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As someone who grew up in Chennai (not south India, Chennai) I spent years watching Bollywood films where characters who were reportedly ‘south Indian’ wore ridiculous amounts of ‘gajra’ in their hair, spoke Hindi in loud voices and had exaggerated accents. They were always part of the supporting cast or worse still, comic relief. They were reduced to one heterogenous stereotype that had no nuance or insight.
Sadly, almost three decades later, nothing has changed as Salman Khan’s new film, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan shows. Or to paraphrase Lucius Malfoy’s line, just when you thought Bollywood could stoop no lower in its shameless generalization of southern India, it does.
Ever since Pushpa released and made Bollywood scratch their heads and quake in their boots simultaneously, there have been attempts at making every Bollywood film a pan-Indian phenomenon. A collaboration between actors and industries is a wonderful idea on paper. But if they are not handled competitively, they end up being nothing more than an unmitigated disaster.
Kisi ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan features Salman Khan as ‘he who has no name’ or religion and is referred to as Bhaijaan by his three brothers and everyone in his pin code. The voluntary bachelor bhaijaan meets his match in Telugu girl Bhagya, (Pooja Hegde) short for Bhagyalakshmi, who restores antiques and quite poetically even falls for one. What else can one say about a man who is over two decades older to her and says regressive things like ‘one wrong woman can break a family’?
So, Bhagya is from Hyderabad and her ‘annaya’ or elder brother is played by Venkatesh Daggubati, a popular Telugu movie star. Her wealthy family lives in Hyderabad reportedly, but their home looks like a large farmhouse style villa that could even be in Lonavala. Just before we travel to the hinterlands of Hyderabad, a banana leaf appears on screen to announce ‘Welcome to the world of South India’ complete with flower and coconut graphics. That this can happen in 2023 seems hard to believe, but this is why truth will always remain stranger than fiction.
So, cut to Hyderabad ki haveli, which is home to Bhagya’s Alok Nath-esque Annaya and his extended family who look like they emerged from a Sooraj Barjatya fantasy. They wear vibhuti and kumkum, celebrate local festivals, and intersperse Telugu dialogues with accented Hindi. Poor Rohini Hattangdi looks apologetic for being a part of this reductive mess where ‘Balaji Balaji’ blares loudly in the background when the Telugu family prays. Their last name is conveniently Gundamaneni, which Salman reduces to Gunda in an attempt to scare the villain.
But to watch grown men approaching their sixties wear a white and gold ‘veshti’ and thrust their crotch repeatedly while singing about lifting their ‘lungi’ is almost too much to bear. Does one call these hip thrusts vulgar, juvenile, or asinine? It’s a true dilemma.
The Telugu speaking folks aren’t all cute bunnies. There is also a super villain played by Jagapathi Babu who is, and I quote, a ‘psychopath and sadist’. So, men in Hyderabad are either sweet or they are nasty. There is no other option. There is a pan-Indian collaboration in the villainy too. The Telugu villain has a Haryanvi counterpart who is as much of a stereotype. There is also a legendary Rowdy Anna who became silent after being violent for a long time. No surprises about who that is, because how can a popular male actor not be allowed to indulge in senseless violence and aggression?
The desperation to woo audiences from the southern states is so strong, it leaves you feeling equal parts sorry and disgusted. The films in various south Indian languages, whether KGF, Pushpa, Kantara or even RRR succeeded because they remained rooted in their local sensibilities while incorporating universally understood themes and conflicts. Some of these films did have a pan-Indian cast. But the Bollywood actors in these films were an organic part of the narrative, not a bribe or incentive to attract audiences.
Dancing in veshtis and calling them lungis, portraying Hyderabad like a cute village from the 90’s, using random Telugu words in songs which have no significance to the characters or relevance to the movie, and casting actors to cash in on the pan-Indian trend are just a few of the many blunders committed by Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. No lungi can hide the filmmaker’s condescending attitude towards the audience he is attempting to appease. This is exactly why Hindi films have never traditionally done well in the southern states. Why don’t we focus instead on making films with characters and emotional conflicts that anyone can relate to?
To quote Salman from the film, “It’s not about power, it’s about will power”. Let’s put away the lungis, annas, and all other stereotypes and stop embarrassing ourselves in this manner.
https://indianexpress.com/article/e...kery-of-the-idea-
of-pan-india-films-8573619/
