PROtagonists' PROfessions in Bollywood-PROductions

Last week my interactions with a barber during a long overdue hair-cut motivated me to go and see Billo (“Barber” was unfashionably trimmed). Through the course of watching the movie, I wondered what makes a director choose a particular profession for the protagonist.

Profession and the occupational traits could be used as a vehicle to project good or evil human qualities in a larger than life fashion

1. Being a army (Border) or police man (A Wednesday) provides ample ammunition to depict physical strength and mental courage to achieve common public good and hence is one of the most commonly used profession



2. On the other extreme, being a thief (Sholay) or a gangster (Don) can help you capture the above qualities without carrying the extra baggage of morality to achieve one’s selfish motives – if one were to run the numbers, I would think this is a more successful and regular box office formula

Portrayal of a profession and its unique facets and how the protagonist battles with the occupational hazards. Here again there are two categories

1. Professions in real life which are more glamorous as they involve some extra-ordinary talent unearthed after stiff competition like music (Abhimaan), acting (OSO), sports (Chak De India), modelling (fashion) - people have always had fascination to know how such lives are lived
2. Relatively mundane professions, represented by ordinary men, which are not popular by nature and are produced in relative abundance. This post is largely about such portrayal of such professions.

Enumerated below are some such professions and a take on how their portrayal / real life perception has changed over time. They are arranged in the order of “color of collar” as I see it starting with white.

Doctor

• Memorable Portrayals - Big B in Anand, Sanjay Dutt in Munnabhai MBBS, Salman Khan in Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya
• Real life - Has maintained its stature as the most respected and coveted profession around among the educated, though people may have grown more cynical as well as casual when dealing with men in this profession
• Reel life - Playing a Medico restricts director’s ability to do certain super-human things and hence playing a doctor isn’t very common. Though moral issues with the profession have taken a back-seat and increasing ease to deal with the Medicos has made their appearance more common on silver-screen than before.

Lawyer

• Memorable Portrayals - Anil Kapoor in Meri Jung, Sunny Deol in Damini, Govinda in Kyunki Main Jhoot Nahi Bolta
• Real life - Perhaps by its very nature more than any profession causes a dilemma between professional duties / money-making and being on the right side of morality, and such confusion is only getting accentuated as times get more complex
• Reel life - Increasing complexity of their profession only provides more juice to the directors and one would expect to see them more often in the lead roles

Press-Reporter

• Memorable Portrayals - Anil Kapoor in Mashal, Shahrukh Khan & Juhi Chawla in PBDHH, Preity Zinta in Lakshya
• Real life - A profession which was not very long ago only meant being able to influence the masses and convey truth has offlate has got an element of “glamour” attached to it caused by increasing influence of television in our lives
• Reel life - Glamour quotient in the profession has increased their suitability for the lead roles significantly while the battle for truth they are associated with will continue to provide additional firepower

Cook

• Memorable Portrayals - Rajesh Khanna in Bawarchi, Govinda in Hero No 1, Saif Ali Khan in Salaam Namaste
• Real life - Way to a lot of people’s heart is through stomach – it has hold good so far and will probably remain so. This profession has again seen increasing acceptability in the Indian society as a mainstream profession and more men wearing the apron
• Reel life - Likewise, increasing eliteness of the profession (restaurateur cum cook) would enhance their suitability too for the lead roles

Driver

• Memorable Portrayals - Dharmendra in Chupke Chupke, Aamir Khan in Raja Hindustani, Sunny Deol in Gadar
• Real life - Driver holds the key to one’s life safety as well as pleasurable, informative and timely journey. While the core aspects remain, they have begun to address more needs for their employers
• Reel life - Drivers, given their increasing versatility, like “potato” will continue to be used in creative ways in the Bollywood masala products

Coolie

• Memorable Portrayals - Big B in Coolie, Govinda in Coolie No 1
• Real life - Remains one of the most thankless jobs involving hard bargain for the men in red to earn a living. An otherwise uninteresting job involves encounters with different people day in and day out which could lead to interesting situations
• Reel life - Has been and would only be used far and infrequently given the limited “continuity” element so far only played bu Bade Miyan and Chotte Miyan in their own unimitable styles.

While in the above mentioned movies, professional attributes of the protagonists have been leveraged upon to drive home the message, in most other Bollywood movies protagonist's profession just remains a matter of fact more than anything. We may see that changing as professions become more complex and multi-faceted to be able to provide enough masala and the increasing mutliplex culture will only help drive such change.

Happy viewing!
Jampak

Advani for Change or Change for Advani?

Barrack Obama's election to the office of US president would have got many amongst Indian politicians thinking on what worked in the US and can some lessons learnt be used for the upcoming general elections in India. One factor that stood out was that it was a positive vote for "change" and the use of "youth" as a proxy to bring about that "change". India with its umpteen problems is in as much need of change as the US.

India's grand old party Congress has woken up to the changing demographic profile and resultant change in the mood of the nation and announced that ~30% of its tickets will go to youth. In Rahul Gandhi, it also has a young leader of national appeal, though it may just fall short of projecting it as their PM candidate this time atleast.

