We Are One Nation, One People, One Face

Bollywood has been called many things – ‘colourful’, ‘exotic’ and ‘vibrant’ are words thrown around by westerners trying to be polite – but nobody thinks of it as sensitive or authentic. We’re talking about an industry that allowed 26/11 to be retold by Ram Ganja Verma, so let’s not even pretend that we have standards.

This is why it’s surprising to see the outrage against Mary Kom being played by Priyanka Chopra in the upcoming biopic titled ‘Hopefully This Will Make Up For Babli Badmaash’. It smacks of disrespect and racism, they say, to have Priyanka Chopra play a Manipuri, given that she looks as Manipuri as I look like Dakota Fanning.

Now Priyanka Chopra is a fine actor who’s turned in many great performances, like the time she convinced the world that she was an actual singer. The trailer, which released this week, looks good too. It’s hard to mess up a sports film, given that they all follow the same graph: a fiercely talented underdog overcomes obstacles – social, financial, political – to rise, then fall, then train using brutal montages, the mere sight of which gives normal people a hernia, then rise again before winning the ultimate prize, i.e. dancing on Cross-Dressers With Kapil Sharma.

So the argument isn’t about PC’s talent or the eventual fate of the film – it’s about the fact that Bollywood was too risk-averse to search for an equally talented actor who looked the part. Of course, we can’t know that for sure. Maybe the casting team tried really hard, but couldn’t find any North Easterners hanging out at the Lokhandwala CCD.

To make matters worse, there were reports that prosthetics would be used to make PC look like an authentic Manipuri. And by prosthetics, I mean six army guys hanging around the set at all times. Also, Bollywood takes commercial viability really seriously, which is why I’m glad that they at least chose Priyanka, because things could’ve been way worse. I’m sure that at some point, the suits investing in the film had the following conversation:

Suit 1: What do we do to make sure this is a guaranteed 8000 crore megasuperblockbuster?

Suit 2: Ooh, let’s get Salman to play Mary Kom!

Suit 1: That’s insane. For obvious reasons.

Suit 2: Like what?

Suit 1: Duh. Bhai will only play Mary Kom if a South Indian dude has played her first.

This isn’t the first time that a Priyanka Chopra film has been accused of racism. That honour would go to Fashion, where her character, Generic Model McTemplate, goes into a drug and booze-fueled spiral that results in her sleeping with a random black guy. It is this encounter that causes her to re-evaluate her life, because like they say in India, ‘Once you go black, you better not go back because log kya kahenge?’

Of course, it’d be unfair to say that Bollywood’s only good at racism. We’re great at reverse racism too. Case in point: a largely forgotten film called Gandhi to Hitler, where Raghubir Yadav played Hitler, Neha Dhupia played Eva Braun and a bunch of neo-Nazis went, “Bro, show some respect please.” Watch this film if you haven’t, because where else will you see a bunch of brown people fight for white power? Okay, maybe in every fairness cream ad ever, but you get my point.

But to come back to PC and Mary Kom, one thing is certain: it is a story that deserves a glittering showcase and the film, like it or not, will be a hit. It will hopefully inspire young people, especially girls, to follow their dreams, so that one day they too might have their cultural identity misappropriated for an audience that’s too dumb to appreciate them otherwise.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 27th July 2014.)

If You’re Indian And You Know It, Watch TV!

Friends, Indians, countrymen and six million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living under my sink, I want to wish you all a very happy Independence Day. Independent India is soon going to be sixty five years old, or to put it in politician years, foetus. It’s weird to think that some of the people ruling us today were around during the British Raj, dreaming of the day when India would no longer be under the thumb of a white lady. They’re still dreaming.

Anyway, it’s a great time to be Indian, as long as you’re not Kashmiri, North-Eastern, poor, Dalit, a minority, a farmer, female or worse, from Kolkata. On the bright side, we did put up our best show ever at the Olympics, especially with Mary Kom teaching India about grit, grace and more importantly, Manipur. She has inspired a whole generation of women, such as small-time model Gehna Vashisht who went nude to celebrate the spirit of India and Photoshop. Having googled Gehna Vashisht, I can honestly say that I’m reminded of Helen of Troy, because Gehna’s is the face that launched a thousand STDs.

