Mowgli, Moti and Mard!

One of the biggest surprise winners of Indian box office this year was ‘The Jungle Book’. It is indeed a big classic written by Rudyard Kipling but the numbers it has worked at the box office would not have been possible if the masses wouldn’t have preferred it so much.

Not all of them, I assure you, probably have heard of either Mowgli or Rudyard Kipling. In India, this movie registered almost 200 crore. That kind of a number does not come when you connect only with those, who can claim some knowledge of Kipling. Therefore, it warms my heart to conclude that the man and animal genre is here to stay and win, repeatedly.

The most phenomenal presentation of a man’s connection with animals and therefore tug at the heart of us animal lovers was first delivered by that biggest entertainer of them all – Manmohan Desai. ‘Dharamveer’ and ‘Coolie’ had a falcon uniting and protecting families, lovers and friends. The falcon would suffice to say took away some limelight at times even from such screen blazers like Dharmendra and Amitabh.

But in my book Desai’s most phenomenal presentation of man and animal came in the 1985 box office winner ‘Mard’. Any eminent historian of Indian freedom struggle could go into chronic depression if he ever saw this movie seriously.

‘Mard’ broke records at box office primarily for the triangle of friends – Raju Tangewala, Moti and Badal. Before you think that they were friends living across the street you should know that Moti was a cute chubby Labrador and Badal was a royal looking handsome horse.

In the introductory song of the movie, which establishes Amitabh as a street toughie the “together till we die” attitude is brought forward when Amitabh breaks a roti into three and offers it to Badal and Moti and then takes a bite. I still remember the huge screams when Badal and Moti together save Raju, who is left for dead by the bad guys, from a cesspool. With friends like these no wonder Raju Tangewala did not have any “Man Friday”.

The other hit in this genre came from KC Bokadia around the same time when ‘Mard’ hit the screens – ‘Teri Meherbaaniyan’, where again a labrador avenges his dead master by killing his murderers and even submits evidence of his master’s murder to the police. In fact, KC Bokadia owes his fat bank balance to dogs, monkeys and elephants.

‘Main Tera Dushman’ had an elephant pulling his master out of trouble and ‘Jawab Hum Denge’ had again a monkey and a dog working in combo. In fact, KC Bokadia understood this genre only next to Desai and therefore while critics screamed at him for playing with emotions and dumbing down the script. The audience flocked the theatres in droves.

‘Haathi Mere Saathi’ is one the most endearing evergreen movies that Rajesh Khanna has worked in. The story of Ramu, the elephant, who along with his three friends unites two lovers at the cost of his own life, had me crying in the theatre as a five-year-old. I for weeks wanted to ask god why Ramu had to die.

I am not including the snake woman movies in this genre - they have necessarily worked on the divinity angle. Otherwise, it was the snake woman role which gave Sridevi her biggest heroine-centric hit in ‘Nagina’.

Behind the intent of the makers to tug at our emotions in this genre and count their cash is an obvious reason. Our culture rightly treats us to respect the space of animals within our system. They need us as much as we need them in the circle of life explained so clearly in Disney’s ‘Lion King’.

Therefore, we find tales of these animals as our own. Deep down we have a connection with the animals. For a lot, many of us the friendship or bonding between the honest officer and the dog in ‘Teri Meherbaaniyan’ was as strong and as real as the friendship between Jai and Veeru of ‘Sholay’.

Add the super feeling of those who cannot talk trying to communicate with us as a loved one in this case a dog or a monkey and you have each and every member of the audience getting hooked.

By: Rahul Deo Bharadwaj