cheekh’. I don’t remember the name of the comic at present. He was replaced by another commissioner who was corrupt one and Doga killed him either in the comic Kharaab Kanoon or in Sher Ka Bachcha. Two classic comics of Doga.
The name of the 4th one iss Haldi Khanor haldi Chacha as he calls it.
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Tiranga was very well written story. I need to read them again. What a concept man!
Was it their original idea? Not sure.
In fact read any of Doga comic published till 1999-2000 and you’ll be satisfied though a few of them were copied plots like ‘Zabardast’ was directly ripped-off from the movie Speed.
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Yaar as far as I remember comics never showed rapes or attempted rapes. they were kid friendly comic. I think it was some other situation in Tiranga. The only incident of attempted rape that I recall in comic (Raj comics particularly) is in ‘I Love You’ when Sonika was surrounded by some goons. Raj comic even stopped using profanities as well after their initial phase in Nagraj comics etc. as you pointed out in one of your comments when you got smack.
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Do you know from where the name Doga comes? It’s not because he wears Dog’s mask. It’s from training centres of his 4 uncles.
Lion Den….. Dhaniya
Lion Ocult….Haldi
Lion Gym……Adrak
Lion Aim……Kali Mirch
oh wow Jahanpanah .. that was very interesting trivia that I had totally missed when I was reading Doga.. AWESOME!
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Regarding Tiranga, I am pretty sure that the opening scene has a woman who’s saree is off and typical bollywood way she is running for help… our man Inspector Patkar takes the national flag and drapes her over… all this in one page… they dont go on to talk about it any further…
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wish Raj comics was sold across the country.. pretty sure they would ve picked up popularity everywhere if the local language was the main mode of publication… the pictures ensured that the comic was a eye catcher…
@ jahanpanah and yayaver…. this may interest you http://www.mid-day.com/news/2009/nov/091109-doga-nagraj-comics.htm ….
This can also well be a good chance for more attention towards AK’s Doga, as quite a lot of folks have no idea about this character…
@ jahanpanah and yayaver… ever seen these comics?
http://movies.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/nov/10/slide-show-1-pammi-bakshi-on-supremo.htm
Never knew they had comics on Amitabh Bachahan !
O yea. Comics on Amitabh bachchan was published by star comics. Never got to read one though.
Jahanpanah, Aur humein lagtaa ttha, ek akele hum he ko comics ka chaskaa hai.. thnx for mentioning these forgotten name..
@yayaver and Jahanpanah …great… we have another club now… even today I feel if I keep a audio cassette of Martial arts under my pillow and sleep I can learn it up by the time I get up… thanks to Agniputra abhay :P
Welcome to the club buddy.
PS, yaar I forgot about Agniputra-Abhay. A hindi daily (Rashtriya Sahara) used to publish one page of their comic daily as strip. There were many newspapers which used to publish Chacha Chowdhary, Dabu, Billoo strips.
Agniputra Abhay was Diamond’s effort to counter Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruva… never had the same effect though were pretty exciting as well…. Dabu … that was another good one.. kabhi chota dabu hoga, kabhi bada… somehow that tipu in chacha chaudhary, i had a strage belief that he grew up to be dabu…
@PS
It was an effort to counter them? I’m not sure about this because Nagraj-Dhruva were not part of a team while Agniputra-Abhay were always together. They wanted to penetrate the action genre than more kid-friendly, light comics. So yeah they wanted to counter the popularity of action heroes in that way.
Agniputra Abhay started off when Diamond Comics realised that action flicks from Raj were taking cover the simple ones Diamond offered,,, and their old forgotten Fauladi Singh, Lambu Motu and Rajan Iqbal were of no good… Agniputra Abhay was their idea of Motorcycle mei hero with complete knowledge of martial arts boxing horse riding and all that… and again this was launched more or less at the period when raj had started of with their “digests” of Nagraj aur Super Commando Dhruva….
