When money alone matters

Gone are the days when cinema had social relevance. The accent now, says ZIYA US SALAM, is more on glitter and gloss and little on frailties and foibles.

THE SCINTILLATING offerings of Bollywood which have set the silver screen ablaze in recent weeks herald a move with the times. A change which was long in the coming but seems to have made its presence felt only in recent weeks. An odd `Daman'' notwithstanding, gone are the days when cinema had a social purpose, when cinema was a mirror to our society, its foibles, its fragility. Today, is the age of make-believe, the age of looking good, feeling better. The age when everything seems to come packaged as a fine finished product. There is glitter, gloss, gleam, glamour. There is foot-tapping music too which makes its appearance on the countdown shows one week and quickly gives way to a fresh entrant, more zippy, more zestful, the next. There are lots of nice clothes - our heroes and heroines seem to walk straight out of modelling ramps. And even those portraying the street urchins and the deprived seem to have a soft corner for Calvin Klein and the like, torn at just the right places.

For evidence, one just needs to look at some of the recent hits churned out by Bollywood. ``Ek Rishtaa'', ``Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai'', and even the so-called period films like ``Gadar...'' and ``Zubeidaa'' come with characters sparkling to the tips of their toes. The scale is large, the characters larger than life. And they all seem to have one mantra - enjoy life. Hedonism is the new credo of Bollywood. Thus heroes may no longer be Supermen with a double barrel chest and the heroines may no longer need to exercise every muscle running around the trees but that has failed to infuse any ``earthy'' appeal to them.

Though right from ``Aankhen'' and ``Kabhi Haan, Kabhi Na'' onto ``Rangeela'' and the more recent ``Albela'' and ``Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai'', the Hindi film hero ceased to be a winner all the way, a man whose favourite expression was a fist of fury and a growl of anger, he comes across as slightly more credible now. He is more like you and me, a common man with little, little dreams of his own, his own foibles and failures, not always morally upright, opting for flexibility in his principles but endearing all the same. Ditto for heroines, who may not be expert classical dancers or village belles any more.

Yet, down to earth as these characters appear to be, they are only wafer thin, the similarities being only superficial. Scrub a little and you get a bare, bony skeleton, something with which the cinegoers cannot identify. The likes of Deepak Sareen, Satish Kaushik or even more recently, Aamir Khan may have been able to score at the box office and maybe laughing all the way to the bank, but they have in no way contributed to what is euphemistically called ``cinema with a social vision''. Super hit as these films are, they lack in a social perspective and are devoid of any responsibility to the multitudes whom they claim to address.

Gone are the days not just of ``Do Bigha Zameen'' and ``Mother India'' but even of ``Sur Sangam'', ``Jaag Utha Insaan'' and ``Eeshwar'' - all films of the 1980s with a strong social content. If the first two handled the issue of caste taboos with aplomb, K. Viswanath's ``Eeshwar'' explored the possibilities of widow marriage. (It remains to this day Vijayshanti's best foray into Hindi cinema.) Just like Shakti Samanta had done in ``Kati Patang'' more than a decade earlier. And later Raj Kapoor in ``Prem Rog''. Or B. R. Chopra's ``Gumraah'' made in 1963. The film dealt with a woman's marriage to her dead sister's husband and its poignant number ``Chalo ek baar phir ajnabi ban jaye hum dono....'' is sung to this day.

Another film dealing with the marriage of a woman, this time to her dead husband's younger brother was Sukhwant Dada's ``Ek Chadar Maili Si'' (1986). It poignantly captured the mental turmoil of a young widow pressured to marry her brother-in-law, many years her junior, and one whom she has brought up almost like a child.

While today, films are increasingly made for the urban college crowd - guys and gals with everything provided for, keen to climb the ladder of corporate upward mobility and often nurturing a hedonistic attitude towards life - in the days gone by, the social element was paramount and even individual struggle was used only to highlight a greater social malaise. In specifics lay their generalities. For instance, in ``Boond Jo Ban Gayi Moti'' (1967), the village headmaster attempts to educate children beyond books. Its peerless number, ``Yeh kaun chitrkar hai'' - an ode to Nature - is remembered to this day.

Similarly, V. Shantaram's ``Do Aankhen Barah Haath'' was all about reformation of prisoners out on parole at the risk of the station officer. In the policemen's belief in human goodness lay a larger message for the socio-legal system of the times.

On much the same lines came Bimal Roy's ``Sujaata'' starring Sunil Dutt and Nutan. It was the story of a forest officer who adopts an untouchable child. Years later, the film had an echo in Jaya Prada's character in ``Sur Sangam'' and in the Mithun Chakraborty-Rakesh Roshan- Sridevi starrer ``Jaag Utha Insaan''. While these films dealt with untouchability at length, K. Abbas's ``Char Dil Char Rahen'' a story of four couples - dealt with it in more than a fleeting manner. It was also one of the earliest forays into socialism on the big screen with its hit song, ``Qadam qadam se dil se dil mila''.

Another story of four couples which had a strong message of national integration - as opposed to tokenism displayed by the recent ``Gadar'' or ``Lagaan'' - was ``Teen Batti Chaar Raaste'' in which four sons marry four girls from different regions of India. Incidentally, while the latest super hit ``Lagaan'' has a Scheduled Caste, a Muslim and a Sikh as part of Aamir Khan's 11- member cricket team, ``Gadar'' has a patriotic Indian Muslim in Pakistan always waving the Tricolour and another who helps the hero escape from the villainous father-in-law. But these are exceptions for most others are painted with the brush of separation and partition and are mere concessions for the box office.

Quite unlike AVM's ``Hum Pancchi Ek Daal Ke'' or Abhi Bhattacharya's ``Jagruti''.

About the only film in recent times to have attempted some kind of social reform has been the Saif Ali Khan-Preity Zinta starrer ``Kya Kehna'' which handled the issue of a child out of wedlock and was widely successful at the box office. However, years before ``Kya Kehna'' had the masses raving, Yash Chopra's ``Dhool Ka Phool'', starring Rajendra Kumar- Nanda-Mala Sinha had lifted the taboo over the subject for the big screen.

And then there have been films specifically dealing with the fatal diseases of the day. On the one hand there were films like ``Mujhe Jeene Do'' and ``Mera Gaon Mera Desh'' which spoke of the malaise of dacoits with profundity and even talked of their rehabilitation, while on the other, there were films addressing the problems of landed gentry and the landless. ``Mother India'' remains a classic to this day. While the films of the 1950s dealt with epidemics and drought with a strong social conscience, Sunil Dutt's ``Dard Ka Rishta'' made in late 1970s was a touching tale of a cancer patient.Now compare the social consciousness of the films of those times with that of today's films and the gap could not be more gnawing.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Entertainment
Next     : Film Review: Poovellam Un Vaasam