Much Ado About Massey: A New Rising

It was not until this post that I have had to make a revelation- that I have been an avid viewer of the TV soap opera that was Balika Vadhu much before it acquired its cult following. I have always deliberately stayed away from being subjugated to regular substandard and stereotypical fare that is daily soaps on Hindi GECs. However, I made an exception for this show for the sheer theme of child marriage and the protagonist’s journey as a Rajasthani child bride in a high-class, wealthy and influential household run by a crafty and feisty matriarch. It helped that substantial roles were given to very good actors including Surekha Siri, Anoop Soni and Smita Bansal. 

Usually, most soaps that drag on (and this one did for quite some time) lose their edge after they have made their point. So how much could you milk the backdrop of child marriage and how it is really harmful for all the evils the victim has to bear as a result? This one did go on and on for quite a credible while until it resorted to a time leap, again another ploy used by most soaps to add freshness and new twists to the sagging plot. After having borne the highs and lows of all the characters and their individual trajectories, out came a fresh crop of young and blooming brigade of actors who would achieve due fame and fortune with the passage of time thanks to their ability to hold their own amidst the already established ones. We all know of how the likes of Sushant Vyas, Pratyusha Banerjee and Siddharth Shukla attained instant stardom after being launched on this by then megashow. But one character managed to propel his career forward without being principal to the plot and that is the unassuming Vikram Massey who played Shyam- a village boy enamoured by the pure charm of a child widow who had lost her will to live and love after the untimely demise of her husband. Unlike the dramatic and overdone Romeo-like lovers, Shyam’s character was subdued, sobre and unusually mature for his age- just the kind of resolute support the nubile and vulnerable child widow needed during this time. And Vikrant managed to bring such earnestness and fortitude to his role, that he won the vote of the powerful matriarchal household the widow belonged to as well as the audience’s favour in no time.

In an ad with Alia Bhatt for Cornetto icecream

Vikrant has become a familiar face since then with several ads and TV appearances in ‘Yeh Hai Aashiqui’, ‘Qubool Hai’ and others. Like most actors who are eager to bite in to meatier parts to explore their potential, this budding star decided to toughen up his act and venture in to Hindi films. Not an easy path for TV actors and rarely so for character actors, Vikrant managed to grab significant if not major parts in films like Lootera where he played consort to Ranvir Singh’s crook character. We also saw him essay the role of a rich boy turned pining lover in Dil Dhadakne Do in a miniscule role amidst a stellar star cast where even a known actor like Rahul Bose got very little screen time. And recently, he is being called the only silver

In an ad with Shahid Kapur for Samsung mobile

lining in the dark cloud that is the film ‘Half Girlfriend’. Considering it stars star kids Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor who are many films old and have a fair background for delivering hits earlier, this is saying a lot. Also because even though I haven’t seen the film, I am sure he must have not got the best lines or ahem...even a quarter of the girlfriend in the end. (Don’t blame me, it’s the term that gives one bad ideas).

With Ranvir Singh in Lootera

If you are to look at the glorious history of character actors and I remember writing about this at length at an earlier occasion, it is not the length of your role but what you make of it that determines your success. Time and again, versatile actors like Om Puri, Kader Khan, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher and Paresh Rawal have proved this to us. So much that scripts are written keeping them in mind and their roles are lengthened in order to give more weightage to them as the audience seems to want more of them in every film they star in. They have the tendency to become inseperable parts of the whole film, in spite of the disarming presence of your favourite hearthrob, the charming lure of the lead actress or the light-hearted banter of the staple comic sidekick. Often, we even recall their roles in a film as much as the lead character because of the impact they leave on us.

Think Sanjeev Kumar in Sholay, Mohnish Behl in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (one of the most famous dialogues in Maine Pyar Kiya are courtesy a lecherous him saying, “Ek ladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte.”), Reema Lagoo or Alok Nath in Maine Pyar Kiya, Nawazuddin Siddique in Bajrangi Bhaijaan or Deepak Dobriyal in the Tanu Weds Manu series.

