Can someone tell me what all this hullabaloo is about? Krrish and Enthiran and Ra-One—-a new wave of Indian superhero movies, the so-called next level, reflective of the recently acquired international taste of the Indian audience?

What? Superheroes new  to Indian cinema? I beg to disagree.

All our action heroes, for decades, have been superheroes. Spiderman and the Green Lantern can just stuff it.

Sure our Indian superheroes did not wear Tron-and-Ironman inspired suits (Ra-One) or  Zorro and Shiva (played by Jackie Shroff)-like masks and capes (Krrish). They did not need to, being comfortable in their own skins. They also had enough fashion sense not be caught wearing a underwear over their trousers or over-tight, trapeze-artist-like body-suits.

Our old, non-wannabe heroes knew that you do not need a six-pack or bulging biceps to overcome evil.

Just one muscle is compulsory,saar.

A dhak-dhaking heart full of pyar.

They did not need an unintended encounter with a spider in a radioactive lab or genetic mutations to become mega-men. Just a diet of Ma ka doodh in childhood and a steady supply of home-cooked gajjar ka halwa and Muli ka paratha provided all the rocket power they needed to fly and fight the baddies.

Those who think only Spiderman can swing has not seen Jeetendra  and his anti-gravity white shoes.

Those who think only Superman can fly has not seen Balayya wafting through time and space. Those who feel Bruce Wayne had a rough childhood surely have not heard of Mithunda’s character in “Ma Kasaam” who, after surviving an attempt to poison him by his desperately poor mother, became so poisonous himself that when a cobra bit him, it died.

Dr.Xavier of “X Men”  is the biggest bad-ass in a wheelchair. Sure. Only if you have not seen a wheelchair-confined Sunny Deol in “Heroes” decimating a full group of goombahs, with such force that gigantic cracks develop in the floor.

They have Captain America. So what? We have Captain Vijaykanth. And Mr. India.

Wolverine you say? Meet his baap Anil Kapoor.

And the coup d’grace? Our national heritage, Rajinikanth can obliterate the whole DC and Marvel universe with one twirl of his goggles.

Do our superheroes have weak points? Sure they do. Just like the Western superheroes have theirs, like Acchiles his heal and Superman Kryptonite. And their vulnerability points are not their paunches (they use these as flotation devices) but the izzats of their “behen”-s and “mashooqa”-s , a fact used strategically by their arch-nemeses. And what villains we have had— the Loin, Dr. Dang, Dong, Shakaal, Mogambo, Ajgar Jurrat… I am sorry but sissies like Joker,Penguin, Magneto and Lex Luthor have nothing on them.

If the definition of superheroes be restricted to those who wear body suits, well we have had these for some time too. “Dariya Dil” (1988) had a song “Tu mera Superman” which had Govinda as Superman and Kimi Katkar as an outrageously voluptous Spiderman. And ages before Ra-One and Kkrish, Puneet Issar had played Superman in “Superman”  (1987) where Dharmendra played his father (presumably Jor-El), a movie that had a thrillingly surreal sequence where while a plane is being hijacked, Jagdeep, his face contorted by strong stomach motions, goes to the loo where a lady who introduces herself as Musclewoman from Zambia tries gamely to seduce him. And what about  Shahenshah, who is “rishte main baap” and “Toofan” whose clarion call “Aaya aaya Toofan Bhaga Bhaga Shaitaan” became an inspiration for people struggling with stomach gas—how awesome are they?

To be honest, Richard Donner or Bryan Singer could never even come close to this level of heroism.

So dear new generation folks, please do feel free to be awed by G.One’s superhumanbaazi and to be scared of a villain played by Arjun Rampal.

By all means.

But remember, all this has been done before.

Many many times.

Because, simply put, superheroes are as desi as ghee.

[Author's note: Due to word and scope limitations, TV superheroes like Shaktiman and purely comic-book superheroes like Chacha Chowdhury have been left outside the domain of definition]

I have always been a fan of Shakti Kapoor. One of the reasons for my admiration has obviously been his career-defining performance as the Vitamin Sex-amped, ambigosexual, killed-in-a-ladies-bathroom-by-Prabhuji-through-cutting-off-of-male-organ Chutiya in one of the most influential Hindi movies of the last century, Kanti Shah’s “Gunda”. But even before I came across this life-altering celluloid classic, I had been keenly following  Shakti’s acting career, marveling at his histrionic abilities.

His “Atak gya atak gya” sympathetic portrayal of stammerers in “Satte pe Satta”.  His serial-confessional performance in “Tohfa” where he would periodically jump in front of the camera,say ”Yeh kaam maine kiya hai” and hop out like a twisted grasshoper . His essaying of a gay policeman in “Mast Kalandar” (Dekh Raja mujhe koi ganda cheez ka koi chaska naheen hai. Na sharaab da. Na juye da. Na daulat da. Aur na kisi ladki da.). His role as Raja-babu’s “Yeh ka hai. Ye naada hai” friend Nandu-tumhara-bondu. His  tour d’force as Batuknath “Chota sa pyara se nanha sa” Lallan Prasad Maalpaani in Chaalbaaz. The paidaaishi chor Crimemaster Gogo of “Andaaz Apna Apna”, the most dangerous thief outside the UPA government.

Shakti Kapoor, I have always felt, has shown originality, in a way few in Bollywood have done. Truly it can be said, if “Reading Lolita in Tehran” elevated a group of women above the pain of their existences in Iran, watching Shakti going “Lolitaaaaaa in India” was as liberating an experience for an entire generation of Indians.

As the nineties became the twenty-first century and with it Bollywood plunged itself into a sea of a new-found internationalism, fundamental transformations were wrought in its basic fabric, one of them being the extinction of the traditional villain.  Naturally, Shakti Kapoor found himself shunted out, like muslin weavers after the incursion of cheap cloth from Manchester. He took refuge in alternative Bollywood, where he still sparkled from time to time playing  a scheming fashion-photographer or did bit-parts in mainstream movies like the person who bites Anil Kapoor (so convincing is his method acting that Anil Kapoor had to get a tetanus shot). But it was obvious that his career as an A-lister had all but ended. Till his recent appearance as the “sole male member”  in Big Boss 5, through which he has, once again, re-claimed his place in the limelight, a place he is born for.

Unfortunately though, and this never ceases to shock and disturb me, is the disrespect that is heaped upon this man, in the media and in the digital social sphere e.g. Twitter. Say that you are supporting Shakti Kapoor and be prepared to face an assault from rolling-eye-ladies, who shall in essence imply that being a Shakti Kapoor fan is tantamount to supporting rape and molestation. And joining voices with them will be men—-after all dissing Shakti has become the first step for those who want to show themselves to be “sensitive” (the second being to claim that the personal journeys of the characters in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara were fascinating).