On the other hand, NDA's prime ministerial candidate LK Advani at 80 does not intuitively represent change but he is pulling all stops to make the point that he indeed does. Lets take a step back and see where LK Advani is coming from and what this election means for him.

Through his life, he has either played a deputy to or has swapped positions with Atalji and now after Atalji's retirement, at 80, this is probably his only and the final shot at the top post. To my mind, he along with Atalji have had the most successful political careers in today's India because they led the BJP through its lifecycle making a humble start in 1984 when it just won 2 seats in Loksabha to becoming the largest party in the house in 1996 by winning 161 seats. Most successful congressman have either been products of Gandhi dynasty or have enjoyed its blessings to secure the top jobs. Politicians from all other parties have failed to create national level political platforms and hence dont quite pass muster.

LK Advani came from a modest apolitical background and has risen through the ranks first in RSS and then built the BJP from scratch. If India today has two alternatives to choose from at the national level, the credit largely goes to Advani and Atalji else India would have always been a Congress Vs the rest kind of non-ideal political battleground. Despite not being a great orator and not enjoying a following like Atalji, to my belief he has been more instrumental in BJP's rise especially by orchestrating the Ram Rath Yatra in 1990s which was a watershed event for the BJP and Indian polictics. In tune with prevailing times and moods, he has continuously devised means and methods of mass mobilisation like yatras (eg Swarna Jayanti, Bharat Suraksha etc), coined and gave currency to terms like psedu secularism, Indian shining, Hindutva etc.

To bolster his chances of becoming the PM, he is aware he will have to shed his perceived dubious image on securism (Babri, Gujarat), national security (Kandhar) etc. In a bid to push the envelope and become a truly pan-India leader, he even risked his position in the Parivar by making unacceptable utterances on Jinnah in Pakistan. For a while, he became the Wrong man in the Right (winged) party while trying to emulate Atalji's image of Right man in the Wrong party.

While, it will be harsh to say he has taken a leaf from Obama's book on campaign given his own exemplary credentials on electoral tactics, there are parallels in the the campaigns of inarguably now the world's most powerful person and arguably the modern India's most successful policitian. The parallels are also attributed to the similiarites between the two of the world's largest democracies

1. Both the nations take pride in being technology champions of sorts - Advani has put up a very informative website http://www.lkadvani.in/ like Obama's http://www.barackobama.com/. Advani's campaign like Obama''s intends to use web and technology to the hilt to influence the tech-savvy youth and opinion makers. Glimpses of his campaign can be seen on facebook, orkut, youtube and footage will only increase as we approach the D-day.
   



2. While being a family man is a given in India for anyone who wants to make it big in social / political scene, in the US showcasing your family orientedness is a big resume plus - Obama drove home the point hard through his speeches and appearances. Advani has used his family-man image smartly and sparringly - to his credit no other family member appears to be involved in active politics or have taken benefit of Advani's stature, unlike most other politicians in the country.
   



3. While Advani needed to fix his image given his doubtful credentials on several issues to have a mass appeal like Atalji, Obama wanted to create an image from scratch as he was not much heard of before. Both used autobiographies as a medium to achieve their objectives as that is the most potent weapon to influence the country's large intellegentsia / media who in turn can shape the mass opinion. Advani timed his book "My Country My Life" release to suit the general elections timing the way Obama did with his release "The Audacity of Hope".
   



4. Both India and US are celebrity crazy nations and to have them on your side can help you in your cause in a big way. Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Warren Buffet et al came out in the open support of Obama and the total celebrity support outnumbered that of McCain by far. While Advani may not enjoy a similiar level of celebrity support he has tried to make several right connections with the influential - a. Aamir Khan arranged a special screening of TZP for Advani and his family and then Aamir used Advani's softer side / tears for TZP's promotion, b. Big B finds a special mention on his website. Big B and Ash also attended his book release function in Mumbai, c. Country's top 15 industrialists including the Ambani brothers were invited to his residence to discuss the country's economic outlook, d. Despite being hard on the Saffron party in the past, NDTV awarded LK Advani the "Lifetime achievement award for 2008" in a celebrity studded function.
   



5. Both nations have huge racial, color, ethnic and religious diversities and both Obama and Advani have tried to strike the right chords with the fence-sitters and non-core contituencies. Obama did well to woo fair portion of Hispanic, Asians and white votes esp youth in addition to the overwhelming support from Afro-Americans, heloed by a specific strategy to address concerns of each of the group. Advani is letting the RSS / Rajnath / Modi do the talking to retain core constituencies and is wooing non-core votes like Muslims, Christians by subtle messaging - urdu section on his website, focus on his love for and early days in Karachi and convent school background.
   



6. Democratic principles are ingrained in physche of both the nations and more participatative the process more comfortable the people feel. Obama raised huge sums of money from public for his campaign both on and offline thereby making them feel a part of the campaign. "Advani Gaurav Nidhi" may have been setup to inculcate a similiar sense of belongingness in people's mind.

India does not have a presidential system of election unlike the US and the prime ministerial choice may ultimately become a function of seats arithmetic and coalition compulsions - whosoever wins the only hope is India gets a stable, action-oriented and accountable government. May the best man assume the top office!!

Jai Hind, Jampak