Art depicts life they say. When one looks at Bollywood, one wonders what kind of life this so called art is depicting, one is forced to ponder. One has to stretch one’s memory to the limit to remember the name of a Bollywood offering which has depicted India’s problems and its people in a realistic manner. This exercise is without exception, a futile one.
What one would expect from the premier film industry of one’s country is atleast a fair depiction of its communities and people. But maybe it is too big task to ask for. Learning about India’s people by watching Bollywood will be like learning about good wines by drinking toddy.
Because Bollywood never shows a community. It only caricatures it.
A Maharashrian is either shown as a domestic help, a gully drunk always waiting to pick up a fight, a pandu hawaldar or a trigger happy psychopath sub inspector who’s always to be kept in check by an IPS named Ahlawat or Ranawat or Singh or Malhotra. Or just a lowly clerk who gets to mouth a few dialogues and cry for the hero.Inspite of being in Mumbai, Bollywood has decided that the Marathi maanoos has to be shown as a cheap and a downmarket character who cannot be anything other than a laughing stock. All their valour filled history and sacrifices for India and their patriotism don’t matter at all. A joker is how he will be depicted, a pandu or a Gangaram. And yes, he can never live in a more magnificent place than a chawl. And this downmarket depiction spreads beyond the screen as well. They always seem to want Mumbai minus them. That same attitude was seen in Wankhede stadium spat involving a guard and you know who. Madhuri Dixit escaped these stereotypes but she is the only lucky one. Shivaji Rao Gaikwad was lucky to find his footing in Tamil film industry as Rajnikanth or he too would have been reduced to the sorry state of Laxmikant Berde or Ashok Saraf in Bollywood.
Next come the Gurkhas, another one of great martial communities whose bravery is the stuff of legends. But in Bollywood land they can never be anything other than a khakhi uniform wearing security guard named Bahadur who has an IQ in single digit and the only coherent thing he gets to say is “Jee Shaab” and “Jee Memshaab”. Its needless to say that all he gets to do is salaam and never once does he gets to touch the khukri hanging from his belt.Any Gurkha who isn’t a security guard is simply Kaancha. Thats it. Of course they wont dream of showing them in the army. Thats just reserved for Punjabis in Bollywoodland.
Sindhis. Always shown as pajama or safari wearing sorry figures who cannot speak a legible sentence without invoking Jhulelal or adding saaen or niii to it (Tum to badaa kutta hai niiiii, e.g.) Again they can be nothing more than henpecked husbands or jokers who the filmmakers are hell bent on depicting as the most cowardly people in the country.That they have one of the biggest businesses running in the country doesn’t seem to interest the Bollywoodwaalas. No wonder, Govinda had to remove Ahuja from his screenname.
Parsis are always shown as middle aged and above. Never in the last two or three decades, except the rarest cases has one seen a young parsi in a film. It will always be an old henpecked husband with his obese overbearing wife driving a 1950s model car. The surnames will never extend beyond Poonawaala, Batliwala or Sodawala. And there will be atleast one funny dance sequence. Did I forget to mention that they are never allowed to be anything better on the screen except comics?
No Bengali can ever speak perfect Hindi. It must be with a thick accent. He has to pan chewing , dhoti wearing , self depreciating character. No wonder Ashok Kumar or Kishore Kumar were never given a Bengali character to play.
Tamils are depicted as someone named Subbu who cannot do one decent action ever and cannot speak any sentence without adding aiyyo or amma to it. His English is reduced to yenna rascala and mind it. He is always shown as someone who is out of the place in the group and sticks out like a sore thumb. He is shown as someone who does menial job or is running some kind of rackets. Doesnt matter for Bollywood that Tamils have one of the best minds and have a culture which is as good as anything that comes under the word sanskriti.Even if Hindi films show them as someone in an influential position, the script will make sure that his comic depiction will degrade the character beyond any hope of decency.
The rest of southern states don’t matter because as it is everyone down south is simply a Madrasi.
Maarvadis cannot be shown as anything other than greedy moneylenders who are most eager to mortgage or pawn the helpless populace’s money. And they are shown to be most eager to lend large amounts of money to the poor as he is sure that they wont be able to repay and he can then fulfil his sexual fantasies with their wives/daughters/sisters etc.
Gujaratis cant eat anything except dhoklas. And no depiction of a family is complete without showing atleast a hundred people in the household.
Christians have to wear half a foot long crucifix and speak an atrocious mishmash of Hindi and English. God has to be invoked every now and then.
Sikhs are ofcourse funny guys who have no business other than partying 24/7 and balleballe
ying . Everyone from Veerji, Paaji, Bebe and Kaake must hold some kind of festivity in
the vast house all the times of the year and dance and sing tirelessly.
For a hero to look good, he has to be a Punjabi with names like Ranvir Malhotra. Anything
else is also ran.
Caste based stereotypes too are aplenty.
A Thakur comes in two types:-
1) A sadistic psychopath superrich landlord rapist and mass murderer whos got a
house bigger than the Rashtrapati bhawan.
2) A psychopath dacoit who lives in a cave with hundreds of his followers and
regularly watches semi clad women dancing.
Only Thakurs have a divine right to perform violent crimes and atrocities. There can never
be any decency in them.
A Bania is always a grocer selling cooking oil out of metal container to whom every poor
man in the village owes money. Or he shares the money lending profession with the on
screen marvadi and has all the huts of the poor mortgaged. In both these scenarios, he is
always lusting after the womenfolk of his debtors.
A Brahmin as a priest/pujari of the temple is always an unscrupulous and wile character
who practices untouchability even in his sleep. He always exploits people , makes fun of
their ignorance, embezzles money, molests the lower caste women. Shastra is some kind of
evil book he uses to subjugate the lesser people.He too has a strong libido and visits brothels
wearing a tilak on his forehead so that we as viewers know that panditji is going for a
joyride. And yes, a Brahmin can also satisfy his lust for poor women by becoming a munshi
of lalaji and sahukar saaheb.
These are just the very prominent depictions. Hundreds of clichés still continue to be
promoted in the name of popular culture. And the most regrettable part is that none of the
people maligned onscreen have ever raised objections.
If at all the Indian entertainment industry has to become anything serious it has to stop this or remain what it is, kitsch.
http://theviewspaper.net/bollywood-what-kind-of-life-does-this-art-depict/
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