India8217;s most unwanted

If you need one example of how television cannot do the work of cinema -- create an identity for India -- just watch the new multi-media e...

If you need one example of how television cannot do the work of cinema 8212; create an identity for India 8212; just watch the new multi-media event, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. No, we8217;re not referring to the endless promos where Hindustani is made to rhyme with machchardani or the hand-wringingly humble interviews that its lead stars have given to TV networks, but to the film itself. A newly brand-aware Bollywood8217;s first attempt to merchandise itself has come unstuck and not only because it is not ironic enough. But because the India it celebrates is not just opposed to Bharat but also to the part of it that is not wired.

Made entirely for the 65 million cable homes, and more specifically for the 24,000 people who watch Star News and the seven lakh who watch Aaj Tak, the film is an attempt to create a sense of feel-good about wired India, that is plugged in to TV networks, Hyundai cars and Pepsi fountains. This is an India that is happy to scratch Bollywood8217;s back if they scratch theirs. So the stars ofPhir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani think nothing of promoting their film on news networks, the very networks they seek to expose for their lack of depth and scruples.

This in8217; India understands all the jokes that the film cracks. So when the lead stars pose as Mr and Mrs Hyundai, even Jabalpur is expected to cross-reference it with the lead star8217;s turn at promoting the Korean wonder-car. And when Dalip Tahil who plays a TV network boss called Chinoy which sounds suspiciously like Prannoy tells Juhi that she8217;ll be live on Galaxee, 8 p.m. India, 10.30 p.m. Dubai, the India that knows only of Doordarshan8217;s National Network Time is expected to laugh.

Bolllywood8217;s love affair with television is a recent phenomenon. In the pre-satellite age when DD could be of little use to the film industry, there was just the omnipresent newsreader reeling off the day8217;s events, usually the murder of a politician or riots in the city. Even Mani Ratnam8217;s Bombay, made in 1993, features a print journalist as the prime investigatorduring riots in Mumbai. There is no emphasis on lo-oking good and dressing better as in Phir Bhi Dil Hindustani which uses every device known to a Hollywood-watching director in this case Aziz Mirza to pay obeisance to television: whether it is Juhi Chawla standing in front of artificial rain to signify a cyclone shades of Wag The Dog or the door opening in a wall a la The Truman Show, the ultimate critique of TV.

Where is the notion of nationhood as one entity? Where is the individual memory that connected to a historical past as in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam that Sumita S. Chakravarty writes about? In the new cafetaria approach to film-making, there is only a pastiche of borrowed images: dark glasses from the latest Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough, the Swarovski-encrusted kurtas from the latest Miss World look, and the latest soft drink catchline.

The problem is that TV, even news TV, cannot pass for real life. So when in the film, Suhaib Illyasi makes an appearance as the host of his own show,India8217;s Most Wanted, there are titters in an audience which has learnt of his wife8217;s suicide essentially from newspapers. And when director Aziz Mirza is looking for the common man, and calls him Mohan Joshi, there is no connection for an audience more attuned to R. K. Laxman8217;s cartoon.

Whoever is on screen 24 hours is the star, says a character in the film. Not quite, say we. Cricket stars are on TV for almost as long these days, but catch anyone wanting to emulate Sachin Tendulkar in these days of Sack Sachin, Save Sachin8217;. Politicians hog screen time for even longer, but as in this movie, it8217;s they who are the real villains, even more so than the don, who is a real pussycat here.

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So even as the hype around the film implodes on the screen and the new Hyundai emerges as the real star of the film, the cabled world collapses on itself. Whether it is cricket, Kargil or the balcony of a pricey theatre, the wired part of India, even with the Northern Grid on the verge of breakdown, lives only for today andonly for itself. Smug in its pretty emsemble dresses and Armani suits, it believes it is changing the world, waving the tricolour like in an A. R. Rahman song.