Haute Bourgeoisie

I recall that an art exhibition on India (I won’t name it) that was to be held in the late 1990s was advised not to use the word “In­dia” in the title as it would evoke images of poverty. However, by the time the “Indian Summer” festival was held in London in 2002, no one batted an eyelid at Selfridges adorning its Oxford Street windows with a glorious display of Indian luxury. The idea of India had clearly shifted, from that of the rural village to an alluring style often identified with “Bollywood”, of lifestyle, clothing, jewellery, and glamour.

This U-turn was clearly linked to the seismic changes that were taking place in India at this time—economic liberalisa­tion and many cultural shifts in society, politics, and culture—that in turn were marked in Hindi cinema, both in the industry and on-screen.

While it is well known that there had always been great wealth in India, whether that of the Mughals or in more recent times, of Indian princes, it extended to the zamindars and other hereditary land­owners. While historical films have depicted the Mughals and other royals, there have been few on their modern counter­parts, apart from Shyam Benegal’s Zubeidaa (2001). Zamindars have featured more often, whether in realistic cinema, such as that of Satyajit Ray, or in main­stream Hindi cinema, often in the sub­genres showing tawaifs or courtesans, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) or Umrao Jaan (1981). Thakurs are good and bad (Ram Lakhan, 1989; Karan Arjun, 1995) and Seths were often embodiments of evil, ever ready to extract money from the poor (Shree 420, 1955).

From the 19th century, India had a highly visible haute bourgeoisie (known as the bhadralok in Bengal), many of whom studied at public schools (in the British sense), and at elite universities in Europe and North America. They were shown in films like Mehboob Khan’s Andaz (1949), where women go to clubs to play sport, dance, and throw birthday parties, often dressed in Western clothes.

Hindi cinema has long shown metropolitan elites whose great wealth is unexplained beyond vague mentions of business. During periods where consumerist opportunities, including overseas travel and the purchase of luxury items were limited, depic­tions of modern wealth began as the use of colour spread in film. A clear example is Yash Chopra’s Waqt (1965). He told me that they created their own interior design by looking at magazines, and then improvising by using fabric on floors to look like fitted carpets. In all Yash Chopra’s films before the 1990s, from Daag (1973), Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Silsila (1981) to Chandni (1989), he cre­ated an aspirational lifestyle by mixing Indian items such as jewellery, saris and shawls with Western clothing, furnish­ings, and styling.

Why was there this focus on wealth in what were often austere times? Was it just “unrealistic” and “escapist”? It doesn’t take much reflection to realise these terms are not helpful in under­standing, let alone enjoying, Hindi cinema. Why would entertainment cinema be expected to be realistic, when it is a narrative art form that has to engage people’s interest; otherwise, why would they go to see the films and keep watch­ing them? It is better understood as what Yash Chopra once described to me as “glamorous realism”, where everything, including the characters and story as well as the settings, has to be “realistic” in the sense that what we’re seeing feels as though it could exist but is in fact a heightened reality that is more attractive than real life. Although many films seem to resemble people’s day-to-day experi­ences, they are still tinged with exaggera­tion in the actors’ beauty, the lighting, the framing, and the way the camera looks at them. Realism and melodrama go hand-in-hand in Hindi cinema.

Looking at the escapism of the 1970s and 1980s, we can see what clicked with the public as ideas of what they wanted to escape from and escape to. These films indicate people wanted to escape dreary austerity and poverty and enjoy consumerist lifestyles that were then available to the very few and highly privileged, although many “traditional” values had to be upheld.

When economic liberalisation allowed new possibilities in India and changed India’s view of itself in the world order, Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions evolved the style known as “Bollywood”. The films in a way continued to adhere to the puru­shartha, the aims of Man, looking for dharma (religion), kama (pleasure), and artha (wealth), with less emphasis on moksha (liberation).

The person who has the best under­standing of how changing India and films are linked is Karan Johar, whose company is named Dharma Productions. He has a deep understanding of the new lifestyles which many Indians seek, incorporating what might be seen as mo­dernity and tradition, framed by Indian values or Hindu family values. It is not static but shows changing understand­ings of a specifically Indian modernity where there is a cultural, emotional, perhaps religious, connection to Bharat as well as to India.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, from the beginning of this century, itself a film inspired by Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie, exemplified the beginning of these changes, and has been reworked, in some ways, in this year’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani. The film’s osten­sible theme of the enduring comedy of Punjabi vs Bengali, or money vs culture, engages with a whole range of issues in contemporary culture.

The eponymous hero and heroine’s grandparents, Punjabi male and Bengali female, shared a romance that was unable to develop as they were already married. (These two characters would have been the current hero and heroine’s age around 40-50 years ago, that is, around the time Kabhi Kabhie was made). Their grandchildren encourage them to have a brief reunion before time catches up with them. The stars are Dharmendra, the embodiment of Punjabi masculin­ity (and the most handsome of all Hindi film actors, whose real acting skills was brought to the fore by Bengali directors like Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee) and Shabana Azmi, a major figure in realist and mainstream cinema as well as a social activist.

In this film, the role of Amitabh Bachchan as the patriarch of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, is replaced by his wife in the film as well as real life, Jaya Bachchan, a Bengali playing a Punjabi matriarch called, significantly, Dhanlaxmi, while her Bengali rival is called Jamini, evocative (to me at least) of Jamini Roy.

While the Bengalis are distinguished by their high culture from Rabindra Sangeet to dance, speaking elegantly in (at least) three languages, with the ever-present threat of effeminacy and blue-stocking culture, with the heroine wearing saris throughout (though mod­ern styles with carefully mismatched blouses), the Punjabi hero has wealth without limits in everything from his house (or rather, palace) to his designer clothes which show off his bare chest, to his taste in luxury cars with a rather idiosyncratic use of English.

It is still all about loving your family, and the film remains focused on love and its many manifestations. The film features many old film songs, from ‘Aap jaisa koi’, ‘Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai’, ‘Abhi na jao chhod kar’, showing the emotions of love don’t change (but the songs aren’t as good as they used to be) and that while external factors may be transformed, love doesn’t, whether it’s the romance of family. Wealth doesn’t make you different; it just makes you rich.

May Lakshmi bless our homes. Happy Diwali to you and yours.

AndazHaute BourgeoisieHindi cinemaprosperityRocky Aur Rani Kii Prem KahaniWealth Issue 2023