Baabul ( Babul )

Baabul (drama)
Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee, John Abraham.
Direction : Ravi Chopra

From Baghban to Baabul : Director Ravi Chopra is fast donning the mantle of the ’50s-’60s filmmaker who had perfected the genre of the ‘family socials’ in Bollywood. Then, they made films that celebrated the joint family, derided the westernised daughter-in-law, supported the bulwark of bharatiya parampara and generally raised a voice against untouchability, sati, foeticide and the like. Cut to Circa 21 and you have Mr Chopra telling us that old parents aren’t meant to be abandoned and young widows need to be re-married.

Truly, his films are a severe critique of the modern indian social fabric which either seems to have become too westernised or remained regressively traditional. And the fact that he has Mr Bachchan telling you to behave, grow up and mind your morals, manners and maryada does seem to make a difference. Because Mr Bachchan manages to take all those mothballed dialogues and deliver them in a style that strikes straight at your tear ducts. You watch the next-seat man (we don’t even dare to look at the wailing women) surreptitiously flick a tell-tale tear and you know the message has hit home.

Baabul may have picked up a theme straight out of history books, but don’t we know the modernity quotient of the great indian middle class ain’t too high. Hence, you just might still find a million Ranis in real india too: young widows trapped in the niceties of traditional indian families who have all the trappings of superficial modernity.