Blowups of Madhubala in sepia, ‘from Raveena with love’
shells in Kargil, Sonakshi Sinha on auto rexin, or Bipasha Basu on the wall of
a roadside saloon – interest in pinups is an evergreen phenomenon, bridging
adolescence and adulthood, art and mayhem, war and peace, the quotidian and the
exigency. Pinups are the writings on the wall –be it an army post on the
Siachen glacier, or a hostel dorm in Vijaywada, and yes, sometimes even on
prison walls (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption). They are, borrowing
from Simon and Garfunkel’s oeuvre, ‘words of the prophets are written on the
subway walls’ – potent and meaningful as long as they are not taken seriously.
But some do, and a few among them leave behind stories worth telling –tales
that walk on tiptoes between the ‘real’ and the ‘reel’. Like Kusum and
Penmesta.
Kusum and Penmesta were both besotted. While Kusum is a
character on screen, and her obsession easily qualifies to be a timeless adolescent
crush for the unreal; Penmesta’s fantasies are a contemporary look at how
dreams can turn into reality, though not in the way one envisaged it. Pinups,
and the obsession they spill over in the lives of many is fascinating at times,
as it has touched the borders of our lives in one way or another, irrespective
of the time and place of our births. We identify it to be true in others at
least, even if we have not experienced it at first-hand.
Guddi (1971) directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, written by
Gulzar is a carefree pursuit of the ‘devotedness’, or ‘fandom’ in adolescence and
the extent it can go to. Kusum (played by one of the best girl-next-door ever
–Jaya Bhaduri), the beloved ‘Guddi’ to friends and family is carried away by
the tinsel way so much that when love in ‘real’ life happens to waylay her in
the shape of Naveen (acted by Samit Bhanja), she cannot see it for herself. She
decides that she is in love with the handsome Dharmendra in a way that is
hopelessly teenage from Las Vegas to Ludhiana, and as relevant now as it was
then, and shall be forever.
It do gets sorted out in the ineluctable manner that both
life, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee has a special affinity for, in the end, but not
before Gulzar has weaved a winking parallel with the legend of Mirabai, and her
uttainable love for a divine. One does not require the sang-froid of a
Mukherjee, or a Gulzar to seek out the similarity, but one do need their
insights to find the roots of a relatively present day phenomenon in the past.
Stardust is always going to wreak havoc in the lives of the star-struck, as the
divine did/does with the devoted.
Some devotees attain a special status solely on the
ballast of their devotion like Penmesta Ram Gopal Varma, whose transformation
from the owner of a video rental library to that of a hot shot director of
awesome repute is reflected in the rise of Quentin Tarantino, and Madhur
Bhandarkar in recent times. Ram Gopal Varma is self-confessed Sridevi fan, who
says that he has seen more arduous a fan than himself in a hostel mate who is
supposed to have carried on long and uninterrupted conversations with pinups of
the star actor on his walls.
Ram Gopal Varma, built this story of adoration of a
commoner for a star in his Mast (1999), Kittu (played by Aftab Shivdasani), is
a college goer madly in love with the film star Mallika (enacted by Urmilla
Matondkar). He never misses any of her films - all of which he watches more
than once, and stares for long periods of time at her pinups on his wall. He is
in a phase that everybody can identify with even without going through it
actually; the hold of pinups is so endemic. The story tries hard to follow an
unremarkable course crafted by the likes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and Basu
Chatterjee in their prime, in which it strays; but what is indeed remarkable
about the ode to one’s fantasy is the fact that Ram Gopal Varma, noted for his
hard hitting realism, chose to have a romantic but implausible ending (the
contrast becomes more glaring when set against his own creations, before and
after).
The yearning of a film star to chuck it all for a brand
new life full of security, warmth of affection is not implausible at all – on
the contrary it may be more common than one assumes, if one thinks about the
urge to have a switch that visits most professionals’ mid-career. Nayika Sangbad,1967
- a sweet Bengali love story is based on the same premise, and perhaps it was
more successful in the belief quotient because the commoner in the story was
played by the matinee idol Uttam Kumar whose charisma superseded that of the
‘heroine’ enacted by Anjana Bhowmick who
while extremely competent was unfortunately short on stardom. Ram Gopal Varma
tried to copy life as it is, but his forte is primarily love, and life in the
times of violence, and not violence in the meanderings of life per se.
Whatever be the reason, the lukewarm outcome of Mast does
indicate that it is difficult to be rational about one’s fantasy, even after
one has stopped fantasizing a long time before, and even by someone who has
made a name out of rationality as Varma.
What Ram Gopal Varma lacked in the making of his ode to a
fantasy, confessed to be shared by him and his milieu, was existent in full
force in his protégé Chandan Arora’s directorial debut-Main Madhuri Dixit Banna
Chahti Hoon, 2003. It was grippingly realistic, and singed like a wayward flame,
but the tale of Chutki (brought to life by Antara Mali), an uneducated small
town girl desperately wanting to be the nation’s sweet heart Madhuri Dixit could
not be the rage that Madhuri was, and still is to some extent.
One has to justify its dismal showing at the marquee,
with the words of T.S. Eliot –‘Human beings cannot bear too much reality’, but
Chutki’s unsophisticated explanation of her out of the ordinary aspiration is
unforgettable, and holds true for everbody in the clutch of a fantasy –then,
now, and forever.
‘Whenever I try to dance like her, a current jolts me
from top to bottom’, is what she says in her free, and unschooled demeanor.
Hindi movies have witnessed many changes from the 70’s to
the present day, one of them being the change in the name of the city from
Bombay and Mumbai, not to say anything about the numerous attitudinal shifts
brought by the general passage of time. The inflammation of the self that
Chutki alludes to while talking about her fantasy was as true for the likes of
Kusum before and after 1971, as for the likes of Mirabai in a different era.
Objects of desire may change, but pinups will be
everlasting as desire itself for (as the oldest cliché from tinsel town puts
it) the show must go on.