Darn PS, you seem to have an objective view on things… both agreements and disagreements make it worthwhile to make a post… It would’ve been nice to hear your thoughts- thanks for making the attempt… hopefully I’ll hear from you the next time around (the same thing happened to me right now while I typed in the reponse to this comment
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yup Jyothi, because the agreements and the disagreements to the post and the responses were more or less in the right spirit.. that brings up more thoughts and views.. the right points and questions bring in the space to get new views even as disagreements and the agreements are always going good na…
next time… as Jahanpanah and Tanul pointed out.. will have a control C control V ready 
Well PS I liked the way you put it in one of your comments about how the GM and Jyothi have come to represent the true women’s lib. and they are not false disguise where women is shouting aloud and fighting the world to prove her point. Haven’t seen many Tam movies so can’t say much on it.
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Other thing is that many people praised Paro of Dev.D as liberated. Well, for me it was more like the disguised women’s lib. She does fight literally with 2 people to prove her point. I do think that compassion, generosity, love etc. are the generic qualities of women, a women devoid of these quality is like taking away her femininity. Paro was more like that. In fact the lady characters in Gulal are like that. So I’m not a fan of AK’s ladies. On the other hand Chanda in Dev.D was more like that type of women who is assured of herself and does according to her heart and mind while does not giving away her femininity. She comes out as better character than Paro. About a month ago I watched Ek Vivah Aisa Bhi which was a remake of Tapasya, so of course the character Chandni (Isha Koppikar) was based on the character played by Rakhi in Tapasya. I was kinda thinking later that why when talking about strong, free, liberated women, the character of Rakhi or Isha will not be taken into consideration. They come out to me as strong-willed, confident women who do support their family in crisis without relying on others but may be because they do it within the traditional and feminine boundaries, people won’t recognize them.
Thanks again Jahanpanah, for taking time out to read my views on a blog relating to Tamil movies that you might have not read otherwise…
quite honestly if you get to see what Gautham Menon and Jyothika achieved specially in South Indian cinema, where heroines of late are generally homebound cute energetic girls who are so traditionally family bound (all thanks to Trisha and the rest who do it pretty cutely) that the 3 characters I had mentioned will show significant difference … with all honesty if the character the way she talks in Kakka Kakka, somebody does that to me I’d totally surrender…
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I totally agree on your point about Paro and Chandramukhi in Dev D … agreed that Paro character having her strong sexual preference does show up the “I have my needs and will do whatever to have it” character and is a paret of Women’s lib, but celebrating that as the epitome of Women’s lib in society is a little too much … rather I consider that an almost extremeness… rather yes Chanda doing what she wants with no qualms after a point is the idea even I carry about the Lib movement… and yep I agree about the characters shown in AK’s movies till date… guess his movies needed those characters as every character anyways is a volatile dynamic one…
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Havent seen Ek Vivah Aisi Bhi or Tapasya, but I am getting the point that you are making.. and again 100% in agreement with you … people dont recognise or maybe dont talk about it, but even Basanti was a part of the liberated woman .. in a light way she even downplays the ‘women driving tanga’ thought of audience with a joking dialogue of ‘jab dhanno ghodi ho kar……” she doesnt mind being flirted around with, doesnt act all “oh i am dirty, that rogue touched me” nor does she go around “aaj tumhe mai nari shakti dikhati hoon” … as in no remorse or happiness while she realises Dharam is flirting with her while teaching her to use a pistol…
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There are also some noices always made that women centric movies dont work… examples like Yeh Zindagi ka Safar and Sangharsh are given, while successes of Chameli is all pumped up… come on, its ultimately the movie, the script and character which wins or loses, not cuz they are men or women oriented… you give me a good movie and we will watch it, and while comparing compare apples to apples… not Sunghursh to Ghayal… Ghayal was out and out masala… compare it to Damini … Even if you give me a role reversal in Sangharsh with Akshay Kumar as the lead and PZ as the prof I will not watch it…. give me zindagi ka safar with Tushar Kapoor or ritesh deshmukh or even SRK, I wont watch it… cuz these were dull movies right from trailers and marketings… they continuously grieve over life… Fiza Zubeidaa these are all examples again… a dull movie about how one continuosly has to toil in life if made well will be seen and appriciated…compare filhaal with chori chori chupke chupke… not Kuch Kuch Hota hai…. Chameli on the other hand never made any bones about the ‘remorse of life’.. it was another passage in another person’s life.. seen liked and appriciated… and in a different world altogether, Halo, with kids in the movie was equally loved… you want to compare blockbusters then the comparison should be Chaalbaaz/Nagina vs. any big movie of those times, anybody who would say they went to see Rishi Kapoor/Sunny Deol/Rajinikanth in those movies … m not sure if they went with the right expectations….
