This column, last week, turned out to be a bit of a soapbox lament about how the traditional Hindi-film narrative appears to be dying out thanks to filmmakers weaned increasingly on the West. To paraphrase a colourful colloquialism from Rang De Basanti, a half-breed like Blue plants one leg in Hollywood and the other grudgingly in Bollywood, and ultimately winds up taking a whiz over a wretched no-man’s-land. But on the evidence of that other hyped-up
Diwali release, Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, even the films that profess to throb with a big, fat, Indian heart are in dire need of CPR (and not just because this particular big-name production died a shockingly instant box-office death). No autopsy is needed. With the feckless focus on stars and style clogging up our films’ lifelines like so much cholesterol, it’s inevitable that they’ve begun to end up bloodless.
The rationale behind Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna — and indeed, the reason for the existence of most mainstream Indian movies today, Bollywood or elsewhere — is that huge stars will lure (or should that be hoodwink?) huge hordes of ticket-buyers. Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor! What else could one possibly need? Hmmm! How about some investment in the story, for starters — and along the way, how about some elementary consideration for mood and tone and maintaining a steady emotional temperature?
The romantic melodrama has been such a staple of our cinema, for so long, it’s hard to see how it can be messed up to this extent — but they have. Main Aurr Mrs Khanna goes wrong in so many ways that it may have some value after all, as a glossily illustrated how-not-to textbook for Bollywood beginners, already available for an all-too-affordable hundred bucks on your friendly DTH television channel.
This isn’t about the nits. Even the greatest of masterpieces are rarely free of things that annoy us (and frankly, that’s how we know that these are masterpieces, because they dazzle us despite these annoyances). So, here, we close our eyes to Salman Khan desperately attempting to remind us of a time some of us actually enjoyed watching him on screen, by chanting, “Dosti aur pyaar mein no sorry, no thank you.” We close our eyes to Sohail Khan clowning around to the accompaniment of RD Burman’s agonisingly tenderhearted Bade achche lagte hain. (Isn’t there a law in place about the desecration of national treasures?) We close our eyes to what’s become of Preity Zinta, reduced to prancing about in a lacklustre item number which looks the goo that resulted after Kajra re locked lips with Tum se milke (from Main Hoon Na) and fell headlong into an industrial-strength blender.
We even close our eyes (the way we do at an eclipse) to the sight of Bappi Lahiri, who gamely demonstrates what it’d be like if Jabba the Hutt had conducted a successful raid on Fort Knox. These smaller ignominies we ignore, like how we’ve learnt to wearily accept the fact that in Bollywood films, these days, life hands you lemons, only to hand you — an instant later — a citrus press, a lemonade stand and a mile-long queue of thirsty customers. (If the protagonist of Wake Up Sid had it easy after being kicked out of home, stumbling oh-so-casually into a roof over his head and a shot at the job of his dreams, you’ve got to see how Kareena, here, lands on her feet after being abandoned by husband Salman. Why talk about suspension of disbelief when there’s nothing worth believing in the first place?)
But we trained ourselves to look past these eyesores, earlier, because there was something worth seeing in the rest of the film. I’m not just talking about the romantic melodramas from a rose-tinted, gauze-shrouded yesterday, but about Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and U Me Aur Hum.
None of these are perfect, but their imperfections aren’t fatal. Despite the horrendous “Black Beast” running gag in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, there’s the steadily imploding crux of two whiner-losers breaking up perfectly reasonable marriages. Despite the garish garrulousness of the newly minted SRK in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, there’s the involving plight of a woman who can’t break free from a marriage to the older, nicer SRK. Despite the juvenile romantic portions in U Me Aur Hum, there’s the empathy for the supporting characters whose marriages inform the marriage of the central couple.
But after a fairly promising start, Main Aurr Mrs Khanna is so clueless as to make you wonder if the director is familiar with even the concept of a romantic melodrama. The triangle is set up thus: Salman walks out on Kareena; Sohail comes to her assistance and falls for her; Salman returns and triggers the climactic conflict.
A staple of these melodramas is the mournful number that delineates the crises at hand, and here, it plays over pretty shots of a crestfallen Salman and Kareena. But this makes no sense. Kareena has taken Salman back without complaining. It’s what she was waiting for — and he’s happy too.
If there’s anyone in this scenario who should be moping, it’s Sohail — but then, his wattage as a star burns less brightly, so who’d sit through a song with his downcast mug? That’s apparently the consideration.
It’s all about star, star, star, when it should be all about character, character, character. When Salman returns, there’s an improbably unfussy reconciliation with the wife he walked away from. Does Kareena feel badly that he’s taken her for granted? Who knows? Certainly not the director. A few more bombs like Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, and we will eventually bid farewell to one of our most enduring genres, one which graciously embraces the “Bollywood narrative” that’s gradually being abandoned by the wannabe-Hollywood films, much like the Western has been eased out of the Hollywood map in a global village that’s literally and figuratively free of frontiers.
Nothing is unique anymore. Everything’s a mélange of influences, and that’s not a problem — but our filmmakers have to realise that there’s more to the Bollywood storytelling tradition than just the sugar-high of a Special Guest Star by the film’s end.