What’s Shakti’s crime? Let’s see.  He has played the role of rapist and molester in a few of his movies. Okay maybe more than a few. But how does it make him a criminal—by that logic Arun Govil and Nitish Bharadwaj should be Gods. The worst that can be said about Shakti is that he has been typecast playing a specific type of role—–but which actor in Bollywood has not been? And it’s not that Shakti Kapoor wrote the story or the script, he was merely given a part to execute and it is a testament to  his immersion in character that so many years later, his portrayals still engender such strong emotions, misguided and misdirected though they be.

In Hindi movies, and this was even more pronounced in the last century, the appearance had to be kept up, solely for the sake of our culture, that love between man and woman is a heavenly bond between incorporeal entities. This sanitized bubble-wrapped abomination of reality was in sharp contrast to what the paying public wanted, namely the show of skin. The essential hypocrisy of Hindi movies in the 80s and the 90s was that they pandered to exactly  those instincts that were criminalized in the narrative—-namely lust. Shakti and people like Ranjeet and Gulshan Grover were the solutions to the conundrum of “How do we give the audience what they want while maintaining the safed chadar of propriety?”. With the heroine being unable to voluntarily expose and the hero unable to articulate his physical desires, villains like Shakti Kapoor became the vicarious projection of the desires of the sweaty masses onto the screen. In that way, Shakti was a collective toy for the masses and it is tragic that the same crowd that welded him for their own ends, would then end up spitting in his face. He had held a mirror to the Indian audience and what they saw was not pretty. So instead of slashing at their own faces with a razor, which is what they should have done, they took the comforting option of breaking the mirror and stomping on the shards.

One of the positives about the new Bollywood is that some of the hypocrisy (not all) about sexuality is gone. For instance, Emran Hashmi has no compunction in reaching for the bodice of his lady love within the first ten minutes of “Murder 2″ and no one thinks any the worse for either of them. It is not a co-incidence that these more open depictions of human intimacy have been accompanied by the vanishing of the de-rigeur “rape scene” of the 80s and 90s movies. To put it simply, it is no longer a plot device that is needed. And one may thank Shakti’s emphatic performances for the change. No doubt the revulsion his acts unleashed forced this lasting, positive transformation.

Unfortunately all of what I just said wont change any hearts about Shakti just as all the American aid in the world won’t change Pakistani opinion about USA. Why? Because he is perceived as sleazy in real life, as someone who has strayed outside the compact of marriage. Remember that sting operation? Remember that offer of a role in exchange for favors? What kind of a decent man would do that?

Not to justify the casting couch or to take names, but if every power-broker that tried to use the power of their position to get women “to compromise” were to be shown the same level of opprobrium, then there would be lynch mobs out for many people in Bollywood. However none of these worthies has ever gotten the treatment that has been meted out to Shakti. In an interview to BBC, Shakti Kapoor talked about persecution of the type that, if it was anyone else, should have gotten Amnesty International involved. After the casting couch tapes broke, people came in front of his house shouting “Shakti Kapoor you are a bad person, Shakti Kapoor you are the worst person” . Such was their vitriol that the poor man felt that if he had been outside there would have been “two thousand pieces of Shakti Kapoor all scattered on the road and they would have been carrying one bit of Shakti Kapoor to their house as souvenir” [Link] And if that has not been enough public humiliation, when Shakti went to receive the Tepa Samman, women’s organizations garlanded him with a black cloth and slapped him and then he had ink poured on him in Nagpur.

Legendary heroes have two wives, legendary heroines become second wives (first marriage still valid), leading man has child out of wedlock, married mainstream director gets a court ruling against him in a sexual harassment case, and leading chocolate-faced hero and youth icon confesses to cheating on his girlfriend. I can go on and on but you get the point—– all kinds of peccadilloes take place and no one responsible for these have their reputations dragged through the mud as Shakti Kapoor does.

The character Joey Tribbiani of “Friends” makes no secret of the fact that he objectifies women, sleeps around, forgets their names, looks a girl lasciviously up and down while crudely saying “How you doin?”. Yet ask women what they think and they will say, without fail, that they find Joey/Matt Le Blanc dreamily sexy. But let Shakti do even a bit of what Joey does, let him roll the word Balmaaaaaaa round his tongue and watch the sandals and ink-pots come out.

The ultimate hypocrisy? In the season premiere of Big Boss 5, the hosts humiliate Shakti Kapoor by not interacting with him, the only contestant to be singled out.  The hosts are two of the biggest matinee idols in Bollywood with millions of adoring women fans. Let’s look at them a bit closely. Between them, the hosts have illegally possessed arms, killed endangered species, been accused of running over pavement dwellers and done serious jail time. And none of them can be considered to have been paragons of “virtue”. Yet they are the heroes. And then there is the villain, a man with no criminal record, who has never collaborated with terrorists or put a poor living being in the crosshairs of his gun. What is his lot? Being made the target of scorn and abuse. Pathetic.

So if you have ever curled up in bed wondering why the world has different standards for you than it has for others, if you have felt discriminated against in life and in love, then I urge you to stand with me in support of Shakti, a true victim of societal hypocrisy, as he goes for the big  Big Boss prize.

As he once famously said in “Dalaal”, “Kutta…kutta hoon main, jawaniyon ko soongta hoon”. Well every dog has his day. And Shakti’s might just be here.

And then he came, like an avalanche, rolling down the slopes. Stretching his hands out, throwing his head back, rolling his eyes, mimicking the haughty heroine as she walks by ignoring his advances, stumbling forward, hip-shaking, stumbling, shaking and pouting. This was acting as had been never seen before—- physical, raw and very very in-your-face.

Shamsher Raj “Shammi” Kapoor.

Shammi Kapoor revolutionized the concept of the Bollywood hero. Like Elvis whose hyper-sexual pelvic thrusts shocked and aroused a generation of Americans, Shammi brought a sensuality to his roles, a palpable carnality that was beyond anything that conservative Hindi audiences had been used to. He was sexy, he was funny, he was a rockstar and he didn’t like to take no for an answer.

If given a “I couldn’t care less for you” haughty head-shake from the object of his affections, not for him to sink away into the shadows singing a sad song. He would jump right into her path, push his face close, make unabashed eye-contact and then start woo-ing with her with a Mohammed Rafi song on lips. And which woman, with half a heart, could ever resist that?

He was Junglee. He was a Janwaar. He was a Battameez. And he never apologized for it.

When he sat amidst multi-colored phones in “Tumse Accha Kaun Hai” and crooned Kissssss……….Kisssss…….Kiss Ko Pyar Karoon? Kaise Pyar Karoon? Yeh bhi hai, woh bhi hai…hai hai….the audience was scandalized. They went weak in the knees. They went red in the cheeks. How can anyone be so…oooh….wanton? But they still went to see his movies. Again and again.

Other stars might have had a more cerebral effect but no one hit the audience as close to the heart as Shammi-ji did.

A legend on screen, and a down-to-earth, funny, dignified, tech-savvy man off it, the man was truly a star. A star in the old-school way, the type that did not need PR-stunts, media manipulation and talk-show appearances to create their aura. Their work spoke for them and they spoke loud, loud enough to transcend generations.

The greatest thing about being an artist, and a superstar artist at that, is you never truly die. You live on through your creations. Even more importantly, you live on through your influences. See a Govinda facial contortion and you will see Shammi Kapoor there. Watch Shahrukh Khan cartwheeling across in Deewana and you will find him there again. Watch Aamir Khan singing “Khambe Jaisi Khadi Hai” and well…there he is once again.

Shamsher Raj “Shammi” Kapoor.

You will never be missed sir. Because you have not left.

“Singham” is a throwback to the single-screen, honest-cop-against-the-system potboiler from the 80s and 90s, a formula that as “Wanted” and “Dabangg” demonstrated still has legs, even in these multiplex-friendly, emasculated “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” days. Honest cop set-up by bad guys, heroine being ched-chaad-ed by baddies, “comedy” scene, song sequence, romance angle, corrupt cops, corrupt politicians, honest cop arresting goons, bad cop bailing them out, villain coming to police chowki and offering bribes, villain getting humiliated, villain being beaten up, villain getting back at the hero, hero punching his daylights out; every element of the much-loved formula is arranged in repeated regular patterns like nucleotides in a DNA polymer.

And yet Singham for me had as much kick as a slap from Alok Nath.

The reason is this. The buffed and hulked-up Ajay Devgun. Or Ajay Devgn as he is now called, since he has dropped the “u”—whether it be for numerological reasons or because it makes his name easier to SMS I know not. Don’t get me wrong. Ajay Devgn is a very good actor as he showed in “Gangaajal” where he perfectly played a cop grappling with the dilemma of representing the law in a world run by evil. But in “Singham” where the action is too cartoonish and the plot just too ridiculously cliched, his intense earnestness is an absolute waste, almost as if he is trying to convince us to take the whole thing seriously.

Only two leading men can pull this kind of caper off. One is Salman Khan, who with the twinkle in his eye and the ability to hold his pose theatrically for the camera, adds an endearing element of self-parody to the genre.Which is what, together with its rather intelligent script, made “Dabangg”  such great entertainment.

The other of course is Sunny Deol. Why? Because when one punch sends 100 Kg men 10 feet in the air while they rotate like pinwheels, when jeeps and trucks glide through the air like frisbees , when lampposts are plucked from the ground as effortlessly as if they were flowers, when men slide on their knees over concrete as if on ice or jump straight up in the air like they were on Mars, there is only one man who can make it look like it actually might happen. Sunny paaji.  Because as anyone who has ever looked into his eyes, trembling with wrath, knows, even the laws of physics are scared of him. As far as he is concerned E is not equal to mc-squared but mc-round. Ever since he threw Balwant Rai through the glass door, crushed numerous bones and made them into gruel with his dhai-kilo ke haath, yanked out a hand-pump out of the ground in “Gadar” and laid to waste an entire battalion of the Pakistani army with his lion-like roars, Sunny D has owned this genre of over-the-top, physics-defying violence bringing to it a ferocious “khoon pee jayoonga” “Kasam Ganga Maiya ki ghar main ghuskar maroonga” gravitas that no one else can. Of course with Sunny in, you cannot smile like you would in a Salman movie, you would be too busy holding onto your seats and praying that he does not jump out of the screen and give you one of his back-handed teeth-smashing slaps that he is famous for, if you even so much as snigger.

Ajay Devgn, good actor as he is, can neither make me smile like Salman nor tremble like Sunny Deol and this is why I guess “Singham” left me cold.

So how does one get all warmed up if he be in the mood for bone-crunching action? Here is what I would recommend. Watch the “Ghayal Returns” promo on Youtube that packs within its 30 seconds more soul-shaking delight than the two hours plus of “Singham”.

11.Lagi Aaj Sawan Ke Phir Woh [Video]: Statistics show that when a man cheats on his wife and gets caught, 64% of the time he says “But darling, when I did it with the other woman, I was thinking only of you. Only your chehra was in my mind.” This song captures that excuse perfectly. Lalit (played by Vinod Khanna), feels the hots for employee Chandni (Sridevi) and that transparent yellow sari she wears isnt helping matters any. But since he is a virtuous hero, he cannot show lust.  And so we have him reminiscing sadly of his “dead wife” (Juhi Chawla) dancing sexily in the rains, as a surrogate for the person he really wants to see getting wet.   How noble. Water I tell you. Plays so many tricks with your eyes. And your morals.

10. Aa Jaa Jaane Ja [Video]: Salman Khan has always been the patron saint for heroines and beauty queens looking to make their mark in Bollywood. At one point of time,  Pakistani import Somy Ali was his..err…muse. In this sensual song, she combines with wind, enormous quantities of water  and Sunil Shetty’s  ” Is that a dumb belle to romance or a  dumbell to lift?” ferociously confounded expression to create a classic. Film students study it in class, repeatedly and with frequent pauses of the VCR buttons, for the artistically back-lit shots of Somi Ali in a window, a technique of silhouetting that would be applied in many rain songs sometimes called the “Anth effect”.

9. Bheegi Hui Hain Raat Magar Jal Rahe Hain Hum [Video]: The night is drenched and yet we are burning. Only two things can make you feel like this. Having too much to spicy food for dinner in July. Or  when Ayesha Jhulka gets up close and personal.

8. Aa Raha Hain Maza [Video]: Normally in a rain song, it’s the woman who catches your attention. There are some exceptions to that rule. In this song from “Sapne Sajan Ke” Rahul Roy totally steals the thunder from Karishma Kapoor. Not that she doesn’t try with her old “Prem Qaidi” lusty expressions. But she is no match for the Roy. He is a force of God. Okay so he has reed-thin arms, a pigeon high-body-fat-per-centage chest and even a slight paunch. But that does not prevent him from taking off his shirt, such is his Dada-ian spirit. I don’t know about you but a lot of men would be quite insecure making love in a room full of galloping horses, considering that whole “hung like a horse” thing. But so much “maza” has been brought on by the rains that the man here does not care even if he comes second best in the comparison. Respect.

7.Its Raining [Video]: Anu Malik once tried to go international. He made an English version of “Kaali Kaali Aankhein” whose lyrics “You look to me a virgin, a virgin, a virgin,..Outside you are a woman, inside you are a child” made the song allegedly a favorite of Roman Polanski. But he will most fondly be remembered for the iconic “It’s raining” with its austerely simple “Dekho baarish ho rahi hai, It’s raining, it’s raining, it’s raining, Mera dil ro ra hai, My heart is paining, it’s paining, it’s paining.” which has become an anthem of people afflicted with ischemic  pain in the rainy season.

