The Fall from Grace

Karan Johar’s TV show offers just a glimpse of the rudeness that has overcome Bollywood.

At the recently concluded literature festival in Jaipur, Javed Akhtar lamented the loss of genuinely sad and romantic songs in Hindi cinema. He spoke of the lack of grace and gravitas in today’s lyrics. “Maaf karna,” he said, “lekin tehzeeb thodi kum ho gayi hai hamare gaano mein.”

Tehzeeb, meaning culture and a certain decorum, is hard to find in Bollywood songs these days. Or for that matter in Bollywood. The conversation, in public at least, is overrun by risqué statements, shrill insults and a mystifying lack of class.  There aren’t any boundaries anymore. For evidence, look at the current season of Koffee with Karan on TV.

Highlights include: Deepika Padukone’s infamous statement that ex-boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor should endorse a brand of condoms; Sonam Kapoor declaring that everyone in Bollywood has an atrocious sense of style—or as she so eloquently put it, “They all suck”; Saif Ali Khan saying that if he were a product, his tagline would be “reliable, strong and very long”; Anil Kapoor revealing that Shilpa Shetty had some noticeable lip work done during the making of their 2002 film Badhaai Ho Badhaai; and Suzanne Roshan assuring viewers that husband Hrithik looks hotter in fact without any clothes on. Not to be outdone, when Karan asked Hrithik if he would pose naked in Playgirl for a billion dollars, Hrithik replied that he would do it for free, adding, “If you have the best car in the world and someone wants to pay you a billion bucks to take a picture of it…”

Karan Johar’s show is the mother lode, but graceless behaviour abounds even when there are no rapid-fire rounds and hampers to be won. So, when columnist Shobhaa De was harsh on director Punit Malhotra’s film I Hate Luv Storys (she suggested that he be spanked in public), Malhotra retorted with a tweet that suggested that De is ‘a fossil who is getting no action and going through menopause’, which the film’s heroine, Sonam, promptly retweeted to her followers. When Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish unceremoniously tanked, Salman Khan, riding high on the success of Dabangg, reportedly said: “Usme toh makhhi udd rahi thhi, lekin koi machhar bhi nahi gaya dekhne.”

When did rudeness become the default conversation mode in Bollywood? I asked Karan Johar, who functions as both architect and arbitrator. He insisted that his show always had its share of controversial remarks but what’s changed is the scale of media coverage. Tabloids and Hindi TV channels hungry for fodder convert stray remarks into cacophonous headlines. But Karan also acknowledged that the inherent nature of the industry has changed. “Earlier there was some semblance of community,” he said, “but now we’ve become totally fragmented. There are too many middlemen, too much money and a total lack of dignity and grace.”  I also asked Rishi Kapoor, who was so offended by Deepika’s condom remark that he almost severed ties with Karan for instigating it.  Kapoor said he felt old talking about this. “I have no idea why it has changed so much in five years, but there is a certain open-mindedness, an almost rudderless freedom and rebellion. It was never like this in our time.”

Perhaps because there wasn’t enough incentive to be badly behaved. Today, boorishness has its own rewards—headlines, TRPs, and if you are noisy enough, a lucrative star slot on television (Dolly Bindra anyone?). Rudeness equals attention while politeness pales into the shadow. Or perhaps Bollywood has confused crass with cool. So the ability to discuss one’s sexual prowess or deride someone else’s clunky English accent on national television is seen as undeniably hip. Or perhaps as De wrote in response to Malhotra’s fossil tweet, it’s ‘a question of breeding and upbringing.’

Perhaps there just isn’t any room for tehzeeb any more, either in lyrics or in life. Rest in peace.

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Anupama Chopra