I can fondly recall the first Hindi feature film I’ve watched at the Cinemas, Dil to Pagal Hain in the year 1997. I was probably in third grade. It was a life changing experience for me. Growing up in the 90’s in the southern part of India meant that I was conditioned for high octane – mostly sexist – Telugu Cinema (Thankfully, things have come a long way since then with newer voices and stories) which took the commercial template to a whole new level. There was a set pattern in films. The HERO was the only reason the crowds stood in long queues to get a ticket (I’m not embarrassed to say that I stood for hours to get a ticket to many Megastar Chiranjeevi movies), the villains were there for dialogue-baazi, the music was composed to assist the choreographer make the star dance his way into the hearts of his fans and the heroine, well, to match steps with the hero. You could sense a song coming when the heroine was on screen. It was a template that Telugu movie goers have taken for granted.
Which is why I say that watching Dil To Pagal Hain was life changing. The actresses had written parts and a voice. I was also introduced to the Yash Chopra world of film making and until the man passed away, there’s no denying that SRK has had a monumental role to play in it. The film had moments that took my breath away. Some of the scenes that SRK and Madhuri shared were pure gold in terms of performance more than the writing. Lesser actors would’ve made it seem underwhelming. Since then, both Hindi Cinema and SRK have come a long way and the relationship that we, as moviegoers shared with SRK has gone through its own share of ups and downs.
It has been an interesting year for Hindi Cinema. After all the brouhaha, Padmaavat released to full houses defying Karni Sena’s antics and culminated with the leads getting married at the end of the year in a big fat wedding? Nobody could’ve written a better script (Except may be Sanjay Leela Bhansali). Then there was Veere Di Wedding, a film headlined by women had more people packing the cinemas than BHAI’s vanity package – Race 3 (Swara Bhasker certainly helped herself and the film – pun intended). Stree surpassed everybody’s expectations (Probably the highest in terms of ROI this year) and people showed the finger to a poorly packaged marketing rip-off, Namaste England and nepotism 2.0 proof of concept, Love Yatri starring Aayush Sharma.
2018 is proof that the audience is responding to a long-awaited overhaul both in terms of sense and sensibilities. The year belonged to the two Ks (Not three Khans), Vicky Kaushal and Ayushmann Khurrana. Vicky was the shining star and clearly, there’s no such thing as too much Ayushmann Khurrana. Between them, they’ve given four big successes at the box office and noticeably, played four characters which couldn’t have been more different from each other. Bollywood has almost relied upon these two actors to make this year count, despite the Khan-Daan. What happens with ZERO and Thugs of Hindostan remains to be seen but I doubt they’ll have the nuance and thought process that went behind creating these characters.
SRK turned 53 yesterday and it’s only fair to say that he’s aged like fine wine. He can still hold the audience by their collar, make their hearts skip a beat and bring about a warm grin on their faces, be it a film, an ad, an interview or a TED talk. With the Kaushals and the Khurranas taking over the cinema space, the question that needs to be asked is if SRK’s swaying power is under threat.
Whether you’ve liked SRK or not, there’s no dispute about him being the king of romance. A mere mention of “Aur Paas”, “Palat, Palat…” would turn grown women into blushing school goers. It was a foregone conclusion that SRK would, forever be our romantic hero on screen; he would innovate and find new ways to make us fall in love with him, come Diwali every year. But if last year’s horrendous Jab Harry Met Sejal (Imtiaz’s worst film to date) is any indication, the “we don’t question you even if you’re romancing girls 20 years younger” charm seems to have hit the expiry note. As fans, many of us are now at crossroads like the actor himself who was seen playing the bad-guy badly (he generally plays the bad guy pretty well) in Raees, a sleep walking romantic in Happy New Year (Only Allah would know why he did that film), a confused romantic (Dilwale, Jab Tak Hain Jaan) to an indifferent one in Jab Harry Met Sejal, a desi superhero who’s desiness bombed at the BO in Ra.One and an ambitious but emotionally worrying FAN. If my math is correct, his last super-hit came in the year 2014.
SRK’s diminishing relevance as a romantic hero over the years has been kept afloat thanks to his larger-than-life image and the body of work. The baggage that goes with it has often ended up in indulgence and recalls of his own previous work. Somewhere along the way, we’ve chosen to love SRK for who he is as a person and the aura he carries than his roles. He stopped giving us Mohan Babu and Kabir Khan; so, we rallied behind SRK himself which left a huge void for the Khurranas and the Kaushals to come in an do the “acting” bit. They, quite literally have not much to lose and that sense of abandon and no-fear accompanied with similar trends across many other filmdoms (Netflix and Amazon Prime Video certainly helped) replaced the aging superstar who seems to have found comfort (and why not) in sharing his elder son’s pics, launching his daughter’s magazine cover, his wife’s designer stores and playing with his third munchkin.
Also, the new age romance is grounded more in reality. (Recall the idea of a romance, “Maaya” that SRK dreams up in Dil To Pagal Hain and compare it with what Rumi and Vicky share in Manmarziyan, Sanjay Chaturvedi (Vicky Kaushal in Love per square foot and his characterization) or Nakul (Ayushmann in Badhaai Ho) blaming his parents for him being a disheartened lover or Andha Dhun where Ayushmann doesn’t mind manipulation to gain brownie points with Sophie (Radhika Apte)
Both Ayushmann and Vicky are products of the age and the milieu that they’ve grown up in and its not fair to compare what they are doing now with what SRK did in the last 20 years (A similar argument could be made about Virat Vs Sachin?). The new age romantic hero is flawed, un-ambitious and not afraid to be the butt of jokes. So, the real question is where does the giant image of SRK fit into our normal everyday going Netflix and chilling lifestyle. Let’s hope Anand L Rai’s ZERO has some answers. Cheers!
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