6. Sawan Ka Mahina: [Video] “Sawan ka maheena, shaadi bina muskil hai jeena, We want girl beautiful, beautiful, charming tiptop beautiful, beautiful, Julie Noorie Bobby ya phir chalegi apni gali ki Meena.” Rarely has the pining for sexual contact (euphemistically referred to as “shaadi” ) been so adroitly expressed in words, a desperation that makes men make do with even gaali ki Meena, no matter how she looks like. So powerful are the lyrics, so tasteful Ajay Devgun and Kajol’s “wannabe Mohra” outfits, so graceful Kader Khan’s steps and so enchanting is the flylike Haunnn Haunnnn refrain that this song makes my list, though there be not a drop of water in it.

5. Na Jaane Ladki Kahaan Se Aayi Hain: [Video] A shop selling “Bush” stereo systems. Dancing guys in white baniyaans, black rain coats, suspenders and sombreros playing violin. A broken steering wheel. A statue with a light which flickers when kissed. There goes a transparent umbrella. And oh skeleton umbrellas too. A tire swings by. Sunny Deol, without remnants of human skulls on his shirt, rushes by the camera doing the chicken dance. Sridevi making expressions to be copied later by Shilpa Shetty and I believe Kate Perry.  Women. Not. Coming to hand. Supremely surreal this song is. Makes you wonder—Why would anyone do LSD when one has 90s Bollywood?

4. Mere Chhatri Ke Neeche Aja [Video]: Many boys of our generation, and they may deny it today in their old age, felt the chivalrous urge to wantonly shout “Aila Ailaa” and then sing “Mere Chhatri Ke Neeche Aja” on observing some Kamla, Vimla or Salma caught in the rains without an umbrella. Such was the impact of this iconic song wherein Naseerruddin Shah, Javed Jaffrey and Aditya Pancholi (all playing killer commandoes in the service of the country) offer their umbrellas to an assortment of beauties including the slender Guddi Maruti and some “laddies” of doubtful gender.  Why “was” impactful? It still “is”. Because even now men use the line “Tu mujko de de tujhe lakh dega rabba” (If you give it up to me. God will give you lacs) to draw women to their brollies. While experts debate endlessly whether Rihanna’s “Ella Ella Ay Ay” in “Under My Umbrella” is a hat-tip to “Ailaa Ailaa” of this song, there is no doubt that it has inspired many inspired knockoffs, two of which are presented here [Video1, Video2].

3. Aaj Rapat Jaaye [Video]: What would happen if mainstream Bollywood met the alternative Hindi movie industry of the 80s?  Commercial would immediately start unfurling the sari of  art. That’s exactly what happens as two giants of the two parallel worlds, Amitabh Bachchan and Smita Patil, meet in “Aaj Rapat”. Not that we are complaining as the screen sizzles with raw sensuality with Kishore Kumar’s voice providing the pleasure-magnifying lubricant. This is the stuff of legends.

2. Tip Tip Barsa [Video]: In “Mohra” Raveena Tandon tells Akshay Kumar that a girl will commit suicide from an abandoned building at a certain time and only he can come and save her. Acting on the tip, he walks into the song “Tip Tip”. And oh what a song it is. Raveena Tandon throws everything at the camera and I mean everything. The Anth effect is liberally used, the waters of the Bhakra Nangal are let loose on the heroine, Akshay Kumar (this was when he was Master Chief and not the Master Chef that he is today) runs the gamut of emotions—from befuddlement, annoyance to final acquiescence till he, like the audience, becomes khada main saahil par.

1. Chhatri Na Khol [Video]: Some of you will be surprised to see this as my number one. There is something about this song that just does it for me. Maybe it is because it has Shilpa Shirodhkar, my undisputed dream queen growing up, more woman than anyone else (literally), churning the waters like only she can. Maybe it is because from “Gopi Kishen”, an exceptional work of art most famous for making Sunil Shetty dance in a Tshirt that said “SODA” and a scene with Shilpa Shirodhkar and bananas. Maybe it is because it has one of my all-time favorite lines “Main bhakt hoon Hanuman ka, ayoonga na tere haath mein”. Maybe because Poornima and Kumar Sanu were created by God to sing such songs.

I don’t know what it is. But every time I hear “Chhatri Na Khol”, it suffuses me in pleasant melancholia, like a good drink does on a night when the rains beat on the window pane with their million nervous fingers.

“Maza ayega mulakaton mein, bheeg jaane de bheegi raaton mein”.

It will be fun getting together, so let me get wet on a wet night.

Yes madam. Isn’t that just what the rains are for?

Many years ago when in high school, I would make it a point to go to the barber shop during Sunday mornings, precisely when it would be chock-a-block with patrons. This was so that I could wait on the rickety bench for as long as possible and read the movie gossip magazines, banned as they were at home. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, they were like a box of chocolates; you never knew what you would find. Hey look there is Mamata Kulkarni doing an asset cover-up shoddier than Bofors and oooh my God, here is shirtless Marc Zuber (he was slated to be the next big thing at one point of time) on a satin sheet with a come-hither look. But pictures are after all pictures. They became boring after a while.

What did not however were the gossip titbits— who was going out with who and who did not know about it. This was valuable information, to be exchanged back in school, hiding in the back benches during Geography classes.

Why just star-struck schookids? Everyone, from the sleepy typists to the garrulous aunties,  loved gossip magazines.  What better way to get a conversation going than with a “Have you heard about….?” After all which human being would not be interested in that hunky star who got married twice or the heroine who slapped the top producer in a party? Hence so it came to pass that gossip glossies came to occupy a central position in our lives, even though many would deny reading them, nudging the glossies surreptitiously under the bed when guests arrive.

Gossip rags still exist but sadly their golden age, like those of the once ubiquitous VCRs, are long gone. For naughty…err…glamorous pictures there is Google Image search. Quick, painless and easily minimizable. For filmi gossip, people no longer rely on specialized magazines. Newspapers give it to them, mostly on the front page, in the place where once used to be news. There are cable channels which beam gossip programs round the clock, and if that is not enough, gossip-related websites are springing up every month. Then there is the twitter revolution, getting rid of the middleman between Gods and their devotees. Now followers, at the click of a button, may bathe in 140-character sized manna direct from the heavens, and maybe, once in a blue moon, in return for a fawning tweet get a response from a star (or most probably from the  twenty-three year old public relations guy who runs his account).

Here though is the rub. What you get today in the mass of media is not really “gossip”, it is PR babble planted by those behind movie and product promotions. If you sit through a half-hour “chatpata” program, you will see about half its running length is devoted to showing so-and-so star inaugurating a jewelry store, announcing her own perfume line or attending a muhuraat and the other half wasted by the host rolling her eyes round and round as if all this is very scandalous. Even the link-ups that are talked about, usually between people who are single (i.e. not married to someone else), are purely for the purpose of pushing a “jodi” before a movie is being released. Equally orchestrated are the so-called leaked MMS-s and uncensored movie footage that surprisingly finds its way on Youtube. You know how you can detect a PR plant? Search for “love child”, “mistress”, “second wife/husband” (contact me for the other keywords) and if these do not occur at least once in something that purports to be gossip, it is not.

