This is a lament about being forced to revise my own opinion. Believe me, it is the hardest thing to do.
Like many others, I clapped long and hard when Chandan Chatterjee (Tota Roy Chowdhury) danced to Do La Re Dola in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani with Rocky Randhawa (Ranveer Singh) in tow. But after the first watch of this Bollywood blockbuster – whose long name was destined to be shortened to RRKPK – I wondered if Bengali men would rise in revolt against the film’s maker Karan Johar. Because in RRKPK, the Bengali men are either failed boyfriends, effeminate dancers or wife beaters.
Whatever happened to the Sourav Gangulys, Sabyasachis, Satyajit Rays, or Abhijit Vinayak Banerjees? Why, I thought, couldn’t Chandan have been a Nobel laureate economist or the last word in fashion design or a filmmaker of global repute or one of the best hitters of sixes India, even the world, has ever seen? I am trying to keep the list reasonably contemporary.
But alas. I found myself in a terrible minority.
No one is willing to take umbrage at KJo’s portrayal of Bengali men—neither men nor women.
Instead of regretting being portrayed as effeminate, Bengalis are revelling in Chandan’s depiction – a dancer jeered off the stage at a Punjabi pre-wedding sangeet ceremony for his Kathak performance turning into Rocky’s new-found Kathak guru and friend who makes the Karol Bagh da munda dance to his tune at the CR Park Durga Puja pandal.
Chandan shines brighter
Chandan may appear feminine at first, they say. But he emerges stronger when ‘he-man’ Rocky confesses he loves dancing but has never dared to tell his family that he would rather be a dancer. Okay, a laddu maker-cum-dancer.
In the first scene of RRKPK, we see Rocky gyrating to the garish number Such a Heartthrob Ji. However, he grinds to a dead halt when his family enters the scene. A family that upbraids him roundly for tarnishing their name with his moves.
Chowdhury undoubtedly dragged Chandan out of the stereotype hole into a wholesome parallel hero with his superlative performance (Once I had admitted to myself my opinion was flawed, I wondered if the film was about Rocky or him).
Chandan’s origin story throws up the other stereotypes I thought Johar was slotting Bengali men into – a father and husband prone to domestic violence. Remember, Chandan’s mother, Jamini (Shabana Azmi), says her husband would not only beat her up but even belt the boy for wanting to learn to dance.
Domestic abuse is real and not restricted to West Bengal, so you can’t say it is a Bengali stereotype, they said, roundly rejecting this contention of mine.
But there’s some truth to the other stereotype – of young men going to dance school usually with their mothers’ blessings but often their fathers’ disapproval. It has even been vouched for by danseuse Tanusree Shankar, who runs a modern Indian dance school in Kolkata.
“That’s sad, because my father-in-law pioneered modern Indian dance and the participation of men in it,” she says. He was Uday Shankar, the older brother of Ravi Shankar, known for adapting European theatrical techniques to Indian classical dance and creating a unique fusion style. Tanusree loved that RRKPK normalises the male dancer and celebrates him.
Somen (Namit Das), the colleague with a crush on TV anchor Rani (Alia Bhatt), was the typical failed boyfriend/lover inserted in the film for some comic relief. Except that he was not just that. He was also the eternal Devdas of Bengali literature and cinema, pining for the woman he could never have—a true romantic (when did I lose my rose-tinted glasses!).
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The intellectual take
As my proposition that Johar was out to do the dirty on Bengali men began to look seriously frayed, entered Bengali intellectual analysts of the film on social media. I hoped they would help, but they tied me up in knots instead. Were they with me or against me?
“The colonial construct of the Bengali male is that of an effeminate, servile babu,” one commentator wrote in a discussion of the film on Facebook. That does not sound like a hero, does it?
Screen heroes should be “fearless, macho and fit into the metrosexual patriarchal categories ….and be strong agents of change,” wrote another. “Bengali guys never stood out in that …compared to Punjabis, Pathans and Rajputs. His identity outside the armed struggles before and after colonial rule is that of a gentleman (read passive-aggressive, non-assertive coward without charisma or leadership quality).”
I am still trying to get my head around that.
Or maybe I am just putting off admitting my view was jaundiced; maybe Johar hasn’t given Bengali men in RRKPK the bum rap, after all.
Some Bengali friends suggest Johar was so busy creating strong women characters – Jaya Bachchan, Churni Ganguly, Azmi, Bhatt, and Rocky’s mother and sister played by Kshitee Jog and Anjali Anand – that he forgot to focus on the men and made them near-caricatures. Certainly the Bengali hims.
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KJo cleverly destroyed North Indian macho
But no. I have no more excuses left for misreading RRKPK. I have come to terms with the ignominy of admitting I was blinkered. I now propose an alternative interpretation: in RRKPK, Johar had set out to demolish the North Indian macho forever, and he did it by making Bengali men in the film look really good.
The hero of RRKPK remains Rocky Randhawa, no question. From a flamboyant Gurgawan ka gora chitta stereotype into a woke bhadralok (Bengali gentleman) who learns how to make his own cappuccino and sing Rabindrasangeet, he metamorphoses and how! That his debut song is the iconic Bengali tune Ekla Cholo Re stamps him for good: Jodi tor daak shuney keu na aashey, tobe ekla cholo ray.
Finally, by standing up to his mummy’s-apron-strings-holding father and iron lady grandmother, he rebels for what is right.
What could be more bhadralok-like?
Now, I don’t know a bhadralok who would show up at a girl’s door with a band party in pink to pop the question and Bengali gents could take a lesson or two from Rocky in sheer flourish, but – how did I miss it – the big picture in RRKPK is this: Rocky ban gaya bhadralok. He just got Bengalified!
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)