It is even more applaud-worthy when such character actors then begin to claim fair share of their role in building a film’s narrative. Vikrant is of course young and has a long way to go but his next film does make us believe that he is in for the long haul. Come June 2, we will see him as Shutu in Konkona Sen Sharma’s directorial debut film, ‘Death in the Gunj’. Giving him company will be actors like Tanuja, Om Puri, Ranvir Shorey, Kalki Koechlin among others and if his past repertoire of acting is anything to go by, he might just leave us impressed yet again with his sincere performance.

It is great that filmmakers are pushing the envelope when it comes to layering characters with more complexity, greyness and purpose. It makes room for actors like Massey to prove their mettle in an industry that only reveres a handful and remembers a chosen few.

The Pihu Diary: Learning to be the ‘fairer’ sex

With everyone having their own take on feminism, it is not surprising that I often tend to mull over the kind of world Pihu will grow up to be part of. Will people still be giving it so much weightage in their conversations and will it continue to affect the way she chooses to live her life? Will it hamper her lifestyle and will she be caught in an endless web of trying to assert her independence, choices, decisions and rights against the other gender? Often, we sow the seeds of feminism right in a girl’s childhood, evident in the way we urge her to think of herself as no less than the opposite sex, indulging her with toys that are not confined to pink clothed dolls or soft toys, even in the way we encourage her to strengthen herself physically initially with more gender-neutral sports like cycling or swimming and basketball and then take on more strenuous sports like trekking, martial arts or even kick boxing! Little do we realise that what we are conditioned to believe in our young age is what we will be compelled to pass on as learnings to our future generations. So when you ask your teenaged daughter to abstain herself from social activity due to her menstruation, take note that she will be unconsciously memorising it as a socially accepted norm that she must instill the appropriateness of once her own daughter comes of age and so on. We really can’t do without imposing our own world view on unstained, innocent minds, can we? So here I have a check list of things I must remind myself of not doing as Pihu grows up so that she doesn’t end up feeling like her life was deprived, short-changed or undermined for the simple reason of her being born a woman.

Tell her it’s a man’s world out there.

For all that he thinks he can claim ownership of it, too bad because a woman is his more-abled counterpart when it comes to saving the world! Happy realisation but given that women are unstoppable given the opportunity to live with equal rights and responsibilities, men have to sooner or later realise that we are a force to reckon with. We build homes brick by brick, stand on our feet so that we don’t lean on anyone else for support, create a family literally from scratch and then spend our lives trying to keep it all together. So it only works when you agree to full-fledged partnership and mutual co-operation between sexes.

Give in to stereo-types.

A girl must get married by a certain age, she must have kids by 30 and then go about trying to juggle home and office. She must change her lifestyle to suit everyone else’s while nobody else does the same for her. Also, she must not drive a car because women tend to be poor drivers, she must listen more and talk less....yada yada. Notice how most of these stereo-types work against a woman’s natural progress in the world.

Let the man be the bread winner.

We seem to justify our lack of ambition sometimes based on the fact that first our fathers bring us up in this world only to transfer those duties to the husband once we get married. The need to really earn a livelihood is therefore not a compulsion all the time. Getting a job and creating one’s own savings in order to fortify your family’s financial well-being is not a way of proving to the man that he is incapable of running the house. It is your way of showing your worth professionally and successfully safeguarding any monetary mishap that can arise in the future.

Indoctrinate the idea that appearances define your gender.

A girl has to be fair, have waist long tresses, must know how to wear make-up, should never sport a tan, must have a thin waist, must not go out with boys...you’d be surprised how much of all this is still very much relevant today. So Pihu can grow up to be a tomboy with an aversion to all things too feminine for all I care. As long as she can look good in whatever she wears and is comfortable in her skin, I should be happy.

Use words like compromise, sacrifice and apologise in reference to society’s expectations.

A girl must learn to share what is hers, be the giver, lose if it makes others happy, and generally tow the line if she wants to survive. What she should learn in stead is if the men around her can only see her do these things in order to fit in, it is them she needs to give up on and not her dreams, her ambitions and desires. Women are born protectors, procreators, nurturers and caregivers but if anyone threatens their freedom to express themselves or forces them to succumb to the latter’s own understanding of virtuous living, she has a right to put her foot down. If God wished women to be deaf and dumb, we would probably be so but since we aren’t, we might as well use the powers bestowed upon us to be the best version of ourselves we can.