As to Twitter, it is just a non-stop stream of  ho-hum:  ”Am so busy”, “I need a holiday”, “I am at Cannes ” , “Watch me in…” and “My son is having a baby”. Sure there is the odd snarky celeb comment or minor flare-up but they are quickly extinguished lest the boat be rocked.

Yes that is the thing. True gossip, of the kind that makes the stars turn red, rocks the boat. And for the financial behemoth that is Bollywood today, that is one thing that must not be allowed. Which is why gossip today is homogenized, pasteurized, defanged and fat-free and real gossip mags are left gasping for breath.

Ah well. We will always have the back issues.

5. Y. Raichand

Net Worth: 50 billion

Living in a Scottish castle, commuting by helicopter, and having daily parties where hundreds of women dance in lock-step, the Raichands have always symbolized opulence,  khandaani wealth and old world Indian values. Though they maintain their position in the list, primarily because of their investment in high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, heart-shaped balloons, pink cards and romance novels,  it has been a stormy year with the next-in-line providing a record 17 flops (if we include his 3 identical copies on a mobile ad, it would be 51 flops), long-time confidante and business partner Kamar Singh defecting and the patriarch tweeting non-stop through it all without much of an “Idea” as to what’s going on.

4. Loin:

Net Worth: 100 billion.

Replacing Kunwarji who is now spending his Lamhe in jail after being caught by an “underage” sting operation, Loin jumps into our list at number 4 this year  because of the appreciation of “Sona” in world markets following the credit crisis. Owner of  Loin Enterprises, originally dealing in contraband gold bullion, he has been off the charts for quite a while. While Mr. Loin declined to be interviewed saying that “saara saher mujhe already jaanta hai” , Mr. Raabert, corporate communications, speaking exclusively to Borbes (full interview for registered users), gave us some vital insights into their corporate strategy.

We have traditionally been in the “Sona” (gold) and “Mona” (white East European girls) market with “Mona Ke Saath Sona” as a value-added service. Recently, with the scrapping of IPL nights, some of our traditional business areas have been adversely affected. Luckily though, the appreciation of gold has more than compensated for these losses. Our greatest money-earner though has been our recently introduced value-added service offerings in the mobile telephony market where we, without telling the subscriber of course, sign them onto “Get an Ajit joke every day”. I cannot tell you how many people love reading “Smart Boy” on their phones. Of course we have a service de-activation facility, people call in if they want to cancel and hear a recorded voice which says “Tawny isko mobile se immobile kardo,  zindagi se unsubscribe automatic ho jayega” and once they hear that, all of them  decide it’s not a bad idea to pay Re 1 a day.

3. Dr. Dang:

Net worth: 500 billion

Dr. Michael Dang, the education magnate and owner of Karma Enterprises, had a marvelous year. His self-help book “Thappar Ki Goonj: Don’t get mad, Get Even” sold more copies than the sum total of all Bibles and Agatha Christies sold. His network of management institutes (I3D: Indian Institute of International Dreamers) expanded powerfully,with the new “Super-accelerated MBA in a Day” and “Turbo-charged MBA in an Hour” programs becoming insanely popular. Talking to our reporter Dr. Dang said “MBA diya hai abh PhD bhi denge, aiye customer tere liye” and gave us a preview of his “PhD in a second” program (details available for registered members), which we have been told has had a massive advance response, with a future leader of a moribund Eastern state already singing up for the PhD. He also expressed his interest in moving into social gaming—-”Why kill people when you can kill their time?” was what he said at the end of the interview, while squirting a syringe full of tomato ketchup on his bald head.

2. Mogambo:

Net worth: 1000 billion.

Mogambo’s core business of selling missiles that look like dildos and dildos that look like missiles remains as strong as ever. Taking advantage of regional insecurities and the steadily growing indebtedness of deficit-ridden USA to the People’s Republic of Dongri-La and their leader Dong, Mogambo has been successful, principally through his agent Fu Manchu, in selling a large number of missiles and dildos to Dongri-La. What has been surprising though for industry-watchers has been his foray into lobbying, first brought into focus in the infamous Rodia tapes wherein prominent journalists were caught telling him how they had pushed his agenda surreptitiously in the media space to which the elusive billionaire’s voice was captured saying “Mogambo Khush Hua”.

1. Kancha Cheena:

Net worth: 500000 billion

His first real-estate deal was the small coastal village of Mandawa which he converted from a sleepy fishing colony to a pleasure resort. From these small and humble beginnings, Kancha Cheena has become one of the world’s richest men, with properties in Manhattan, London and of course Mumbai where he is reputed to own several “Adarsh” cooperatives. One of the very few investors in housing who was untouched by the collapse of the housing market (he recently bought Shakaal’s island lair at throwaway prices after it got re-possessed) Kancha Cheena has quadrupled his worth over the last few years on the shoulders of the Indian government’s SEZ policy.

“If you want to acquire land, the same techniques still work. Find the school-master and get him embroiled in a sex scandal”, he said, playing playfully with the bikini-strings of one of his “business associates” while we interviewed him, ” It would have worked for the car-plant but woh chief minister mujhe sirf Karl Marx ka Bangla translation dene ko raazi hua. So I did not accept. And see what happened.”. (read full interview in the premium section). When asked whether it was true that he owned an IPL team, he took a sip of martini and said quietly “I own the tournament. I own all the franchises. Except one. That one is cursed. Even I wont touch it. That and those Kochi uniforms.”

So what will the man with the golden finger touch next? “I think I own enough land to last me a lifetime. Now I have started owning air, essentially buying spectrum —1G, 2G, 3G, 4G…any ring-rong-ring that I can find through my new front company Rajakani.”

When asked if he has any personal projects in the pipeline, he said, stroking his mustache,  “I have always wanted to murder the English language. So I am thinking of writing a book for the Indian market, popular fiction set in an engineering college….”

0. Ravi Verma

Net worth: Infinite.

Uske paas Ma hain.

It has been sad because four doyens of old-world 80s/90s single-screen Bollywood passed away in the past few months and as someone who grew up watching their movies, it would be remiss of me not to raise my virtual cap to them.

A true Bollyaddict might not know what Mcdonald’s is but he sure knows who Mac Mohan [picture courtesy here] is. Rarely has a single-line role defined a man’s entire body of work so totally as it had for Mac Mohan, the irony of which was beautifully captured in one of his last movies “Luck By Chance” where while delivering a graduation speech at a small-time film academy, he (playing himself) finds that all that the students seem interested in is in making him repeat THAT line from Sholay——”Poorey pachaas hazaar”. Mention the name Mac Mohan to a general audience and you will get some standard responses “That man who looks the same for the last forty years” ,” Oh that eternal villain’s sidekick ” and sometimes “Raveena Tandon’s uncle.”