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Astitva, was another highly appriciated movie… which I had mixed thoughts about … everything in that movie actually worked for me… Tabu ending up sleeping with MOhnish Behl, keeping it a secret thoughout her life, crying and pleading to make sure that she is not thrown out of the family.. can happen to anybody everybody will do whatever is possible to keep themselevs accepted… and if she had walked out finally I would ve been all the more okay… what killed the flow for me was she became determined ONLY after she comes to know that Sachin Khedekar has also been cheating on her… and he makes a statement like “I am a MAN” … and she had to wait till then to finally get her acts together… similarly I’d even say on a extreme story lines, Hum Aapke Dil Mei Rehte hain had Kajol playing a character who after a point starts making her own moves… leading her life in er own terms even if that means talking crap about Anil Kapoor to make sure people know the paternity of the kid… the movie takes a whole new sad turn from there is a different case… ‘d say even in Rangeela Urmila’s character knew what she wanted to do… not to prove a point or anything butcuz thats what she wanted.. fame.. glitz glamor, but at the same time when she realises she loves aamir, she doesnt mind chucking away her minute of glory …
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Any movie that is made with a sadistic view of life cannot be appriciated… and its not about being just male centric or female centric… just as an example of maybe a ‘male centered movie’ I am personally a big fan of No Smoking… but just to think of it even in the top most view, and after AK gave the hint of Cigarette being the metaphor of life… it will somewhere give you a very sad gloomy picture of a MAN struggling to get hold of his life and doing what he wants to but how he is buckled down at every occassion … and this movie would not have been a hit as well…. for that matter when Ayesha Takia walks out of JA and walks back in when he promises to buckle down would rather be a liberated woman knowing what she wants, and if we need to compare it to the tanuja chandra school then can also be seen how a man is forced to bow down cause of the woman(i dont believe in it, but thats the tanuja chandra school) …. I still think comparison needs to be made as an apple to apple like Sungharsh with maybe Ek Dr Ki Maut, and Damini to Ghayal…and then we should analyse what audience preference is….
I can see the point you are making. I watched Astitva today after reading about it in your post and it was also that kind of movie. Of course few things work and few things didn’t work. you said it correct that most of the women lib. in films and literature is focused on ‘I have my needs’ kinda things. As someone once told me that it’s like ‘If men are dogs, women should be bitches’. But, who said that being a dog is justified for men. I have often heard dialogues in films and TV like ‘tum beti nahi beta ho’. I’ve problem with it because it’s like acknowledging that sons are better than daughters and you are already setting some goals for your daughter and want her to step in son’s shoes. You are not letting her to be on her own. Things like these have given rise to the competition between the sexes rather than co-operation. I guess it’s because India is still passing through the modernity phase. Things like a women acknowledging herself for what she is are the things of post-modernist era.
Also, I would add in a society where people have some defined roles, there are expectations from women too. May be many would consider it as against true lib. but for anybody true freedom will work only when s/he is truly independent i.e. free from marriage etc. as well. It kinda reminds me recently read short story by Premchand ‘Shanti’, about how certain things may not work in a defined social structure.
i still jerk off to mamta kulkarni, so i dunno what you’re on about there.
Jyoti,
I think its juvenile/facile/ tearr-your-hair-out-ile to expect the semblance of truth about the changing image of the modern indian woman from hindi cinema.Indian cinema-maybe, yes. Hindi cinema-no.
If any of the directors and so-called-writers who’re responsible for the multitude of films that are churned out every week were to read this artice and then the comments that follow-they’d die laughing. We really are expecting too much from them.Of all the parameters that go into the process of film-production, the concerns of this blog must regularly rank the last.