Aamir's Zeitgeist

As a lightning rod which captures the country’s mood, one could do worse than look to Aamir Khan for leads.

His recent track record of delivering box office hits proves that Aamir is an unparalleled purveyor of zeitgeist —perhaps like few others of today. Like the Raj Kapoor-Khwaja Abbas combo that defined the socialistic 60s and later, the Salim-Javed duo that gave voice to societal anger with the angry young man persona of Amitabh Bachchan, Indian cinema has always had sutradhars who have told the story of their age with sensitivity and intelligence, and whose insights have been rewarded at the box office.

And few would argue that this generation’s chronicler is Aamir Khan. After all, it was Khan who, in 2001, gave Bollywood its first youthquake with the Farhan Akhtar-directed Dil Chahta Hai which for the first time portrayed young people as they really were, and unlike the Chopra-Johar airbrushed stereotypes till then. And of course, it was Aamir who excavated and mined a deep vein of patriotism that coincided with India’s economic feel-good jollies, that saw his home production Lagaan break box office records. And again it was Aamir who expressed so eloquently the disillusionment with politics that India’s young people felt with Rang De Basanti. The relationship between Aamir and India’s young people is a symbiotic one, and it would not be wrong to say that anyone interested in understanding what makes their generation tick should study Aamir’s offerings.

So given what we know of Aamir and the intuitive ability he has to grasp zeitgeist, what can we draw from his latest production Delhi Belly? Even those who haven’t seen Aamir Khan Production’s latest film will know that it is a portrayal of urban Indian young people that has broken new ground in its depiction of bad language, risqué dialogue and adult themes. However, that is not why I find it so interesting.

What I found more noteworthy than its impish potty humor and wall-to-wall expletives is what Aamir chooses to tell us about today’s young people: that they are pretty much ideologically-unhampered, that they are comfortable with sex in all its vibrancy, (subjects like oral sex, lesbians, orgasms are all trotted out and treated as par for the course), and above all, that they are defined by an all-encompassing cool that is as endearing as it is fresh.

This is not the angry activist causerati of Rang De Basanti that wants to overthrow a government, or the swotting students of 3 Idiots who mirror middle class India’s white-collar aspirations, or even the yuppie bunch of Dil Chahta Hai with their sharp clothes and gelled hairstyles.

In Delhi Belly, we encounter young people who conduct themselves in real jobs (journalism, cartooning, flight-services), in cities devoid of the sheen of Incredible India, with a hard-worn realism. So whether it is in the rejection of the well-heeled lifestyles of their parents, or the plastic preoccupations of the Page 3 lot, the Delhi Belly bunch have an irresistible savoir faire that rings true.

With his refusal to give these young people halos or a high moral ground, Aamir Khan is telling us that today’s Dil Mangta Hai generation has no illusions, no ideological moorings and appears to have finally come of age. It will be interesting to see how these young people will vote in the next general elections!

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer