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Big City Blues

Bharathi Pradhan

Govinda

Where have those rustic Punjab da puttars and Biharis disappeared? Take a quick look at the stars of the '90s -- Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Sunil Shetty, Akshay Khanna, the Deol brothers. And poised to join their ranks is Abhishek Bachchan.

A motley lot, perhaps. With one common characteristic -- every one of them is city-bred. With the sole exception of Govinda, who gives off the aroma of rural India and wears the downmarket Virar ka chokra tag though Virar, in many ways, is a suburb of Bombay.

"That's why Govinda has all-India acceptability," says Shatrughan Sinha, who belongs to the dying breed of rough-round-the-corners Hindi film stars.

Govinda is the proverbial exception that oft claims to makes the rule. For in recent times only city boys with a touch of sophistication are lighting up the marquee.

"Everything has become city-city," says Sunil Shetty, himself a Bombay boy who struck it rich in the film studios. "Wherever you turn you see only city culture. Even smaller films like Bombay Boys are city-based and they've all clicked in a major way. Today even the chief minister of Maharashtra talks of urban concepts like apartment hotels.

Raj Kapoor

"With satellite channels and the popularity of music videos where the clothes are as important as the music, the entire filmgoing audience has become very city-oriented. Today's boys are also heavily into body-building, You hear 'Chalo, body banake aate hain' everywhere. Star aspirants are found in fitness centres, which again is a city thing."

Sunil himself provides the best inspiration for those who wish to use a great body as a passport to Hindi films. But that is not all, says Sunil. According to him, with biggies from the West like Columbia eyeing the Indian film market, urbanisation is all the more inevitable in Hindi cinema. And then there is a marked effort to be more disciplined in film-making, so people want educated boys to work here," comments the star, also owns a restaurant and a boutique. You really can't get much more urban than that.

"Everything around us is urbanised," puts in Rishi Kapoor, a star son who ruled the Bombay studios for two decades. "Which was the last Hindi film with a rural background which made any impact at the box office?' asks the Kapoor Khandan scion who turned director this year with Aa Ab Laut Chalen.

Rishi Kapoor argues that rural is out -- whether it is themes or people. From wearing khadi kurtas everybody has shifted to polyester shirts and trousers. Does anybody wear a dhoti-kurta any more? The days of ploughing the field with a bullock -- hal chalana -- are behind us, tractors have taken over the villages. There's nothing like rural culture any more. When I drive to my farm outside Pune, I find pool tables even in the remote villages!"

Shah Rukh Khan

Does the proliferation of city-bred heroes have anything to do with the fact that it's star sons who have the easiest entry into filmland?

"No, no, no," insists Rishi Kapoor. "The three Khans who're ruling, Govinda, Ajay Devgan... Which of them is a star son?"

"They may not be star sons but all of them -- Aamir, Salman, Ajay, Govinda -- have filmland connections," says Karan Johar, the youthful director of last year's runaway hit, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. They have easier accessibility to producers than other aspirants. This is one of the reasons why we have more urban heroes than rural ones. With the exception of Shah Rukh Khan, the only top star without filmland connections, almost all the others are boys from this industry. I would think that the only small town boy in recent times to have made a mark here is Manoj Bajpai."

Karan, however, feels more than stars sons and relatives, it is the urban setting of Hindi films that has spawned a whole host of sophisticated heroes. "The recent blockbusters have all had urban themes. Even Karan Arjun had an urban-rural backdrop. The last good rural film was made must've been aeons ago. Films no longer go back to the village. There is a marked urban flavour in all our films."

Dilip Kumar

Karan himself made a very urban film in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. "There was no rural touch in any part of it. That's simply because I was born and brought up in a completely urban environment. So my thoughts and themes are city-based," he says.

But urban roots aren't the only reason today's heroes are all from the big cities, he says. "When we make a film today we aim for the overseas market and the A grade centres in India because these are the territories which fetch us the big bucks. And these territories are comfortable with sophisticated urban themes."

That view finds an echo in Rishi Kapoor too. He says, "Today's youth are urbanised and we have a big market overseas. Like I said, it is the age of pool tables and Pepsi Cola. So our films and our stars are all automatically urban and sophisticated."

So, putting it together, the advent of the city hero can be traced to

1. The relatively easy ease relatives of those in the film industry relatives in general and star sons in particular enjoy as star aspirants.

2. The burgeoning overseas market which patronises urban themes in films and therefore attracts sophisticated, city-bred leading men, which include star relatives, fashion models and television stars.

Aamir Khan

3. The overall urbanisation thanks to the satellite channels and the fading line between rural and urban.

Does this indicate the death of small town film aspirants and village bumpkins-turned-celluloid heroes? Will there be no more Dharmendras, Raj Kapoors, Dilip Kumars in the future?

Banish the thought, says Shatrughan Sinha, who seems distinctly uncomfortable by the urbanisation of the Hindi film industry.

"Films likeKuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dil To Pagal Hai sold an urban lifestyle," he says and then expands on the theme. "Right now it is the ear-rings and Armani culture that's on. It caters to only one class, one elite section of Indians. This is the result of too much of Westernisation, the result of wanting to speak only in English when in truth we are in Hindi-speaking nation."

Wonder what someone like Jayalalitha, the politician who was a star from a very urban background herself would have to say about that last observation but the thought clearly does not bother Sinha, who continues. "A hero has to be the sheharon ka bhai as well as the gaon ka bhai. He can't last if he has only a city appeal. That's why actors like Govinda and Aamir Khan have more acceptability. Because, on screen, they have an India appeal. They are not completely urbanised in their films. An actor must have flexibility, adaptability and then only will come acceptability."

Rishi Kapoor

Sinha cites the case of Dharmendra whose son-of-the-soil image is so deep rooted that out of sheer loyalty to apna praji, the North Indian belt patronises the films of his sons, Sunny and Bobby Deol as well. The identification with their father is so strong that the sons too benefit from it," says Sinha.

The Bihari babu also doesn't think much of star children entering cinema. He chuckles and quips that becoming a hero has become some sort of family business. "People here tend to forget that ultimately they have to go the janta ki adalat. That's why so many of these star sons fail to survive in the long run.

If Sinha is to be believed then urban Hindi film heroes are only a passing thing. "It's a hi and bye phase," he assures you.

"Pop music will vanish but Lata Mangeshkar will go on for ever. In the same manner, this pop culture, this urbanisation cannot last."

That is one dissenting voice, yes, but does it speak the truth. Well, we'll leave that to that old arbiter, time, won't we?