“maar denge mujhe?...phaasi chahda denge?...marjaunga!...nahi jeena mujhe na-mardo ki tarah..na punsako ki tarah..mere saamne tumhe koi haath lagaye aur main dekhta rahu..saato ek baap ke ho to ruk...kaat dunga…ghar mein ghuske maarunga..saato ko saath marunga, ek saath marunga…”. Yes, by now most of you reading this must know who this could be(couldn’t resist starting the post with this).
Though as the title indicates, the reason for writing this post is Abhay Deol but its also about the Deols. And essentially Abhay Deol & Sunny Deol.Sunny Deol, because being a kid of late 80s & 90s,among all the Deols till then, it was Sunny Deol who had the maximum impact on me & I’m sure on many of you from the same time. Sunny Deol was our action hero.’The macho man’...’the he-man’!. Whenever he used to land a punch on the baddies who eve-teased his sister,misbehaved with his father or killed his brother, we got our emotional release & we would love to indulge. We’d love the fights & raw emotions least worried about the story/script in Sunny Deol films.Some of his films that I enjoyed & watched again & again were – Arjun(‘Mamaiya Kero Kero Kero Mama’ is still on my iPod),Joshilay,Dacait,Kshatriya(Sunny & Sanjay Dutt pitted against each other was one of the high points of the film),Ghayal,Damini,Ghatak,Ziddi(I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it on TV),Salaakhein & maybe few more that I might be missing.But then came GADAR! Reportedly, it broke all records then & remains one of the biggest blockbusters of our time.I also watched it in a theatre & while watching it enjoyed it without taking it seriously but later I realised how pervert & regressive its ‘message’ was. As I became more inclined politically over the years (& unfortunately, conscious of my religious identity due to negative reasons & various situations in our country - the media boom at the same time made it worse), Sunny Deol’s films post-Gadar left me upset & angry over ‘his kind of films’.The idea of ‘Us’ VS ‘Them’ in his movies was disturbing but what was more disturbing to me personally was the depiction of ‘villains’ in his movies.Most of the times they might be Pakistanis but it was their religious identity that was played more tacitly than their national identity.Sarfarosh was also a film that dealt with cross-border terrorism but I never felt that it was pointing fingers at somebody’s faith or at someone’s nationality per se, for that matter.
I believe just like politics can be divisive, cinema too can be. But to me cinema is a binding force.Through depicting common aspirations/dreams,common failures,common tragedies & most importantly according to me – common struggles of human beings, it binds us in some strange but a healthy way.It may not be a force that can unite but it’s a force that keep us united & sane in our day to day to life, with hope as the common thread.Thats my belief about it!And I think that’s very important & relevant(something that cud keep us united) especially in todays times when our expectations from the political class is as low as Sunny Deol’s idea of nationalism in his films.
My father has been a fan of Dharmendra (& me too and still am) & I feel his loyalty as a Dharmendra fan extended to his son because like me & my brother he also enjoyed Sunny Deol movies as much & for the same reasons.He still continues to watch his films irrespective of the increasing political/religious connotations in his films,still enjoying the Sunny Deol action. Few days back he was watching JAAL-The Trap on TV.It was the climax sequence when I came in.The sequence was in a moving train with Aashish Vidyarthi hanging outside the train, handcuffed to the window by Sunny. Mukesh Rishi(with a long beard) chasing the train in a jeep with his men & Tabu(yes Tabu was IN the gang & NOT on Sunny’s side) trying to rescue Aashish Vidyarthi, who was probably playing Mukesh Rishi’s brother.What particularly disgusted me among many other things was, while Sunny Deol was punching & throwing Mukesh Rishi & Tabu all over the place inside the train (oh yes they enter into the moving train), was the use of religious slogans in the most bigoted manner. Everytime Mukesh Rishi,Tabu or anyone from their gang approached Sunny Deol there was Azaan playing in the background or the ‘Allah-u-Akbar’ & everytime Sunny hits any of them there was a very terrifying ‘Om Namah-Shivay’ scream. Now according to me, this is not India VS Pakistan(which in itself is not a mature perspective). This is something else & it sends out unhealthy signals.What also worries me is that actors of Tabu & Aashish Vidyarthi’s caliber being part of such films.But it doesn’t disturb me as much as it does when Sunny Deol does it.He had been one of my favourites.Personally, I don’t think that he is prejudiced against any particular group/community but what I feel is that he got horribly carried away by the mega success of Gadar & of couple of suchlike movies after that & hence proved to be irresponsible as a star who once had enormous mass appeal.He left me hugely disappointed & upset as a fan. No surprise that now he has become insignificant commercially as well & that’s sad because we lost our 'action hero', shamefully. I wish somehow he gets back his ‘lost glory’ but that seems near impossible now(maybe he should try light hearted comedies with ensemble cast). Now his action seems irrelevant in any which way, at least to me. I simply do not care!
