Earlier, the ability of an actor to shine in a part that wasn’t as big as the lead was the yardstick to gauge a performance. But the freshness that Huma Qureshi, Radhika Apte, Richa Chadda, and Swara Bhaskar have ushered in is a mix of what they are and what they do. Now, this quartet has come to be identified as ‘the’ role
Every now and then a film makes the audiences believe in something much bigger than life itself. A reel character instills hope in the hearts of the viewers, living it in the darkness of a theatre. But soon box-office collections, return on investment and such push all things artistic to the background in filmmaking. It is such reality that runs the risk of transforming filmmaking into an exercise in redundancy after a while and more so, for the women when it comes to mainstream Hindi cinema.
leading men across Hindi cinema operate on a simple premise that the more successful they are, the more ageless they become, but the leading ladies are governed by a different set of rules. For a better part of its existence, mainstream Hindi cinema on more occasions than it’d like to remember has relegated women to being ornamentation in the grander scheme of things. Of course, intermittently there have been trailblazers such as Kanan Devi, a singer-star, who back in the 1930s was considered to be in the same league as the iconic Kundan lal Saigal, or the legendary Nargis, the diva whose Mother India (1957) has come to be seen as the standard definition of one of the greatest ever roles in Indian cinema, Sridevi, a star who could reduce male counterparts, including ‘the’ Amitabh Bachchan, to appear as glorified extras, and now Kangana Ranaut, someone who could become a superstar in her own right without ever sharing screen space with either of the three Khans — the biggest contemporary male stars.
But in spite of everything, unlike the men, actresses across every generation have always had to reinvent the order. Of late, the industry as well as the audiences is witnessing the unraveling of an interesting phase with regard to the idea of the leading lady in popular Hindi cinema. Outside of the run-of-the-mill popularity of a Priyanka Chopra, a Katrina Kaif or a Deepika Padukone, the in-a-league-of-her-own stardom of a Kangana Ranaut, the unique-in-every-singular-way stardom of a Tabu, and the must-have-second-generation recognition of an Alia Bhatt or a Shraddha Kapoor, a quartet of women has unknowingly created a special space for themselves that is far removed from the tried and tested norms of leading ladies in Hindi cinema.
Although on the face of it nothing might be traditional about Radhika Apte, Richa Chadda, Huma Qureshi and Swara Bhaskar, but what makes them exceptional is that nothing about them is not even non-traditional in terms of what has come to be associated with the unconventional in popular cinema in India. In fact, if anything, these women — even though throwbacks on yesteryears in some aspects (more on that later) — are still pretty much the antithesis of almost everything that has been assumed of actresses across all kinds of Indian cinema.
All four have non-film backgrounds and besides hailing from cities far removed from the glitz of films, barring Qureshi, they even share a similar career trajectory of transcending from blink-and-you-might-miss roles to author-backed supporting roles to the lead in the regular sense of the word.
Among the four, Qureshi enjoyed a traditional launch of sorts with an above-the-line billing in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur I and II (2012) following a successful stint in television commercials, while Apte’s first acting role was in the largely forgotten Vaah! life Ho Toh Aisi! (2005). Chadda debuted as the second lead in Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye lucky, lucky Oye (2008), and Bhaskar in Madholal Keep Walking (2009), a box-office washout. By the time the audiences saw Apte in last year’s revenge drama Badlapur, she was a known name in Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam cinema apart from being hailed as one of the most promising young actors in Indian cinema.
In Chadda’s case, in a little over four years since her debut, she has gone on to feature in a few of the most talked about films of the recent past, such as Gangs of Wasseypur and its sequel where she lived her character, Nagma Khatoon, across decades, and Masaan or Fly Away Solo (2015) where her poignant portrayal of a girl blackmailed by the police after being caught having sex with a fellow student and forced to live with the ‘stigma’ barely missed a beat whilst balancing her resume with a role such as Bholi Punjaban, the tough-talking female don in Fukrey (2013).
Following Gangs of Wasseypur, Qureshi shifted gears to play a typical Hindi film heroine in luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana (2012) and made minor adjustments to fit in a typical masala Hindi film D-Day (2013) where she played an undercover RAW explosives expert.
Much like Apte, Bhaskar, too, survived initial letdown that included a hanger-on part as a nameless journalist in a scene with Hrithik Roshan in Sanjay leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish (2010) to transform into a second lead of consequence who stood her own in Tanu Weds Manu (2011), the film which made Ranaut a bona fide star, and later in Raanjhanaa (2013).