This year, as always, we will indulge in our usual display of patriotism and military might, also known as Ek Tha Tiger. Fun fact: Pakistan had reportedly banned the promos of the film, which means that every man, woman, child and goat in Pakistan has seen them. Let’s face it – the only Pakistani ban that worked was the one they put on democracy. Anyway, the promos were banned because Pakistan felt that they showed the ISI in a bad light. Hey, you know what really shows the ISI in a bad light? Kargil.

Meanwhile, our idea of celebrating freedom is nursing a hangover while watching patriotic films on TV. And by patriotic, I mean any film that shows us pulverizing our neighbour, be it in ’71, ’99 or even ’47, when Sunny Deol killed all of Pakistan with a hand-pump and got Amisha Patel in return. If you’ve ever seen Pakistani women, you know that is a rubbish trade off.

Then at some point, you take a break from the movies and start surfing news channels, and this is what it sounds like:

*CLICK*

Rajdeep: Hello and welcome to CNN-IBN. The hard-hitting question we’re asking today is ‘Is Independent India A Sexy Sexagenarian?’ And to answer that, we’ve dusted off and brought out our famous historian, Ramachandra Guha.

Guha: Before we answer this question, we must recollect the events of August 1947, 1912 GMT, 33 degrees East, 72 degrees North, when Pt. Nehru took a deep breath, and uttered the now-historic words, “Boss, Dadar kis side aayega?”

 *CLICK*

Hello and welcome to yet another edition of Newshour aka ARNAB IS AMAZEBALLS. Today The People demand to know: Are we really free? Are Suhel Seth and Mahesh Bhatt the same person? How come we never see them together? Are you Pakistani? Am I Pakistani? Is India Pakistani? And why the hell is baby nappy mein bhi happy?

 *CLICK*

KYA QUEEN ELIJABETH IS A MAANGLIK? KYA MIDGETS HAIN BHAGWAAN KE PAPERWEIGHT? DEKHTE RAHIYE INDIA TV!

 *CLICK*

The biggest spectacle is still the Independence Day parade, wherein the Prime Minister gets on top of the Red Fort and does the Macarena. OK, I don’t know what happens because I haven’t actually watched the parade in years. I mean if I wanted to watch Manmohan Singh speak, I would just stare at his picture really hard. As usual, he will make a speech listing out all of his government’s achievements in the past year, so try not to blink or sneeze.

Then a bunch of different floats will go by, each representing a different Indian state. Let’s be honest: if it weren’t for these floats, you wouldn’t even know about the new states that keep cropping up, like Uttarakhand, or Orissa (Odisa? Orisha? Oreos?) Also, I can’t wait to see the U.P float just sitting there, refusing to move until someone promises them “half-return”. And I bet the Haryana float is just one giant ultrasound machine.

So everything said and done, spending Independence Day in front of the TV is not a bad thing at all. It involves sitting around and living off the hard work of our forefathers. And what could be more Indian than that? Jai Hind. Or as Manmohan Singh puts it, (THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK)

(Note: This is my HT column dated 12th Aug, 2012. Cross-posted from here.)

P.S. ANOTHER, MORE IMPORTANT NOTE: Regular readers may have noticed that the frequency of the column has been changed from weekly to fortnightly. I’ve been assured by HT that this is temporary, but nonetheless, massive withdrawal symptoms are setting in. I want to be able to do this every week. So here’s a small request: if you’ve ever liked any of my work, please drop in a comment here saying, “Hey HT, make it weekly!”, or send in a mail to ashish.shakya85@gmail.com saying the same thing. This will make sure I don’t die alone, sobbing and curled up in a foetal position next to my laptop. And it may help get the column back into weekly mode. Help me out and may Ryan Gosling and/or Anne Hathway do unspeakably satisfying things to you. C’mon. Send that mail. Write that comment. Do it for Sachin. Thank you.