How Raanjhanaa ghettoised a NA winning Dhanush

Southern actor Dhanush's Hindi debut Raanjhanaa marked a remarkable exception in the behaviour of the country's movie-critics. They all slammed the movie, but praised the actor. They even said that he was the saving grace of an otherwise silly movie.

Perhaps true; he saved the movie by allowing himself to be ghettoised, and stereotyped as a dark-skinned ethnically Tamil lumpen who wants to conquer a fair-skinned, beautiful north Indian girl by indulging in persistent acts of harassment that are punishable under Indian law.

Besides his compulsive stalking, in one scene, he threatens the heroine that he will slit her wrist. In another, he tries to drown her. And most of the movie is about the threat of violence that he unleashes on the heroine because he, like the umpteen street-romeos across the country equipped with acid bottles, is besotted with her. If she doesn't reciprocate his love, he either wants to kill himself or kill her.

And is this what you expect from the youngest national award winner of the country and possibly one of the most gifted actors from the southern film industry on his debut in Hindi cinema?

Isn't it an extraordinary commentary on the state of mind of Hindi cinema because his invitation to Bollywood came on the strength of a brilliant performance in Aadukalam (Tamil) that won him the national award in 2011?

As Firstpost noted last year, starting at the age of 18 in a highly competitive Tamil commercial cinema, Dhanush is now one of the most bankable stars in Tamil. He dabbles in both art-house and commercial movies and passionately pushes the boundaries of excellence in both.

He is not yet 30, but has piled up an impressive body of work, straddling both the worlds. And he is paid handsomely too.

But then, why did Dhanush allow himself to be ghettoised like this? And behave like a fool in front of an average actor such as Sonam Kapoor or even Abhay Deol?

This is where, his early Tamil films may provide definitive clues.

When he started, a Mumbai-based film critic called him a "pigeon chested paavam who looks like a paanwala on probation." Although the condescending critic's comment was in bad taste, perhaps that was the emotion he himself wanted to evoke. One saw the same image on screen again and again.

Perhaps at that time, he knew he wouldn't fit into any conventional roles and hence played the perpetual underdog whose only aim, was to marry the most desired girl around: poor, bad looking, neglected guy finally walking away with the trophy-girl.

The idea – that justified eve-teasing, stalking and troubling women – was gross, but appealed to the masses; and a feather-weight Dhanush with no striking physical features fit the bill quite well.

He repeated this act in film after film, but with a new heroine each time, and rode on that stereotype into the mainstream, and finally to the A-list.

Perhaps it was easy for the scriptwriter and Dhanush himself – look shabby, speak a funny pidgin, roam around in a motorbike with a side-kick who will do anything for him, make a fool of himself in front of the girl, cause serious headaches for her and the family, and finally create such an emotional drama that she falls for his madness for her.

He did pretty much the same with the prettiest girls of the southern industry such as Nayantara, Tamanna, Shriya Saran and Tapsi Pannu. A part of his role even in his national award winning Aadukalam, in which he was mesmerising, had the same aspiration.

Understandable that with limited physical attributes, he needed some short-cut to reach the top. Since reaching there, he has been doing remarkably well. Currently, his films are among the most eagerly waited.

But then, why repeat the same thing in Hindi?

Raanjhanaa in fact takes one to his underdog days in Tamil. The storyline, the situations, the side-kick and even the lumpen acts are the same. But, unfortunately he is not even half good in this repeat act.

Perhaps Tamil was his comfortable zone and he acted with ultimate ease, but in Raanjhanaa, even as the stock-underdog his acting looks laboured and contrived because he allowed himself to be stereotyped as the "pigeon chested paavam who looks like a paanwala on probation."

Time to move on Dhanush. You look silly and pathetic doing this.

This is certainly not the Dhanush the Hindi audiences and critics should watch. If they thought he was good in Raanjhanaa, they haven't seen the real him – take a look at the trailer of Marian , another national-award inspired movie getting ready for release. Fortunately, this is in Tamil and he plays a Tamil.