In a very broad sense, Apte, Qureshi, Chadda and Bhaskar are actors off the beaten track and it’s not like as if popular Hindi cinema doesn’t have roles that would do justice to their immense talent. like the generation of actors before them, such as Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil and Deepti Naval, this quartet would have managed to stand out but irrespective of the strides made by generations of actors before them, it’d have always been an uphill task.
Popular Hindi cinema doesn’t love the weak-willed, and moreover, it refuses to wholeheartedly accept the ones who appear too strong. It wants those who won’t stop short of giving their all, but at the same time be open to accepting whatever it throws in their general direction. In an ideal situation, commercial Hindi cinema or what we have now come to call Bollywood wants most new actors to stand out just enough to make a mark, and once it notices you, it prefers you to be malleable enough to fit into a pre-existing mold.
A few years ago when Omkara (2006) released, it was a relatively unknown actor, up until then, at least, Deepak Dobriyal, who ended up walking off with the best accolades the Hindi adaptation ofOthello garnered. Dobriyal played Saif Ali Khan’s (Igao) sidekick and in spite of stellar performances, especially Khan’s Ishwar ‘langda’ Tyagi and Konkona Sen Sharma’s Indu Tyagi (Emilia), not just outshone his more illustrious co-stars but also ended up catching the fancy of the audiences and critics alike. His short frame along with a rather conspicuously forgettable face, the very attributes that undoubtedly would have worked against this theatre actor during his phase of ‘struggle’, helped him stand out. Of course, his acting skills were never questioned. He had been around for a few years, and in fact, he even had a role in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003), but it was only after Omkara that people could put a name to the face. Soon Dobriyal was being touted as the change and the kind of shot in the arm that commercial Hindi cinema needed when it came to actors creating memorable characters. The industry, too, took note of Dobriyal and offers started pouring in. He featured as an Indian POW in 1971 (2007) and even garnered a top-billed role in Shaurya: It Takes Courage to Make Right... Right (2008), a desi version ofA Few Good Men (1992). The former didn’t create any ripples and the latter sank at the box-office. Once again Dobriyal was complimented for his silently-suffering-accused-of-murdering-his-much-decorated-senior Army man, Capt Javed Khan, but for no fault of his, he was arraigned for not being able to live up to expectations.
His next few releases saw him try for the same, same but different with Gulaal (2009) and Daayen Ya Baayen (2010), which was Dobriyal’s first shot at playing the lead but the small-budgeted and well-intended film was stuck in distribution hell and got a limited release. The next time Dobriyal garnered praise that was commensurate with his talent was for playing R Madhavan’s wingman, Pappi, in the surprise smash hit Tanu Weds Manu (2011). The role fetched him some awards and mostly favourable reviews, but hardly looked different from his breakthrough Rajoh Tiwari from Omkara. The one who could have been the next leading character actor on the lines of a Paresh Rawal simply ended up as one of those faces attached to a good actor for whom there weren’t any worthy roles.
New Hindi cinema is replete with such examples of actors who made their mark by standing out of the crowd and unfortunately ended up becoming victims of their own success. The likes of Chandan Roy Saniyal (Kaminey, 2009) or Manu Rishi Chadha (Oye lucky, lucky Oye, 2008), Phas Gaye Re Obama (2010) got lost in the maze, and some like Sanjay Mishra, who was nothing less than brilliant in both Ankhon Dekhi (2014) and Masaan, had to wait for years before getting something more substantial than walk-on or lame comic relief parts. Yet there have been examples of a Manoj Bajpai breaking the cast and transiting from being an unknown hanger-on in Droh-Kaal (1994) to a noticeable face in Bandit Queen (1994) followed by the ignominy of being the silent sidekick in Daud: Fun on the Run (1997) to a supporting act in Tamanna (1998) to almost a parallel lead in Satya (1998) to finally the lead in Shool (1999).
But this is rarely the case for women in commercial Hindi cinema. Till only a few years ago, it would have been practically impossible to imagine someone starting off a la Bajpai or even an extra like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who ironically enough featured as a nameless waiter in Bajpai’s first big-ticket lead vehicle Shool, to feature as the female lead.
And this is what makes someone like Apte or Bhaskar worth watching out for. Between the time the audiences sat up and took notice of Apte in Shor in the City (2010) and they saw her again in the critically acclaimed Badlapur, she hadn’t done a single Hindi film, and yet the evolution from a shimmering presence in an ensemble cast to announcing her authority in a high-testosterone vendetta film was flawless. Her heartfelt portrayal of Kanchan, a murderer’s wife who is a tad too sympathetic towards the widower of her husband’s victim, not only stood out but was also called as one of the best things about the film.
