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Bollywood at last seems to be putting the spotlight on men and women in their mellow years, observes
Shoma A. Chatterji
Is romance a big no-no for the golden oldies? Can Cupid’s arrow pierce the mellow hearts of people who have stepped into the evening of their lives, leaving spring far behind? Indian films, both mainstream and off mainstream, that once banked on the young and the beautiful, finally seems to have come of age by probing these issues. Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia who once sent teenagers swooning in Bobby (1973) and again in the triangular love story in Sagar (1985) make a comeback in Pyar Mein Twist, slated for release in September. The film is about falling in love at a mature age essaying the lives of two contemporary urban adults who live and enjoy life as much as any other young couple. Yash Khanna (Rishi Kapoor) and Sheetal Arya (Dimple Kapadia) are independent individuals. She is a super mom, a super sister-in-law and a successful businesswoman. He is the best dad, the best boss and a competent industrialist. There is chemistry the two the minute they meet. It is a fun-filled love story with Rishi Kapoor rushing through the streets of Mumbai on a mobike with the beautiful and ravishing Dimple riding piggy-back. With the box-office success of Baghban two years ago, the clock has turned full circle. Since then, salt and pepper is being underlined through the language of cinema in a rainbow of colours. And the protagonists are not being portrayed with pity for which they do not much care for but with sensitivity they deserve. Actors like the late Amrish Puri, Farida Jalal, and Sushma Seth in character roles also drove home the fact that senior citizens matter in films. Younger actors like Shivaji Satam, Reema Lagoo, Anupam Kher, Seema Biswas and Alok Nath smoothly step into characters that are chronologically much older than what the actors are in real life. In some strange way, films featuring senior citizens in central roles have social messages seamlessly woven in, sometimes by design, such as in Baghban, Viruddh, Black and sometimes by accident, as in Sarkar.
One reason why these films are making waves is because they reflect ground realities today. Baghban touches on the selfishness of a new generation steeped in a consumerist culture as against older parents’ sacrifice for them. Viruddh is about an ordinary old couple who are forced to search for their faith in human values and society after the death of their only son. The film expresses individual and social vulnerability in the face of a corrupt system. Comparisons with Mahesh Bhatt’s Saraansh, which for the first time probed the mindset of a retired headmaster and his wife, is inevitable. Here too their happy life takes on a 180º turn when their only son is killed in a mugging incident in the US. Both end in a note of hope that life goes on, and one learns to live again after a tragedy. However, Viruddh’s script is more on the nitty-gritty of an elderly couple’s everyday life, and though the ending is quite ridiculous as it finishes in a typically filmy note unlike Saaransh, people would remember it more for the first half, beautifully peppered with tiny insights into the lives a normal couple, the wife insisting that the husband put on his monkey cap before stepping out on a wintry day, or, the diabetic husband clandestinely adding sugar to his cup of tea, reaching out to a rare identification among the audience. In the hands of a new crop of directors, these small ‘unimportant’ things are getting more importance than the usual fluff Bollywood loves. Much has been written about the failed and alcoholic teacher of handicapped children (Bachchan) in Black who encounters a new challenge in his life when he is called upon to train a blind and mute little girl. Even in a gangster movie like Sarkar, Ramgopal Varma underscores the strength of old age as the protagonist (Bachchan again) is the feared head of an extended family. He creates a parallel government and lords over the empire with a firm hand with the help of his two sons and committed followers, all of whom are quite young. The regional films, however, have woven stories around people in their mellow years for quite sometime. Girish Kasaravelli’s Kannada film Tabarana Kathe which won the Golden Lotus talked about a retired man getting quagmired in bureucracy while trying to get his pension. IFFI 2000 too had several films that paid aesthetic and socially relevant tributes to the ageing, each director in his/her own different and distinct way. Jayaraaj’s film Karunyam bagged the top award in the competition section. The film unfolds the insecurity of the aged. Other notable films subtly hinting at varied profiles of older people are Aparna Sen’s Paromitaar, Ek Din (Bengali), Girish Karnad’s Kanooru Heggadithi (Kannada), Vaanaprastham (Malayalam) and Atmiya Swajan (Bengali). Happily, many films today have recognised that people on the wrong side of the fifties have a life of their own too. Personalities in the film industry itself prove it manifold. Zohra Saigal at 90 has written her memoirs and continues to make her presence strongly felt on the big and small screen. Similarly, Amitabh Bachchan who is in his 60s stands like a giant with the his unending list of successful films. — TWF |
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