Tapori comes of age, becomes Hero No. 1

In reallife a tapori was a nobody. It is the movies that have given him a face and an identity. (Put that down to the democratic effects of the box office; the biggest cheers in Rangeela were for the scene in which Aamir Khan, criticising a film in a movie hall, says militantly: “Hum public hain! kya?”) But shorn of the mythic elements, the character that emerges from filmdom’s preoccupation with the tapori is a complex one.

He is poor, not achingly so, for he always has the odd job to get by. But juxtaposed as he usually is against a sea of wealth he certainly is deprived. Touchy and sensitive to a fault (“haath nahi lagane ka!”) he is no angel. Shoplifting, car theft — his morals are flexible enough to encompass all these and more. His crimes though are always petty or at least, subsidiary. For small-time is his defining characteristic. A tapori is no bhai.

What he does have in excess is charm, a charm that comes from an innate friendliness and appreciationfor the ordinary pleasures of life: sharp clothes, fresh air, friendship. Despite his mast disposition, however, the tapori is a cauldron of conflict. The root of his troubles: an intense but confused notion of self-respect. Unlike other characters, the tapori can almost be defined by his pride. In Deewar, the young shoeshine boy spurns a coin thrown at him; in Rangeela the hero leaves rather than face rejection, and even Shah Rukh Khan’s extreme obsequiousness in Yes Boss is given the lie by his self-deprecating attitude.

Most films in the past, including Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay, have tended to celebrate the tapori‘s exuberance while skirting his dark side to settle other more pressing issues. In the last tapori film, Ghulam, however, the whole and entire focus is on taporidom. It is a story of two brothers — one who makes a living by managing the affairs of the local hoodlums and the other who, while living off his brother, is uneasy about thecompromises this entails. Quintessential tapori that he is though, it is easier for him to escape than to take a stand.

At another time, in another film, the outcome may have been different. In this one the escapist is confronted head on and forced to make a choice, one that leaves him standing alone at the end facing the bad man. It would seem like the classic confrontation between good and evil except that good never had such a hard time being good. It is Everyman and his conscience. It is the tapori‘s coming of age.

Of such things are modern, urban parables made.