There is a long-running joke — petty, snarky and not really funny — among fans of the Deol clan. The punchline goes, “Teen pushte nikal gayi Bobby ko launch karte karte”. There was nothing particularly spectacular about the second episode of the latest season of Koffee With Karan. Sunny and Bobby Deol were described as “legacy stars”. The brothers gushed about their recent successes after decades of setbacks and, in Bobby’s case, outright failure. They spoke about family, their father and Gadar 2. And apart from Sunny’s dig at Shah Rukh Khan, it was all hum saath saath hain, with less drama.
The moment that seemed honest – if a bit Rendezvous with Simi Garewal-esque – was Bobby confessing to having given up and taken to drinking after his career went through a lull (The insensitive joke-maker might say that’s all it ever had). In essence, the younger Deol did not seem to realise for a long time that in the “industry”, people “use each other” so you have to make yourself useful.
It may seem odd to many that it took a man to get to his 50s to realise that, unlike his family, no one really cares about his success and failures in the wider world. Even when that world is as incestuous as the Hindi film industry. But Bobby’s revelation eludes many Indians, and certainly Indian men of a certain class and privilege.
If Sunny paaji and the action hero is one narrow, hyper-nationalist archetype of masculinity, its polar opposite is equally irritating. Too many young men, without knowing it perhaps, are becoming Devdas. Their entitlement – fostered by generations of being the apple of the conservative family’s eye – to love, desire and even professional success finds expression in self-pity at best and gaslighting the people around them most often. As a coming-of-age mistake, when we are still figuring out who we are, this is perhaps understandable even if it isn’t excusable. But in the age of social media, when everyone thinks they are the main character in a bad film, this tends to go on for far too long.
So, here’s a sentence that is hardly ever uttered. To all those who are in a rut, blaming the world and either self-hating or hate-texting: Be like Bobby. Get over yourself.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