So now, most of the times I find myself either making fun of Sunny Deol & his movies(post-Gadar) or getting upset about what he has done to himself(or is doing to us).Last time he turned up in HEROES, he made me laugh & he irritated,of course,unintentionally.
Now lets come to the reason why I decided to write this post in the first place – Abhay Deol. While my transformation as a Sunny Deol fan was from liking him to making fun of him,in Abhay Deol’s case it was the other way around & that’s why I decided to squeeze in the two Deols in the same post.
I remember when Socha Na Tha’s promos started airing on TV, how me & my brother used to make fun of how Abhay looked or talked. He seemed somewhat pansy & I obviously never took him or his movies seriously so, we just joked about him.We were just not interested in how he is as an actor or how good or bad his movies are because I think somewhere at the back of our minds we never thought that he would ever be able to make it.He was insignificant! We never cared to watch his movies.
Ahista Ahista came, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. came(though I still don’t understand why he chose that role/film),then Ek Chalis ki Last Local,then Manorama Six Feet Under…while all these years I used to watch his movies in patches whenever they were on TV. I still hadn’t accepted him as an actor/hero/leading man or whatever, but there was something that was watchable about him. What was that, I didn’t know & still don’t know.Then I remember very clearly that while I was surfing channels very late one night, Socha Na Tha was on Set Max. I stopped surfing and me & my brother started watching it probably coz there was nothing else worth watching on TV & I was like..‘dekhte hai yaar thodi si..kya film hai ye saali’. I didn’t/couldn’t change the channel until the movie got over. Abhay Deol worked! After that I got the DVD of Manorama Six Feet Under.I didn’t quite enjoy the movie but again it was because of Abhay Deol I could sit through the whole movie.The movie was fine but didn’t work for me just like No Country for Old Men didn’t but Abhay Deol worked, again. Then I saw some parts of Ek Chalis ki Last Local.I enjoyed it & Abhay Deol worked,yet again.I got the DVD of Ahista Ahista but haven’t watched it yet.Then came Oye Lucky!Lucky Oye! & the debate came to an end for me.This time I was like ‘pata nahi Abhay Deol ko as an actor kaise rate karein.. par yaar iski filmo mein kuch dum to hota hai ’.
The point Im tryin to make is that Abhay Deol clicks inspite of all the odds against him & that is something very unique about him - he is not conventionally good looking,he was never hailed as the ‘next big thing’,on most occasions he has worked with first time directors. He chose films/scripts that were quite odd or even alien for mainstream Hindi cinema.I still don’t understand what his strength(s) is, but now that I have come to admire him it baffles me that why hasn’t he got enough adulation yet & how his films went unnoticed not just by the media but also by the audience.Though now one thing that I’m damn sure about is,is - that he is a serious talent & a very promising & an exciting actor to look forward to.
Fortunately Abhay is working at a time when mainstream Hindi cinema is ready for & already into experimenting.And we have ‘versatile audience’ that is receptive to ‘good’ films, thanks to multiplexes. But I also feel that Abhay Deol has the potential to get bigger than multiplexes. That’s just a gut feeling.No logic behind it.Abhay Deol is one actor who needs to be encouraged by the people in the film industry & by us, the audience.Not just because its important but also because acc. to me – the guy has earned it!
Dev.D looks promising for more reasons than one & Im hoping that it is his & Anurag Kashyap’s ticket to the success that I feel both of them deserve, coz it is(success) important. So that they can continue doing what they are doing with the same integrity.enthusiasm & passion.I wish & hope that both of them get their breakthrough this week in the form of Dev.D. But irrespective of what happens I’d continue to look forward to their films.
So thanks to Abhay Deol, the Deol family continues to make significant contributions to Hindi cinema.Its one of the film families that inspires adulation & deserves it.And with Abhay,the Deols go versatile & Im sure they'd be proud of him.
P.S : I know that I haven’t covered Bobby Deol but as I suggested at the beginning of the post itself that it is especially about Sunny Deol & Abhay Deol. Bobby Deol never clicked for me. He was promising in Barsaat,Gupt & Badal but he was never exciting. I feel he never took his career seriously.So, I don’t have much to say about him.As for Dharmendra, I’ve made a passing statement about him but writing about him would take a separate post.Maybe some other day.
Good Luck :)
P.S: This post was originally published on Passion for Cinema dated 5th February 2009, a day before the release of Dev.D - http://passionforcinema.com/new-deol-deol-oye-sunny-abhay-deol/
