Mere Paas Vardi Hai

What’s his name,what’s his name? The top-of-mind recall goes to Vijay Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer). And Ashwini Kumar (Dilip Kumar in Shakti). And Anant Velankar (Om Puri in Ardh Satya). A handful of cop characters have tried to live up to the legacy: Ajay Singh Rathod (Aamir Khan in Sarfarosh),Samar Pratap Singh (Manoj Bajpayee in Shool),Anant Srivastav and Shekhar Varma (Amitabh and Akshay Kumar in Khakee),Amit Kumar (Ajay Devgn in Gangaajal),Ajay Kumar (Arshad Warsi in Sehar) and Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan in Dabangg). Will new-kid-on-the-block Vishnu Kamath (Abhishek Bachchan in Dum Maaro Dum,which released this Friday) be able to snaffle a spot in this line-up?

Good question,but look at the head start that Inspector Vijay had,with a back story to beat all back stories. A little boy,hiding away in a cupboard,witnessing the brutal,cold-blooded murder of his parents. All he’s been able to see through the crack is just a wrist,with a bracelet,one of whose links is a little horse figurine. He lives with a recurring nightmare: the chain,that hand with the gun,the death cries of his parents.

It’s a wonder that Inspector Vijay grows up sane. You may argue,nearly 40 years after Zanjeer was made,that Amitabh Bachchan’s cult cop is completely off-kilter. He is tightly coiled,always. He wears his uniform like a shield,his person festooned with multiple no-entry signs. He has sealed himself off from all emotion,all feeling. He is an efficient unsmiling machine,who says this immortal line,and we say it right along with him: “Yeh police station hai,tumhaare baap ka ghar nahin.”

If Inspector Vijay had been in the movies today,he would have been a different man. He would have been in therapy. He may have struck up a warm,fuzzy relationship with his shrink,who wouldn’t have been an outlandishly togged-out chaaku-chhuri-tez-karane-wali,but a svelte size zero in Chanel. He may have spent time stretching his long,lean frame on couches for a bit of rest and regression-to-the-bad-childhood chat. He may have successfully,shudder,managed his anger. And his angst,that very thing that made him who he was,may have been channelled into a tweet on How To Make An Iconic Cop Movie.

Thank all the cinema gods that Prakash Mehra was making Zanjeer in simpler times. When heroes could pulp the villains without getting unduly and unnecessarily conflicted. When the bad guys could be called,simply,Teja. With huge-bosomed molls as preferred accessory. With henna-haired Pathans as the hero’s best friend. Vijay’s enemies are those who spike alcohol in exchange of profit and human lives. And he goes up against them in the only way he knows: in a fury of fist and feet,fuelled by his implacable hatred of those who do wrong.

This week,another cop rises. ACP Vishnu Kamath is a man of his times,but he is also a throwback to the near-forgotten category of committed policemen who knew how not to bend,or be bent. It may just be one of those coincidences so beloved of Bollywood that Vishnu is played by the son of the man who made Vijay his name and nomenclature and nature. It may also be that we are tired of the wusses who’ve been passing off as heroes in present-day Hindi movies. It could well be that Vishnu,the new-age cop,is the harbinger of the old beloved cop figure of our movies — the quintessential outsider,who could work both inside and outside the system,to set things right.

Think of all the classic cops who’ve lit up our screens. Like the cowboy before him,the cop is the guy who rides alone,stirrups replaced by the holster,saloon by the salon,outback outlaws by limousine-chauffered hoods. His methods may not always be by the book (in fact,the more he plays outside the law,the more attractive he is),but he wins the moral high ground by getting rid of the bad guys. A policeman,if he is a good one,inspires either fear or caution,and a good cop movie usually plays upon these combined qualities — he’s not a cuddly bear,but a thorny porcupine.

Recall how Dirty Harry Callahan gets the job done: by pissing superiors off,by ticking the corrupt off,and by not letting go. Clint Eastwood’s Harry,slit-eyed and acid-tongued,defined iconic cop. The film’s mega success spawned several less successful sequels,and reserved Clint E a top berth amongst Classic Cop Characters. As did Gene Hackman’s James ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection (which has a car chase whose thrill quotient hasn’t diminished a whit after all these years). And Steve McQueen in Bullitt,who chews out that delicious statement: “You work your side of the street,and I’ll work mine.” Al Pacino in Serpico. Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther series. Russell Crowe in L.A. Confidential. Kevin Costner in The Untouchables. Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapons series. Eddie Murphy in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Not to forget Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series: how could anyone lose sight of John McLane,the hunky saviour in the singlet?

We’re not even going near the bad cops in Hollywood,those guys who rape and pillage and loot. In Bollywood,if you are a bad cop,you will most likely be played by a B-lister,or an expendable sidekick,or an A-lister looking to reform,in which case you wouldn’t qualify. Think of the cops played by such worthies as Gulshan Grover,Shakti Kapoor,Paresh Rawal,Sadashiv Amrapurkar,and their ilk. Most of those acts were generic,or just part of the scenery. Think also of those standard-procedure cop roles played by leading men like Shashi Kapoor (with an exception as Deewar’s Inspector Ravi,who owns arguably the most famous cop comeback line in Bollywood: Mere paas maa hai) and Vinod Khanna,and a decade later,by Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff,and even later by Akshay Kumar.

Those cops were more in the mode of wearing a costume and posturing (Anil in Ram Lakhan was a prime example) than being in character. Vinod Khanna had a couple of interesting films (Inkaar and Satyamev Jayate) where he plays a cop,but neither one has travelled. Kumar redeemed himself with one of his best acts in Khakee,one of the better Bollywood cop procedurals.

Iconic movie policemen fight significant battles. Pre-liberalisation,smugglers of booze and cigarettes and gold were the big enemies. After,the canker of dirty money spread to the political classes,so much so that the criminals started to look respectable. Terrorism became the next big thing (Kay Kay Menon has essayed a superb cop part in Black Friday,modelled on the real life Rakesh Maria). Aamir Khan did a great job in Sarfarosh,the film that was the first to name names: it became Pakistan,instead of a shadowy videshi taaqat. Arshad Warsi was so good as the upright policeman fighting vicious railway mafia in East UP in Sehar,but the film failed as a commercial proposition. Which seems to be the driving force of the movies being manufactured these days. Forces stronger than the foreign hand,or the local mafia — the galloping spread of malls and multiplexes over desperate-to-get-plush India — have forced the cop into retreat. When everyone is happy and jolly,with access to discounted brands,and designer emotions,and when leading men sport scarlet Calvin Klein briefs while trying to clean up messy apartments,who needs a cop,who brings with him the whiff of the street,and grime?

But there are people who still value true grit,and whose vulnerabilities make our police force more valuable than ever. No wonder Salman Khan’s Robin Hood variant Chulbul Pandey,who takes with one hand,and gives with another,touched such a chord amongst viewers starved of a modern-day cop. A lawman who understands the need for lawlessness to root out the corrupt and power-mad monsters will always be a welcome reading of the pulse of the people. Being a cop allows leading men,and their audiences,to participate in stuff that is the purview of those on the other side: to be badass,to act out,to stuff a Magnum in your undershorts.

Oh yeah,delighted to see you. Step up to the plate,and hit it out of the park.