Similarly, Raanjhanaa might have been Dhanush K Raja’s film all the way with Sonam Kapoor in an author-backed role besides being the breakthrough film for Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, who was a revelation of sorts as the lead’s childhood friend, Murari, but it was Bhaskar who left one of the strongest impressions by the time the film ended. Bhaskar played Bindiya, who has a childhood crush on Kundan (Dhanush) and even though Kundan uses her by first proposing marriage and then abandoning her at the altar to pursue Zoya (Sonam), the one he’s madly in love with, she can’t get herself to hate him. At best the role of Bindiya had only a handful of scenes and even lesser lines, but the sheer ferocity with which Bhaskar imbued life into Bindiya showed a new kind of heroine was on the anvil.
Another facet that makes these four unique is how comfortable they appear to imbibe the traditional novelty of an actor to be the part that they portray, while at the same time also being much more than that. Earlier, the ability of an actor to shine in a part that wasn’t as big as the lead or as central to the plot as a hero or heroine was considered the yardstick to gauge a performance. The freshness that these four have ushered in is a mix of what they are and what they do and with just a handful of performances, they have come to be identified as ‘the’ role. Their prodigious talent is sometimes hidden and revealing itself without announcing from the rooftops their artistry displays a quality of brilliance, a near feverish radiance that is almost like a slow release that enthralls audiences irrespective of what they do.
Consider Qureshi in Dedh Ishqiya (2014) where the focus is on the antics of the two bumbling petty conmen — Babban (Arshad Warsi) and Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) — and the theatrics of Begum Para(Madhuri Dixit), yet it’s the effervesce of Munniya (Qureshi), the Begum’s seemingly naïve assistant, that leaves you gasping. The ease with which Qureshi let go of a certain kind of edginess that is practically customary when it comes to non-lead characters in standard Hindi cinema while playing Munniya or the simplicity displayed by Apte in the way she approached Sapna, the not-so-modern housewife in Shor in the City, is a testimony of how comfortable these actors are in interpreting the traditional with a hint of the new. Even when it comes to playing the classical strong women, who in Bollywoodian mindset would have been slotted as someone ailing from hereditary insanity, such as Bhaskar’s reprisal of Payal in Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015), they still continue to excite audiences.
Had Apte, Bhaskar, Chadda and Qureshi happened in the late 1990s or the initial years of the 2000s perhaps they would have imploded after an initial burst and, for the want of a better illustration, relegated to playing different versions of Divya Dutt. But what makes their foray unusual from anything in the past is the alchemy of the changing audience, the reshaping of the film business itself, and also the evolving mode of film exhibition. This is precisely the reason why a Chadda post-Masaan is asked ‘what’ kind of cinema she represents. A Qureshi isn’t in a rush to sign films lest the public forgets her. Or an Apte finds herself at home across a film in any language or any format and at the same time becomes someone whose mere presence comes to be seen as a stamp of guarantee. A Bhaskar can play a mother to a 15-year-old in the upcoming Nil Battey Sannata on a particular day and the next day shift to being a foul-mouthed, feisty orchestra party singer from the volatile town of Aaraah in Bihar in Anaarkali Aaraah-waali, currently under production.
In the midst of the prevailing trends in mainstream Hindi cinema, women like Apte, Chadda, Qureshi and Bhaskar have to deal with both their independence and also the fact that their lives are built around satisfying the romantic models they grew up with. Anybody with a hint of knowledge about the way Bollywood functions would know how onerous a task making this twain meet can be and the fashion in which these four have tried to go about it makes them exceptional. One of the reasons why popular Hindi cinema doesn’t change beyond a point, even though it constantly tries to remodel itself, is that it forever seeks perfect replacements for the past. The manner in which this quartet appears to be a throwback to the past is captivating by itself and the fact that they seemed to have managed this without overtly trying just makes it more absorbing.
With Apte being a dead ringer for Smita Patil, thanks to the deftness with which she can adapt herself to various cinemas and roles; Bhaskar’s penchant for accents for her characters and her commitment to socio-politico issues that she believes in, imparting a striking sameness with Shabana Azmi; Qureshi’s allure evoking memories of a Parveen Babi or a Zeenat Aman; and Chadda for displaying the spunk of a Mumtaz, the vulnerability of a Padmini Kolhapure and the range of a Deepti Naval — the quartet suddenly becomes just the thing popular Hindi cinema needed.
Chintamani is the author of the best-selling
Dark Star: The loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna I Tweet him @gchintamani
