Bisma Mehboob
Nobody cares about the common man’s desire of seeing his/her face splashed on hoardings across the country, but countless chances are given to Abhishek Bachchan to prove his mettle and learn while on the job. For every Nawazuddin Siddiqui who makes it there would be hundreds who won’t. They would be forced to make their journey back home to small towns and cities, as the cost of even attempting their cinematic dream is staggeringly high. There is gym fees to pay, stylish attires to buy, and photo sessions with updated looks to click, besides paying the rent and hobnobbing at pubs in hopes of making some sort of a connection.
Koyal had been through many false promises of a launch; her relatives had been mocking her ‘failure’ to her parents back home. “Superstar banane nikli thee” (she left to become a superstar) was their high-pitched slogan. The mental pressure exerted on a struggler with celluloid ambitions is often undeserving.
Later that evening, Koyal and I met up with another friend at a restaurant in Oshiwara, an area frequented by many TV stars and aspirants. Our mutual friend was an aspirant of a superior kind, though. Pooja, the 20-year-old daughter of a film producer and future actress, had just come from a fat-reduction therapy. She was contemplating getting fillers done on her face, as she got down to ordering some dish on the menu in her broken Hindi. “Maybe that’s what you need Koyal, unlearn all your Hindi!” I later advised my friend in jest. Many of their cine stars are incapable of fluently speaking the language they make their movies in. Saif Ali Khan had once pompously confessed that he never watched Hindi films and preferred English ones for his entertainment.
Celebrity rug rats have never been a match to their star parents; unfortunately for them talent is still not a genetic gift. Stars like Jeetendra, Vinod Khanna, Hema Malini or even Govinda were all regular folks who had seen tough days, and brought a certain sensibility to their creative work, drawing strength from their varied experiences. Star bachas (children) all grow up in a similar environment, get exposed to only one kind of world, and that gets reflected in the stories they choose to tell on screen. The content in most popular films now is centred around the inner conflicts of the urban mind, and rural narratives are conveniently overlooked.
Bollywood’s quota system works overnight to keep ‘inferiors’ outside the parameters of the city of films. The players of today’s Hindi cinema enjoy this incongruous relationship with the public; they are keen to take our hard-earned money but hesitant to put their weight behind our talent. Star kids are forced down our throats, and handpicked choices often end up persuading the audience to warm up to them after a few films. It is time to stop being so welcoming, and start being self-respecting as paying audience members. Our response towards a Kapoor or a Khan, or a Gaikar or a Cheema should be uniform.
Even our own Pakistani entertainment industry is suffering from a Bollywood hangover. Lately, drama serials and even the Coke Studio have been providing ample space to artists bearing well-connected last names.
I meet Koyal after a month; she is Kiana now, and I asked her why. “Kiana is an exotic name na, I’ve even informed my coordinator to start spreading the word, along with my pictures, that I’m half-Persian,” she concluded, wishing that her new self-created identity would help generate some work at last. I smiled, and hoped that someday soon Salman Khan may get infatuated with her, as that was another way of making it big in Bollywood!
Concluded
