Little did I know when I woke up today that my morning would be so entertaining. Flipping through the TV channels here in Kuwait, I came across an arabic version of Zee cinema that had all the writing and commentary in arabic but had bollywood movies playing. Turns out, the channel was showing the 1985 Amitabh starrer "Mard". And while in it's time, it may have made sense (though I find it difficult to imagine how), for me it was funnier than the funniest movie bollywood has ever come out with. The movie is full of macabre co-incidences, lost families and highly comical villians.
In true typical fashion of 80s bollywood movies, the film involves a poor but gallant and honest horse-cart rider living in a village settlement right outside a palatial colonial house (which is meant to be british looking but strangely has roman colums and domes). The house, as it turns out, is occupied by scruplous indians (the villains of the movie) who have sold themselves to the service of the british and are cruel and exploitative. They say dialogues like "Indians are the cockroaches in the dirty sewers", dress in wierdly gladiator type clothes and walk around with hunters, that they liberally use on the poor indian labourers. No surprises then that the horse cart driver who's name is raju, is the he-man of the movie and for some stange reason calls himself "Mard" (as if to remind himself constantly of which side he bats for). He regularly has face-offs with the villains in the platial house and also manages to win the heart of the villain's daughter. As the movie progresses we find, that the villains have also imprisoned the former-king of the land (Dara Singh) and force him day and night to push the grinidng wheel of a wheat mill, without food and water. Through a twist in the movie, raju finds out that his parents are not really his parents and he was picked up from an orphanage.
Then, in probably the wierdest leap of logic in the movie (and that is saying a lot given how illogical the movie anyways is), raju puts together a letter (asking his real birth-mother to meet him at the durga temple) with some other meaningful artifacts in a metal pot covered with cloth and sets it afloat on the ganges river with a plea to "Ganaga Ma" to take it to his mother, whoever and wherever she may be. Surprise Surprise, the metal pot not only reaches his real-mother (who is in the villians' prison camp and till this point has been dumb) but she also manages to escape out in time to go meet him in the durga temple, be happily re-united with her son and get the gift of speech. Praise be to the goddess! Soon knowing that his father (yes he turns out to be the king's son) has been imprisoned by the villians and that he is actually royalty, he goes to the villian camp astride on his faithful steed and proceeds to annihilate the villians and free the innocent indians. The movie ends happily with raju going to marry the villian's daughter seated atop dara singh's broad shoulders (don't ask).
By the time the credits in the movie started rolling, my sides were aching from all the laughing I had been doing! Inspired of course by the wierd clothes in the movie (togas, wierd cut-off clothes adorned with chains and spikes), the hackneyed cliched dialogues ("Mein tera khoon pee jaoonga"), the illogically devout belief in gods and godesses (with Raju singing a full-on devotional song, temple bells clanging and women waving oil lamps) and the archaic torture methods (through out the movie one of the villains kept drawing out labourer-indian blood and storing it in bottles for british soldiers, go figure!).
But the movie got me thinking about the mind-set of the people who watched and enjoyed the movie in 1985. And more importantly how much things have changed since then. The religious fervor, the kind of beliefs in the society, the scorn of everything foreign and british, the expectations from women, and the singularly good character of the hero without any shades of grey. It has been a long journey from 'Mard' to 'Dil Chahta hai'! And I give thanks for every bit of that change.
But now the channel informs me I am up for even more hilarity. They are showing "Roti, Kapda Aur Makan" next. What fun!!
Currently Listening: Like a stone- Audioslave, Beggin- Madcon
Currently Reading: Q&A- Vikas Swaroop
Currently Reading: Q&A- Vikas Swaroop
PS- On another note, a prince and future-king named 'Raju'? Not that I am generalizing (and with apologies to all rajus around the world), but the seems more be-fitting of a Tea boy than a king. No?
