VILLAINS, TAILORS & STEREOTYPES

The man has a mountainous mole on one cheek and a long scar on the other that can scare you stiff. And a stare through the bushy brow that can browbeat the lion-hearted. In a clean-shaven urbane avatar he dresses flamboyantly and hatches gory plots as he massages his tonsured pate. But in his down-market edition, he dons a T-shirt on a lungi and an amulet on his arm besides a tiger nail pendant around his neck while sporting a fiery handlebar moustache. Meet Mr Villain from the world of Hindi cinema, the quintessential Mugambo alias Jaggu Dada.




For decades, the cinema-czars from Mumbai have been dictating rigid costume codes for various movie characters, thereby churning out celluloid stereotypes. As with the comedian who flits around mostly in knickerbockers, if not in a warm pair of long johns with the loose ends of its draw-string hanging in front.

The rustic hero lands at the city wearing dhoti-kurta and a crew-cut with a tuft hanging from behind his dome as he flaunts Santoshima's vemillion tika on his forehead. Hugging an old iron trunk that contains all his worldly possessions, he swears by Bhjarangabali in Bhojpuri.

The country heroine (with plucked eyebrows!) roams the hillocks with a billy-goat in tow(soon to be replaced by the hero) wearing long-sleeved blouse on top of a knee-length pleated skirt and her hair in a single plait. To maintain her equilibrium (and to attract the attention of village desperadoes), she wears a pair of silver anklets which, in due course, will provide the opening jingle for the duet that she will sing with the sheharibabu in a desolate barn on stormy night.

Scores of characters parade through the movie bearing the stamp of their vocations. The tailor dances at his friend's baraat wearing a measuring tape around his neck. The doctor unfailingly dons his white coat with the stethoscope coiled around his neck (like Lord Shiva's serpent) even while attending his patient's funeral (just in case the corpse stars blinking).

But the police inspector is real case in point. For one thing, he wears his uniform even in bed, and for another he can't speak unless he keeps tapping his left palm with a baton. His favourite wind instrument is the police whistle which he blows either to kill time or to entertain the fleeing criminals.

Finally, what most of us don't realise is that the Mumbai filmdom has universalised the nightie as an all-weather, all-occasion garment. Today, if the nightie trade has become a golden goose, the credit should go to all those lovelorn heroines who, clad in nighties, sing soulful solos on the decks of the house-boat braving the biting Kashmir chill.

The Nightie Phenomenon:

Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/

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BOLLYWOOD MEDICINE

When the recently wed heroine faints, the entire audience is convinced that she is in the family way. But not the heroine's dumb relatives who summon the family quack. As the medic in white coat feels the pulse of the recumbent damsel, a knowing smile plays on his lips before he proclaims " Mubarak ho. Aap ki bahu maa bun-naywali hai ".

The Bollywood , in connivance with its subsidiaries down south has, over the years, evolved a vast speciality of celluloid medicine - the Cellopathy - of which the ' pulse method ' of diagnosing pregnancy is just a minor exhibit. And with the dizzy spells being labelled as the cardinal sign of pregnancy, respectable unwed lasses can't even faint in public without raising the society's collective eyebrows. But wait...... there is more.

Cellopathic manuals, for instance, expound that a snakebite victim would croak if allowed to nod off. Therefore the hero cajoles his cobra-bitten paramour into a song and dance sequence to ward off sleep while his sidekick dashes off to fetch the doctor. But even before the help arrives, the guilt-ridden cobra makes an encore, only this time to suck the poison out of its victim.

Goofier are the ways in which the on-screen characters showcase their ailments. A man about to go bonkers opens the proceedings with an alternate bout of laughing and crying and then tears his clothes into slivers before roaming around with a heart-wrenching song on his lips.

A terminally ill patriarch launches into a lenghty oration on the virtues of thrift while his relatives drench him in gallons of tears. And finally when he runs out of steam, the sudden closure of his eyes in sync with pivoting of the head to one side signals his demise. And taking the cue, all the relatives dive on to his body to expedite his passage to the nether world.

A Bollywood potboiler is repository of wonder cures. A person afflicted with amnesia (loss of memory), for instance, listens to the family signature tune and, after a bit of struggle, regains his memory shouting "Maaa..." or "Bhiyyaaa...." depending on who composed the ditty. A wheelchair-bound paraplegic heroine, threatened by the villain's amorous advances, jumps out of the carriage and runs like a bat out of hell.

But the Indian filmdom's ultimate trail-blazing innovation is its ridiculously simple blood transfusion technique. All one needs is long India-rubber tube with the donor's vein at one end and the recipient's at the other. As the blood gushes directly through the 'hotline' into the patient (to the accompaniment of the song " khoon ka rung ek hai..... " in the back ground), both blood-brothers beam contentedly at each other. Bloody smart - or what?

Clipart courtesy: http://www.mecombliteracy.org/

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