A gem of a character

Apart from the protagonist and antagonist in the movies, there are some characters in the film, which leave a huge mark

The recent success of Rajamouli’s large canvas epic ‘Baahubali’ and ‘Phantom’, which was not that great but it was well crafted, set me , yet again, to think about my favourite thought about Bollywood. It’s character of actors. Right now the most iconic character is “Kattappa” from ‘Baahubali’.

I doubt if Sathyaraj and Rajamouli themselves were aware of what they were walking into. I am sure they might have thought of it as a well written character but no one has thought that “Kattappa” will become almost as popular as the hero of the movie itself? I just hope they don’t cut “Kattappa” in the next one but then let us leave the decision to Rajamouli.

We did not create “Kattappa” did we?

Look at some of characters like “Bhiku Mhatre” from the movie ‘Satya’ became famous. I think for a fresher or starters a character is important to put into the screenplay, it can be anything like friend of the hero. Once we are talking or thinking about Mumbai underworld characters created by Bollywood, we will think about “Biku Mhatre”. But I daresay next to “Vijay” of ‘Deewar’ the iconic.

One of the other character actors, which left me awestruck was Paresh Rawal’s “Velji Bhai” in Mahesh Bhatt’s another under rated effort called ‘Sir’. You can watch ‘Sir’ only and only for Rawal’s earthy Gujarati gangster at least twice. The scene where after a strong passionate speech on nonviolence from Naseeruddin Shah, Velji Bhai turns and speaks with pure sarcastic acid in his voice to the camera – “Aa to Gandhi baapu chhe” still gets me to smile.

And speaking of Rawal, how can one forget “Babu Bhayya”. This lovable half-clever, half-dumb street man of Mumbai is the most hilarious character created.

Last that comes to my mind is Kadar Khan. If there ever was a walking talking encyclopedia of character actors it is this man. This man has done so much of iconic character actor work that it is difficult to pick and choose but for the most impactful was his probable 10-minute “Fakeer baba” in ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’, where he gives Sikandar played by Amitabh to find peace and solace in pain.

To digress, one of my favourite character actor is Rafiki. The lovable monkey, who shows the way to a lost prince Simba and ensures that he gets rid of his guilt and low self esteem and claims his throne and kingdom back.

We have loved our cinema for our heroes, heroines and villains as much as we have loved it because of these character actors. In fact some of these have created an impact on us much more than the heroes.Why is that? Partly because these were well written and well performed but mostly because an average viewer and that means all of us have some point in time seen a reflection of a Kattappa or a Davaar or Sumitra Devi in us.

Yes, however, hard you try to fight it out and dismiss this logic. Character actors are framed, inspired and mostly based on us. The common man!And yet they remain uncelebrated, half the nation will tell you the birthday of Shah Rukh, how many can tell us when Kadar Khan was born?

Must I also mention the much ridiculed “Mere Karan, Arjun aayenge” from Raakhi in ‘Karan Arjun’. I still remember that after the movie became a rocking hit. Rakesh Roshan came for a TV interview, which I saw. He was asked by the reporter that Raakhi was an extremely over the top character in the movie.

I stil remember Rakesh Roshan’s reply, he simply asked the reporter this – “Tell me, here is this village woman, who is a widow, her only reason to exist is her two sons, they get brutally killed in front of her eyes and she gets no justice from anywhere, how do you think such a woman will behave for the rest of her life?”.

Do you guys want to answer Rakesh Roshan?

By:Rahul Deo Bharadwaj http://thesocietyasiseeit.blogspot.in