The good book on the baddies

About five years ago, journalists started becoming figures of ridicule in Hindi films. It was evident then that just as politics and policing had became illustrations of the rot in India, journalism, too, was becoming one. Once you become the laughing stock or a figurehead for corruption in Hindi cinema, you are doomed. Nothing you do or say can take it away. So, hundreds of honest policemen probably have a rough time, just as thousands of honest and hard-working journalists suffer because cinema has stereotyped them into caricatures that represent the worst in their profession.

If this "sociological food processor" relationship between Hindi cinema and society interests you, then Bollywood Baddies is for you. It is one of the most satisfying reads on Hindi cinema in a long time. The last good book on cinema that I read was Avijit Ghosh's Cinema Bhojpuri and Jai Arjun Singh's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. However, Tapan Ghosh's take on villains, vamps and henchmen in Hindi cinema is different from other recent books on the subject in three critical ways.

One, of course, is the subject. It is written from the villain's perspective. Mr Ghosh's contention is that without the villain we would never appreciate the hero as much. This, in itself, is hugely interesting for the Hindi film buff. The idea of good versus evil at a larger level perhaps fascinates us less than the actual face and mind of evil. What was Sukhi Lala in Mother India like? What drove Dr Dang? These are questions that writers on cinema haven't bothered to answer. The larger questions of narrative style and the changing face of women, the family and the hero have perhaps interested writers more.

Mr Ghosh brings all shades of negative - hard-core villainy Gabbar Singh- style; henchmen such as Kallu in Ganga Jamuna; the anti-hero in Baazigar or Darr who becomes a villain to tackle a situation; or Mona Darling, the moll in Zanjeer. Each of these makes a fascinating prism through which to watch Hindi cinema. There is an entire chapter on henchmen such as Shetty, Jeevan and Bob Christo. The other interesting one is on vamps and their changing motivations over the years. So everyone from Lalita Pawar in Professor and Helen in China Town to Aruna Irani in Beta is decoded.

Two, he draws clear pen pictures of the socio-political situation in India when the movies were released and, therefore, the motivations and characters these villains mirrored. In pre-Independence India, the villains did not have a form or a character as clear as it is today. To quote Mr Ghosh, "They made nebulous plans, indulging in abductions and stayed obscure without intimidating in any serious way." In the forties, many of the villains were moneylenders and their inhuman behaviour shook an audience that was largely agrarian.

In the post-Independence era, employment, agricultural economy, socialism were recurring themes in our lives. And these were the themes that films such as Do Bigha Zameen or Naya Daur used to tell their story and to essay the forces of evil. So in Do Bigha Zameen, Thakur Harnam's Singh dodgy accounting ensures that Shambhu the farmer, in spite of his best efforts, loses his land. There were several films in which the villain was a zamindar with a roving eye, like in Madhumati. In the eighties and nineties, as the nexus between political power and criminals started becoming clearer, films had no hesitation in mirroring that.

Three, there is some outstanding research. Mr Ghosh does a brilliant job of capturing the milieu at a particular time and then weaving it effectively, not just around the famous films but around almost all films. In many ways, this book reads like fiction, especially if you are an Indian and are vaguely familiar with the dialogues and stories to which he is referring. Mr Ghosh's background as a former jury member at the Central Board of Film Certification and his work as former head of the Department of English at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, might have helped.

The flaws? The writing could be better. For a book that is so much fun, the style alternates between gushing and pedantic. Also, Mr Ghosh has a habit of referring to a scene from a film not to illustrate the background or the situation but to make a conceptual point. While discussing the similarities and differences between Don and Zanjeer, he mulls over the possibility of another study that could be done. "It is like looking at the number 6 from an opposite angle, something that David, a lawbreaker in Aakhree Raasta asks his son to do." The reference to Aakhree Raasta is completely random and made me read the paragraph again to see if I had missed something.

But really, that is minor stuff compared to the strengths of the book. If you enjoy Hindi films, have grown up watching them and enjoy reading a good piece of work about them, this book is for you.

BOLLYWOOD BADDIES
Villains, Vamps and Henchmen in Hindi Cinema
Tapan K Ghosh
SAGE India; 212 pages