For me though, Mac Mohan is different, more a symbol than a person who played bit “blink and you miss it” roles typically as a secondary baddie. In an age of wannabe Bollywood, where villains are no longer considered sellable, where true legends like Shakti Kapoor and Ranjeet are ignored in favor of two-bit punks, the villain’s henchman has become totally extinct. While old world villains like Pran, Amrish and Gulshan Grover are still remembered from time to time in dedications at tiresome award functions or as space-fillers in Sunday editions of newspapers, the worker-bees who aided them in their evil plans—– filling their planes with jet fuel so that they could escape, kidnapping the heroine’s mother and bringing her to the lair, folding the hero’s sister’s sari after it had been undraped from her, scoping out nubile nymphets for the lusty thakur, remembering the exact bounty announced on the dacoit boss, wearing white suits and standing discreetly in the background of the smuggler don—-have been consigned to the dead-pool of forgetfulness, their contribution to the craft of villany seldom acknowledged. And now with the death of their most recognizable icon, Mac Mohan, one can say an age has truly passed, the age of the villain’s tech-support, whose true uniqueness lay in his being nondescript.

Goga Kapoor was never as prolific as Mac Mohan. But that does not make him any the less significant. Remembered mostly as Kansa Mama in Mahabharat or as the kind don in “Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na”, and not so remembered for a performance in “Sanjay”as, to quote IMDB, a “gay professor”, for me Goga Kapoor’s defining performance will always be as the auctioneer of “jungle beauties” in the sleeper cult hit “Jungle Beauty”. It is a marvelous sequence (I have linked to it before) [Doston, yeh jungle ki naageenein woh bulbule hain jinki saanson main phoolon ki mahek, badan mein haowoon ke taazgi, aur chaal main jharnon ki rawaangi hai…aap log husn aur jawaani ke jahuri boliye is naagein ki kya keemat lagate hain?”] which to me was a prescient depiction of IPL and 2G spectrum auctions, with Goga Kapoor’s lustful descriptions of the lingerie-clad items for sale beautifully capturing the greed and avarice of modern capitalist society in a way few can.

Among the four, Bob Christo’s death received the most coverage in the media. [My favorite dedication here] And deservedly so for Bob was truly an interesting man having a chequered past, being among other things a mercenary and Sanjay Khan’s bodyguard. In Hindi movies he was the archetypical “white man” with greedy designs on our women, our music (Disco Dancer), our heritage (Mr. India) and our identity (Main Hindooostan ko tabahiyaa kar doonga) who at the end would get his just deserts, which usually consisted of having blows delivered square on the top of his bald head (whether he was hated more for his firangness or baldness I could never figure out). Whether he was a lightning rod for post-colonial India’s mistrust of the firang man or whether he provided some level of moral comfort, namely that the true enemy of the country was an outsider (in his most movies, he was the foreign client who came at the very end to take delivery or give a “suitcase), or whether he served as an embodiment of pre-liberalization India’s fear of foreign capital (he was most of the time the “smuggler” in other words the man who did not pay import duties), I cannot say for sure. What I can assert though is that I used to root for him always, knowing fully well what will happen to him in the end, with a Bob Christo sighting in a movie making me as happy as hearing the ice-cream man’s “Flurrriessssss” call at two on a hot Kolkata summer afternoon.

Rami Reddy’s performance in Pratibandh was truly disturbing (only character comparable in terms of pure evil was Anna of “Parinda”) with none of the redeeming cartoonish buffonery that so characterize villains in those times. Besides his formidable Mr T-like physical presence, it was that deadpan seriousness that defined Rami Reddy as a villain. A big star down South, his Hindi footprint is comparatively small. But even then, he is a legend, being immortalized by virtue of being part of two of the greatest movies ever made in modern India—Loha and Gunda. Famous among true aficionados as the dangerous Takla from Loha and the terrifying Kala Shetty from Gunda, I would still consider his performance as Colonel Chikara in “Waqt Humara Hai” as the most memorable.

Declaring himself as “a king without a kingdom” he came to India in order to find a land he could rule. His plan was simple—-to bump of Netaji Ramgopal Verma (yes that was the name, a very Tarantino-type in-reference) and take control of the Indian military by using a “Krypton Bomb”. As he declared to the camera “Krypton aur Bomb bananae ka formula dono research center main hai” and so in order to get at that, he launched a spectacular assault on the research center. So scary was he that in an action sequence in the said research center, he stands in front of a scientist and that man (PhDs are never those with a strong heart) actually jumps up, bends his head to the side, closes his eyes and falls dead before Colonel Chikara can even fire. I will be honest. Colonel Chikara would have succeeded in his efforts of making India his kingdom had he not made one wrong decision—-he crossed paths with Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty and as any movie director today knows, getting mixed up with Akshay Kumar means absolute ruin. Add Suniel Shetty to that and not even God can do anything. Though to his credit, Colonel Chikara did come close. Real close.

I would like to conclude by linking to a very favorite song of mine [Video], a dedication to all these so-called “small time” villains. Pictured on Bob Christo (movie: Farz ki Jung), it is one of the very few times that one of these lesser known lights has been given the screen-time they deserve, without a hero in sight to beat them up and provided with pliant pretty women, one of whom strips following Hindi movie’s version of Zeno’s dichotomy paradox where the vamp’s process of unclothing is never complete.

Before the song starts, Amrish Puri (another great no more with us) says poignantly—–

Thank you, thank you Mr. Burger. Yeh to tumhari greatness hai. You are great. I am great. And we will have great fun.

Thank you Mr. Christo, Mr. Mac Mohan, Mr. Reddy and Mr. Kapoor. You have been great. And together we have had great fun over the years.

Rest in peace.

Welcome to the Hindi movie industry’s only publicly voted awards, the FilmEffs, as unique as the Bee Cine Awards, the Bar Screen Awards,  the India International “Who is the Brand Ambassador” Awards, the Producers Gold Awards and the What-the-fuck-is-this Awards where the public votes for the best of Bollywood, using the same electronic voting machines that installed the current government and the results tallied by the same accounting firm that handled the account of the great software giant, Mithyam.

Welcome to everyone who will win an award tonight. Welcome to everyone who will perform tonight. Put these two together, we have the entire audience. Since those who came to know (purely on the grapevine since our awards are kept in a lockbox) that they aren’t getting awarded suddenly developed “other engagements” and decided to cancel. To them I say “Get your own award show.”

I just can’t tell you what an honor it is to be hosting this show today. I look around me and I see an august gathering—-the Deols, the Khans, the Sinhas, the Sumans, the Bachchans, all of whom say that they took to acting because “it was in their blood”. And I realize that this hall has more gaddis occupied due to family connections, than even the Congress party.

Well, what a great year for Hindi movies 2010 has been.

Jhakass Kapoor, India’s “Man Grove” , the brand ambassador for our forests,   made us proud in Hollywood. Verily as the government has shown us, in matters of “One Two Ka Four, Four Two Ka One”, there is no country better than us.

Tees Mar Khan”, the biopic of Suresh Kalmadi was a big one this year. Pity that based on its collections, one could not even say “Sir U made lacs” to it. With it and other similar great movies like “Action Replay”, Khiladi Kumar  is now close to becoming what he should have been all his life—-a chef. On second thoughts, having seen his TV show, I doubt that too.

This year, Salman didnt kill any human or beast. But he did quote George Bernard Shaw in his movie “Veer” trying to explain why he is always shirtless—Clothes don’t make a man, man makes clothes.  Which I believe is a bigger crime.

Abhishek Bachchan did more to punish the good name of “Ravana” then Lord Ram could have ever imagined doing.

Bebo and Saif stayed together. So did John and Basu. And stay together they will, at the very least till the joint contracts they have signed for promotional appearances as a couple do not expire.

Hrithik Roshan made something that ensured that Yaadein won’t be his worst movie and Sanjay Leela Bhansali showed that one could do worse than Saawariyaan. Not that I thought I could ever feel for Aussie racists, but Emran Hashmi, in “Crook”, made me empathize even with them.

That’s the power of Bollywood.

It educates. Who knew that snakes might be reptiles but they have mammalian appendages? Who knew that people in the south of US still live, talk and dress like they used to in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and that acting means moving your head to one side and move to-and-fro on the other foot? Who knew that the female freedom fighters in Chattagram may have been caught without revolutionary literature but never without their make-up kits?

It makes us cry. Vivek Oberoi did it, in every scene of “Prince”, struggling to remember which of the three comely lasses throwing themselves at him is actually his girl-friend. In contrast to real life, where his girl-friends are only in his imagination.

It makes us laugh. Uday Chopra in “Pyar Impossible”. Sonam Kapoor on twitter trying to appear intellectual.

Well, we have a great show for you tonight. Priyanka will be performing—having seen the rehearsals I can assure you that for the Income Tax men, who gave her three seconds to open the door when she was in her night-clothes, got their money’s worth.  Sheela will also be showing off her jawaani. But you knew that didn’t you? An award show in India without an item from her is like a transaction in Pakistan without Zardari taking a cut.

Before I forget—-Girls, your tax deduction forms are backstage—-please don’t forget to sign them. Else poor Shahid Kapoor will have a heart attack, next time he is discovered in Priyanka’s flat. And poor Ranbir, still recovering from a bruise on his hands trying to slide down the pipe when the IT men burst into Sheela’s house, would also appreciate this basic decency I am sure. He had a very busy shuttle-cocking year, that we all know. So cut him slack, ya?

Some people call this the “Oscar night for India”. I disagree. To quote a great man, we here dare to go beyond the Oscars. Tell me sir, would the Oscars have the Best Actress dancing an item number—-can you imagine Helen Mirren being made to dance if she wants an Oscar? Can you think of Robert De Niro fighting backstage and calling an angry press-conference because Al Pacino won an award?  Can you imagine the award being taken away from Hillary Swank and given to Meryl Streep, just because maybe she is the brand ambassador of the event’s sponsors or because Hillary Swank came late to the show?Can you imagine Keanu Reeves winning The Best Actor Award every year? Can you imagine a movie like “Expendables” getting twelve nominations? No.

Because dear sirs and madams, our awards are not about excellence. They are about hope.

How else can Rampal get nominated for an acting award? Tell me……

And now I give you Yana Gupta, performing her own rendition of “Jhalak Dikhla Ja” followed by the Music Awards section of the night, sponsored by Canon photocopiers.

Let the ass-kissing and back-patting begin.

And oh if you are looking for back-kissing and ass-patting, there is the after-party for that.

I had gone to see teenage-wet-dream Divya Bharati and hiding-fat-by-wearing-sweater Rishi Kapoor movie “Deewana” the very day it was released, little knowing my life was going to be changed. It was then, just like how Moses saw God behind a burning bush when he least expected Him, that I saw a similarly magnificent vision, sliding on a block of ice, singing “Koi na koi chahiye pyar karne waala”. I had seen him before in “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” but there I did not know it was him, his performance being overshadowed by an attractive lady, playing the architecture student in a hat, a lady who would since go on to be a God of Big Size Things in a different domain. After an intense hand-throwing performance with a curious propensity to curl his lip and make his eyes red, something I had never seen before and which at that time made me go “Wow aisi deewangi dekhi naheen kaheen”, this man slowly started vanishing into the woodwork of Bollywood, like Avinash Wadhavan and Ayub Khan, sometimes being seen driving Nagma on bicycle (King Uncle), dancing behind Divya Bharati as she worked it in a delectable black top (Dil Aashna Hai), being whispered about in the men’s room for “that” scene in Maya Memsaheb or playing second fiddle to Nana Patekar as the loveria-afflicted hero in “Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman”, a movie conjectured to have inspired the growth of Satyam under Ramalinga Raju and also the “taali bajao” theme song of those who walk the middle path— “Aaee Raju Chal Aaja Re Baaju” [Video]

And then he rose from the dying. Having gone to see a low-buzz movie called “Baazigar” only to enjoy Anu Malik’s signature “Main milee tu mila duniya jaale to jaale” vocal riff (which I still worship), I was blown away. From that iconic “Madaannnn Chopprraaaaaa” supremely bloody male-male penetration (even today that scene lingers with me, for instance when I saw “Dil Bole Hadippa” the other day I had this urge to shake my lip, yell “Adityaaaa Chopprraaaa” and run into a high-tension wire) to the historic Knight Riders-throws -down-Rajasthan Royals from the top of the building (a scene that totally caught me by surprise, in a way the ending of “Usual Suspects” did) to the naughty “zip up” move on the heroine’s behind to the scene of Shahrukh Khan in a towel playing tennis and jumping into a pool (a scene that electrified, I have been told, more people than Kajol’s towel dance in DDLJ). “Baazigar” was simply history. The launch of something epic.

Desiring more of this man, I went first-day first-show to Priya cinema hall to see “Darr”. That day for some strange reason the Kolkata chapter of the Sunny Deol fan club had booked tickets en masse (all dressed in bandanas like Sunny Deol in the movie) and as luck would have it, my seat fell right in front of them. And throughout the length of the movie, these maniacs kept screaming “Sunny tor baap” “Juhi tor maa” (Sunny is your dad, Juhi is your mom) whenever the love-obsessed anti-hero would slant his head, slit his red eyes and quiver his lips. Thanks to these inconsiderate fans, I could not fully appreciate “Jadoo Teri Nazaar” which would go onto become the anthem of frustrated stalkers as every Romeo from Khardah to Kankurganchi went K-k-kiran at bus-stops nor could I wrap my mind around the superhuman feat wherein Sunny Deol starts chasing the anti-hero from the mountains of presumably Switzerland right to the beach.

With my Higher Secondary exams over and reeling under a disastrous Joint Entrance Exam, I went to see “Anjaam”.  I came out shaken (one of my friends said “The Higher Secondary exams were better than this movie”) unable to decide which was more terrifying—–Madhuri Dixit’s stuffing money down throats, eating human beings or Dipak Tijori as the hero. What however I am sure about is there was more blood spilt in “Anjaam” than all the blood spilt in the seven Saw movies. No two ways about it.

Karan Arjun came and went—primarily a two hero flick with the star turn being provided by Rakhee with her maniacal “Mere bete Karan Arjun aayenge. Dharti cheed ke ayenge. Aasman todke aayenge”.  So did “Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na”, making not much of an effect at the box office, despite an endearing (some would say his best along with Swades) performance as a golden-hearted loser and one awesome awesome musical score including my personal favorite “Kab se kare hai tera intezaar”.

And then it happened. Possibly his greatest triumph. “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” —a movie that rewrote Indian movie history. Fresh in college and suffused with the lovey-doveys, I swooned. As did an entire generation. Na Jaane Mere Dil Ko Kya Ho Gya. Abhi To Yaheen Tha Abhi Kho Gya. Soon everyone was standing at bus stops, swinging their head sideways, imagining an SRK dimple on their cheeks as they sang to their imaginary muses (mere khawabon main jo aaye) hoping that one day, while on the Canning Local squeezed in like sardines between the vegetable vendors and industrious pickpockets, they could stretch out their hand and a Simran would grab it.  Come fall in love.

However DDLJ also killed the man for me. From that time, he became eternally typecast, trapped in the alternate reality of the Chopra-Johars, unwilling to take a risk with his image essentially strait-jacketed playing the “lover boy” . With even the same name. Rahul. Mar gya Rahul. Rahul naam to yaad rahega. A character so infuriatingly real that recently an American terrorist was planning to travel to India to take out a prominent Indian actor identified as “Rahul” [Link].

Which is why I did not like “Yes Boss”. And could barely sit through “Dil To Pagal Hain”, a movie I am sure was commissioned by the military-industrial complex to sell red heart-shaped balloons (remember the song “Chand ne kuch kahaa”). Ditto “Pardes” (Agar Ganga se pyar karna gunha hai…to [goaty bleat] hai…hai…) helmed by Subhash Ghai who brought novelty to the genre by telling people to “rise in love” (in Taal) rather than “fall in love”. The final nail was driven into my devotion for the man when in 1998, the Karan that Rakhee had prophesied in “Karan Arjun” arrived, forging a Big Ears-Noddy duo, the greatest commercial alliance to be seen in Hindi moviedom.  “Kuch Kuch Hota Hain” came into being, bringing into existence the most irritating over-precocious kid ever captured on screen and strengthening the formula that would be the bane of Bollywood till today.

Not that he was still was not making some delectable movies. Like “Ramjaane” which created a cult of white coats and red ribbons around the head in Kolkata and the reciting of poetic lines like “Raat badi choti hai lekin baat bari long ala ala ala long ala long”. Or “English Babu Desi Mem” where…oh who am I kidding….that movie I loved because of Sonali Bendre and “Bharatpur loot gya ui mere amma” and “Abhi abhi solaah baras ki hui”.  Like “Koyla” by far his most intense action movie with some of the most spectacular sequences ever shown in mainstream Bollywood.

My final falling out with the King happened when we went to see “Duplicate”. For one, porn MMS’s had more detailed plots than that one had. If that was not enough, I was sitting beside a guy friend, a friend who worshipped the King so much that he had a bare-chested picture set as his desktop (his retort was “What do you expect? Me to put a picture of Sonali Bendre? What will my parents think?”). As the hero took a bath, I whispered to him “So paisa wasool”? Immediately a slap hit my cheek. It was my friend, in great wrath, lashing out at having his private moment ruined.

That was it for me. Getting slapped in public for him. Yeh thappad ki goonj and all that. The last straw on the camel’s back. Honestly. My faith was finally broken.

Then doing graduate studies in the US, I went to see Asoka with a few friends. My verdict was simple: this movie was the revenge of the Kalinga rajya on Asoka’s legacy for two reasons: the genocide perpetrated on them and the dropping of Debashish Mohanty. Reducing one of the greatest stories of sin and redemption to a princey romance story with Samrata Asoka leaping out of lakes in superslow motion and making underwater love this was one King’s desecration of another. Then there was Mohabbatein, the five love-stories-in-a-movie, with the King playing Kapil Sibal trying to scrap exams so that his wards may make music and make love. Followed by Devdas which we went to see from Stonybrook in a group of about fifty, sitting in front of the Indian theater playing Antakshari (we had arrived two hours in advance) and then entering to find that the Indian proprietor had oversold tickets. Which meant many of us saw the movie sitting on the stairs, as we were blown away by the assault of colors and the “maar daala” overwrought acting. Followed by “Veer Zara” where his acting as an old man was distinguished from that of young man’s by a slight shake of the head and three strands of white hair, though the final scene where he recites “Main quadi no 786″ as the Pakistani judge starts clapping was deeply moving, a sentiment captured by an Youtube commenter

thanks are due to you dude, for uploading such kind of ultimate videos…. long after i saw the movie in theater, i recalled the moments when i was literally crying at this very moment.. great? movie, great scene, great moment, great words spoken, great acting by the kingly person, and great work by you to have uploaded it..

There have been many more—of failed marriages with Kings XI owner and of rebirth and of a government employee who is unrecognizable without a mustache— none of which have had a fraction of the impact his dozen “Aiiiiis” in “Army” or one nod of his head in “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” had on me. Why— I have often wondered? Is the King no longer as magnificent as he used to be? Or has the King remained the same while I have moved on?

Of late as old age approaches and each day means that I am closer to the end, I contemplate more and more. Was I wrong all along? Is He not the King but God himself? Commentator Rajib thinks so and he has made a very compelling argument in the thread of this post. And he may have a point. When I went to see “Om Shanti Om” in Laurel in a packed theater, the moment He came onto the screen brandishing his six packs, an auntie sitting in front of me screamed “Hai mar jawaan” in what I can only explain as religious rapture. Not only she but also an uncle cried out “Ohhhhhh” in a way that was distinctly orgasmic.

Yes it make sense. After all in Veer Zara does he not sing “Main Yahaan Ho Yahaan Ho Yahaan” thus informing us of his presence in everything—-T20 franchises, calling card advertisements, wedding party dances, Bollywood nights, game shows, press conferences, in cricket stadiums handing out CDS of his latest movies? Is this not the ultimate proof of his divinity?

Recently He turned forty-four. On the occasion he announced his ambitious plans for the world of mice and men, in a style that he has made his own. [Link]

Now I want to do something in return. I want to bring a smile to the faces of youngsters. I don’t want to start an NGO, but I do wish to do something for the cause of the girl child… The feeling of wanting to give is stronger now than it has been. I think of life as work. I want to introspect as to which direction I should take my life in. I want to do something to save the environment. Honestly, I haven’t done my bit yet but I will start now.

Bringing smiles to young people. Do something for the girl child.  Introspect. Save the environment.  Sell money transfer packages to India. And dance to “Love mera hit hit”. Which mortal can do all this?

Happy birthday King or God whoever you are. Where would be all without you?