Will the Indians ever act? The better question is if they will ever stop doing it?

It is awards season yet again and the Indian Media is Tally Ho yet again. No, it is not a comparison to Lagaan's Oscar nomination season, or random eye candy jury appearances among others. It is about ranking of the Hindi film regulars' based on their presence on international award functions' list. Now why do I say film regulars instead of actors or artists? Well, those who have the circumstances to land up on celluloid in India have hardly had anything for a long time to earn themselves an 'artist', either in front or back of the moving reel. The term actor, on the other hand, is a little tricky. Those around can hardly be called actors because, very simply, they can't act. They are just superstars repacked either in what they do 'best' (usually reads what they are worst at, that too because they hardly try anything else), or what they think being 'different' (usually reads shockingly weird or unpalpably safe) is. These people will never stop being the essential star image of themselves; being pathetically same or painfully different but never letting go of that star reality. It seeps through the delivery, the face and the mannerisms down to the last iota of the stardom. That is perhaps the reason why Langda Tyagis are so few and far between. Aamir may give and take a zillion haircuts and Shahrukh can have as many lives as possible but they can't give, and haven't given, a single Tyagi in their whole lifetime. Aamir tried to come close with Pakya and Siddharth but not in the same league. This is where the dilemma comes. Why can't I call them actors then? They are just acting in the plain sense of the word because essentially they are superstars. They are superstars acting to be characters. They become actors but never characters. We hear reports every now and then as to how certain perfectionists have acclimatised themselves, or 'done their homework', by mostly ‘spending time’ with otherwise ‘downtrodden’ of the society. All the homework and no classwork is the norm for our mostly chromosomatic stars. Once the reel starts rolling, the temptation of being the star and the mortal fear of losing the said persona on the screen takes the better of the homework. The shocking reaction of Mr. Varma on oh-so-unrecognisable Mr. Oberoi or how-so-muscular Mr. Kapoor before the forgettable debut; nothing translates on screen. Lessons, I think, may be in how a graduate becomes a ratso.

I remember how a report mentioned that Aamir went to every single museum he could to replicate the bats of the period for Lagaan. What he fails to understand is that he needs to visit Bhuvan because the bat is not the lead in the story. The appearance of the bat won't matter as long as Aamir Khan does not disappear from the screen. He, obviously, is not the Badshah of this field as long as the fellow Khan, Shahrukh, is out there. He definitely gets my accolades for being able to pull it off for so long by just being The Great Khan (almost always means The Fake Khan). I always recall the various looks of Derek Zoolander when I think of his various characters and him portraying them. He has that so subtly different lip and eyebrow movement and that little jerk of the skull and how he puts it in every nook and corner of his matchbox sized alleged range of acting is a masterpiece in itself.

The story does not limit itself to the so called greats but it definitely shows the deepest percolations of the hollow narratives that are put on the big screen. The scene behind the camera is, not surprisingly, not very different. Do we have one Indian movie in ages that can be remembered for what it was? It is unless, of course, we are talking about being remembered for being hopelessly weird. What we talk about in this part of the world is movies been written, and repeatedly so, around the superstar, be it Rajni or AB. There are, of course, some reversely creative masters like Mr. Hirani who are still doing it very successfully. Then there are the 'inspired' kinds who have taken upon themselves to tear apart every single thing already done and better. These sad tributes always help. They make us go back to the unblemished. It is probably why we can have three Ghajinis but still yearn for even a third of Nolan.

I think I will sum it up by this one time I was on a celebrated talk show by yet another drama queen of yet another stage, Ms. Barkha Dutt. I was in the company of giants like Javed Akhtar and Bobby Bedi. The latter, for those of you ignorant ones, is one guy who invests hopelessly hopefully in films that he wishes to 'cross over'. You can relate to him with a blunder, name of The Rising. This guy claims that if he is putting some oodles of crores in a project he wants it to cross over and fetch results. I understand the financial part but it really starts me when the mercenaries start talking about holiness of aesthetics and how they have put in every effort etcetera. Well, I asked Mr. Bedi if he would be interested in making a film first and then letting it cross over or not on its merit rather than the film itself being a means to an end, i.e. of being a cross over film. The very understanding Ms. Dutt, of course, summed the suggestion up as naive for an investment of oodles of crores.