Bollywood gets off the family badwagon

A series on anything that's something to talk about

by

Sushmita Bose

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Published: Thu 10 Nov 2016, 11:00 PM

Last updated: Fri 18 Nov 2016, 12:21 PM

So, if you experience a sense of déjà vu when you come across the Bollywood pages (at the end of the magazine), there's no cause for concern. Nobody's recycling anything. Just that, (apparently) Khalid Mohamed and I think alike. But only up to a point. Here's how.
Khalid's piece this time is on 'All about avoiding the family'. Context: the recently-released KJo flick Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
(ADHM) doesn't have a single member of
the Great Indian (Disjointed) Family hovering around any of the four lead characters.
He contends, gamely if I may add, that he misses having those colourful "side bars" around. And you cannot deny that "supporting cast" in Hindi cinema are bursting with colours - different shades of inanity most times (but they could be lovable still), punctuated by a few identifiable, 21st century-mindset-laden ones.
My contention: I thought ADHM was a departure from the stereotype - for the same reason. Absence of family in the big picture. At a time when pro-choice is being debated as a plank in the US elections (by the time this comes out, we'll know whether pro-choice won the day or not), I find Bollywood cinematic characters far too fidgety while handling life choices. Circa third millennium, they are still desperate for validation and thumping endorsement from The Clan. ADHM has no support system egging on the players with ayes or bogging them down with nays. The four (or six, if you factor in one ex-girlfriend and one ex-husband) are pretty much on their own; they decide what course their life will take and they are unabashedly unapologetic about the stance. even when (okay, here comes a spoiler) Alizeh gets married to DJ Ali, there are no family members in attendance.
The most interesting pointer is: it's not that the lead actors vehemently disagree or rebel against familial jurisprudence; family is simply shown to be not relevant - in context, of course. the context being life/relationship choices.
Most of my friends and - yes! - family members felt ADHM is a "bit strange"
because "how is it that nobody, nobody has a mother/father/sister/brother/uncle/aunt/male cousin/female cousin to turn to for advice or guidance?"
And then, a handful of other people I know have applauded this "coming of age".
I realise I stand with the minority.  
I didn't really miss the screwball-type father played by Big B in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna or the huggable mother played by Farida Jalal in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - though, I must say, they were very entertaining in their own places; ADHM has its own independent dynamic, so the mom-and-dad absences were not conspicuous.
ADHM led me to do the unthinkable: ponder over what the family-oriented Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - I personally don't know of a single person who's not LOVED (emphasis intended) that film - would have been like if pivotal patriarch Amrish Puri was absent from the script. When I sifted the chaff from the grain, I suddenly realised how annoying he was and how we were pandering to a backdated form of sexism where daughter and prospective son-in-law had to bend over backwards - including sniffing "mitti ki khusboo" (smell of the soil) in fertile Punjab - to prove to fearsome father their wanting to be together wasn't such a bad "life choice" after all (and, by the way, daddy's choice for his daughter was a womanising, chauvinistic twerp).
What beats me is that the same bunch who have a problem with the missing family link in ADHM laughed out loud and shed empathetic tears while watching Notting Hill, where Hugh Grant's only contact with his mother was over the phone - and there too, the poor old dear was considered an irritant at best. Julia Roberts had no familial points. Yet, many of them swear it's the "best rom-com we've ever watched".
Why is ADHM "unrelatable" because it's not about loving the family? "Because it is Bollywood, it should have an Indianised ethos," one of them offered. "Notting Hill is westernised - they are like that only."
Okay, wow! And here I was thinking we live in a global village.
sushmita@khaleejtimes.com