Ishqiya to Dolly ki Doli: Filmi bad girls might be doing Bollywood...

by Kalpana Nair Feb 10, 2015 15:35 IST

#Abhishek Dogra #BuzzPatrol #Dolly Ki Doli #highway #Kangana Ranaut #OnOurMind #Queen #Sonam Kapoor

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Are you, like me, sick and tired of heroines in Bollywood playing passive sidekicks? Did you want to hurl a shoe at Nisha in Hum Aapke Hai Koun! for allowing herself to be married off to another brother from the same mother? Did you wonder why Simran in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge sulked and sobbed her way for three quarters of the film without confronting her tree trunk of a father about the idea of consent in a marriage? Did you throw up your hands in despair and wonder what happened to the spunky thappad se darr nahin lagta' Rajo in Dabangg after she got married to Chulbul? And did you scratch your heads, perplexed at Saif Ali Khan's Gautam falling for the limp Meera as opposed to the high voltage awesomeness of Veronica in Homi Adajania's Cocktail?

While we've seen some breakthrough roles for women, like in Vikas Bahl's Queen and Imtiaz Ali's Highway, the depressing truth remains that the large chunk of female roles in Bollywood involve playing second fiddle to the hero. To make things worse, at some point in the film, the heroine invariably submits to either the hero or her father, the two immutable cornerstones of testosterone tyranny that no amount of Kangana Ranaut or Zoya Akhtar can budge apparently.

And yet, there seems to be hope, and that too from an unlikely genre: the woman con genre. With Ishqiya, Dedh Ishqiya, less successfully Daawat-E-Ishq and recently Dolly Ki Doli, Bollywood seems to have found its equivalent of the Sigourney Weaver brand of kick ass women who play characters that hit back. I don't know how the men in the audience felt about it, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching these ladies pull a fast one and walk off into the sunset, while the men were left goggling and confused. What a refreshing turn of events.

For a long time, in Hindi cinema, the ability to scheme and plot was considered inherently evil and so, it was the sole prerogative of vamps, evil stepmothers and, of course, villains. But now, the art of feminine deception seems to have suddenly acquired a cultural legitimacy that can only bode well. I'd like to imagine that when Krishna, played by Vidya Balan, sucked Arshad Warsi's thumb in Ishqiya, she was metaphorically showing the middle finger to decades of patriarchy in Bollywood. Characters like Krishna have gracefully and seductively upended the stereotype of the good girl and started to replaced her with women who resist being categorised.

Of course, one Krishna or Rani doesn't entirely change the Bollywood world order. There are many tropes that a female con film cannot shake off. For instance, male cons are born crafty (and this is almost heroic, or at the very least, cute) while female cons are made by circumstances beyond their control. So Krishna, Dolly and Begum Para are all dutifully saddled with the dreaded backstory that explains why they've been forced to turn to conning. Once they were pure and docile and nave. Now they are wise and wield their sexual power in retribution. There is also an element of gendered revenge when it comes to female cons in Hindi movies. Their anger is always directed at a gender specifically, which is not true for their male counterparts (conterparts?) who are happy conning any and everyone.

Think about your favourite filmi con hero. There is no one event that we're told of, that turns Babban and Khalujan inIshqiya into con artists or Don into the master criminal that he is in the film named after his character. They just are. At best, you have characters like Lucky in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye!, who are shaped by class and similar social factors, but subtly.

Which is why Dolly Ki Doli, currently in theatres is so refreshing. For all its flaws (and there are many), the big twist in the film is that (SPOILER ALERT) Dolly does not relapse into her pre-con state, once the job is done and she's got the happy ending that's supposed to keep her contented. Married to the moustachioed police officer whose rejection had once driven her to crime, Dolly's life comes to a full circle and convention demands that she would be satisfied with being Mrs. Police Officer. But she isn't. Not because he's a bad man or that she doesn't love him, but because she loves conning people more. Just like Babban and Khalujan, Don,Lucky and almost every other filmi conman you can list. Conning is her profession and being a housewife just doesn't work as an alternative for her. So she makes sure her husband has at least one meal to tide over any immediate hunger pangs, and she's on a train, with her crew, all set for a new adventure.

To have a heroine so unapologetic about her illicit trade was a pretty big risk for writer-director Abhishek Dogra, but, like his heroine, he did it anyway. Here's to more Dollys without dolis.

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/ishqiya-to-dolly-ki-doli-filmi-bad-girls-might-be-doing-bollywood-a-good-turn-2090069.html