MORTALS V/S IMMORTALS

“Bollywood” has always fascinated me in terms of the spice, glamour quotient, style, songs and cinema of course. It is evolving and exploring new areas of cinemas but my mind tends to see something so intriguing. I am talking about this sharp distinction made between the genders in “Bollywood” wherein the male gender (hero) has been given this so called tag of “immortality” while the female gender (heroine) the tag of “mortality”. I use these tags of immortality and mortality in a symbolic way to show that the “hero” is seen in so many infinite angles as opposed to the heroine who is seen through just one lens. The audience plays a very pivotal role in fuelling this illusion. It is acceptable for a hero to have two lives i.e. a professional and personal life but is so indigestible to even fathom the fact of a heroine to have the same. This illusion of the audience is so contagious that it spreads into the minds of Indian cinema too.

Another dynamic that I find very interesting is the psyche of the Indian man towards this “heroine”. It seems as though he looks at her only as this sexual, desirable object which ceases to hold on to those qualities if the “heroine” were to have a personal life of her own. This further brings up another dynamic of fantasy v/s reality. When the audience goes to watch a film he is relating to this fantasy object (heroine) which in his mind is not real and therefore helps him to fantasize. Now when this “heroine” brings in a piece of reality like for example gets married to someone, it becomes difficult for the audience to freely fantasize about the “heroine” as they use to. It is as though unconsciously this so called desirable object has now become this mother like figure for the audience and would be incestuous to fantasize about her anymore.

The “hero” on the other hand seems to be indestructible and a very potent figure where he goes onto romancing heroines as old as his daughters. There is a complete denial in terms of the “hero’s” age. He just seems to go on for decades to come. The audience idealizes this hero like image and puts him up on a pedestal and ignores the reality bit of the hero as opposed to the “heroine” where the reality is taken cognizance of.

Ultimately it is a mind-set which is hard to change but one can start to at least ponder over why it needs to be the way it is.

Natasha Trivedi

(Psychotherapist/ Psychologist)