Of DDLJ, SRK and NRI-ism

(Please note: I don't intend any bragging of NRIism or condone candy floss movie culture. I am trying to connect events that happened surrounding this movie and see if i can make sense)


Some movies reflect nation's mood. They reflect the generational change...and sometimes tap on the changing sensibilities of a sub culture.

Almost 12 years back, one such movie was Dilwale Dlhaniya Le Jayenge. A 'coming of age' movie for lot of people including the lead - Shah Rukh Khan.

How was DDLJ different? Well to start with how about the acronym DDLJ itself? I don't remember we used to have many acronyms like this before. DDLJ firmly etched the notion of the shortening of big name movies. Although it wasn't the first to do that, the movie goers lingo definitely changed post this.
{My wife has just argued that QSQT was the one that started the trend. But I am going to stick with my gun. I think DDLJ made this acronym notion more prevalent}

But there were many other 'firsts' to this movie. It was the first "hit" movie where the romantic couple was NRI. Before DDLJ, the hero would be "foreign returned" at most; but not an ABCD or in this case British born confused desi. He would be that patriotic Indian who would come back to "serve" his country. DDLJ broke that glass ceiling. It was unapologetically NRI in it's portrayal.

The second "first" for this movie was the romantic rebel who wouldn't try to be "too nice". He wouldn't try to be the devdas or the good guy. He would use brain to fight out his situation . He was NOT a good guy. He was NOT perfect. He was charactersiticly rude and in your face lover.
Something that was never fully attempted earlier. And the third "first" and in my opinion one of the big jumps was the strong feminist portrayal. The female lead in a romantic movie always had to be the coy, all-adjusting girl who would stay within limits all the time. Although in the movie Kajol does portray that "good girl" image, its different; she is shown as fiercely independent and confident and decisive to a large extent in the first part. At times she irritated me too. But that also indicates that the heroine lost all pretense of the good girlie character.

The year of DDLJ was 1996. This was the time when NRI-ism was coming on its own in urban India. It was a period when economy had just opened. Urban India was seeing American brands like Pizza Hut and McDonald opening their shops around the corner. Coke and Pepsi were already a part of the pop culture. Coke was the official sponsor of the Cricket World Cup in India in 1996. IT revolution was also slowly unraveling in India. A revolution, that, with it's one big tide would sweep a whole generation of middle class Indians into an upper middle class mode. The middle class Indians of wannabe NRI types.

In some sense DDLJ tapped that mood of the nation to it's most profitable best. It must be the business acumen of the Chopra camp to have sensed that mood. The mood of a generation of Indians who were ready to move on to greener territories. DDLJ had all the makings of a candy-floss love story with loads of rich NRI shenanigans. It's not hard to see why a generation of India was caught by this fancy flight to Europe. The Flat world of Thomas Friedman was flattening in India at a very high rate at that time.

The globalized Indian was at ease with the NRI romance. He was ok with a convertible car being broken in Switzerland express way. He could easily relate to train journey in Europe. Although Yash Chopra had taken Indian audience many a times over to his favorite destination, it was with DDLJ that he camped in Europe for good. Just 5 years before DDLJ an NRI hero had failed in Chopra's own Lamhe.

In 20/20 hindsight it's easy to see why DDLJ would not have failed even if it was totally crappy. Some may argue it was still crappy after all. But just seeking an objective analysis, it cannot be denied that it was SRK's signature movie. It was for SRK what Deewar was for Amitabh Bachchan or what probably Hum Aapke.. was for Madhuri Dixit.
Any numero uno needs that ONE big movie to propel him or her in a different league. One movie that is permanently tied to that star. DDLJ was that movie for SRK and also to some extent for Kajol. While Deewar reflected the angry socio-economic situation on mid-70's , DDLJ mirrored the new emerging positive India to some extent. Both movies hitting the sweet spot as far as box-office is concerned.

The gloss that Chopra movies started acquiring with Chandani and Lamhe finally reached it's crescendo with DDLJ. Remember Chopra was the same guy who gave Deewar and Mashaal. The suave urbane hero was not Chopra's real deal till very late in his career. Some may say, the coming together of SRK and Yash Chopra spawned a new thread of candy floss cinema. A new lane on Bollywood traffic. A lane which Karan Johar would keep driving and go for an overkill of NRI centric stuff. KJ even created an NRI family in London who lived in a palace that would be bigger than the Queen herself; for crying out loud. I am referring to the sub-standard attempt at movie making - Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam; K3G as it was called.

DDLJ opened new gates and market for Bollywood and soon other big movie houses joined the bandwagon. NRIs were the new target audience. And before we knew, every one from Saif Ali Khan to Abhishek Bachchan were living in Australia, UK and USA.

But like any other notion, the NRI syndrome had to fail. Not because it was meant to. But because of the curse of Bollywood. That curse is called overdoze. Of over kill. A curse that has been induced time and again by its unidimensional Directors, who cannot think beyond "formula".

The over used formulae of DDLJ may have seen it's sell by date already. But it's significance in the larger pop culture of India can simply not be denied.

The Katta Syndrome

A collection of guys around something, chatting about nothing specific, cracking jokes, "breaking balls"**, and regrouping at consistent intervals is called a Katta. Katta is more commonly used word in some regions of India, but i guess Adda is also popularly used to refer to a place/spot where guys collect.

I have come to think that Katta is probably one of the top five necessities of a guy. [Tongue in cheek - I am not going to spell out the top necessity]

A guy will invariably figure a way out to group with his dudes - if it's not for a smoke, it would be for a coffee break, if not that, may be a foos game in office.

Ever since i stopped smoking, i needed some avenue to get out of my desk once in a while and do something non-work related. I discovered foosball. One of the best stress busters i have experienced. The cafeteria area near Foosball table is probably the second most visited place in our office; next only to meetings :)

In some sense Foosball has provided us with that Katta feeling. Some fridays people have beer in their hands and gather around the table. Most jokes, most comments, wisecracks happen around table. But i am inclined to believe if we did not have a foosball table, dudes would figure out something else. But not let go that Katta necessity so easy.

Like one guy at work place is big on Guitar Hero. So he goes inside the meeting rooms, hookes up his game to the big wide LCD and collects a few guys and they have a ball. Last week, for the Champions League finals, for Man United - Chelsea game, a huge crowd collected around a dudes laptop to see last few minutes of that awesome match. Some other guy was smarter. He hooked his laptop to the 50' LCD screen in the conference room.
[In case someone's getting wrong ideas; yeah we do work!!!]

Point really is, most people like to chat, hang around a bit. Whether using a game or a live match as an excuse or not, there's a definite need for people to group. There are exceptions to the rule. There are some folks in my office, who would just sit at their desks all day and work. But i am not sure their productivity is higher than us.

Chicago downtown is full of such Kattas. My favorite is "All Stars". I am going to bet anyone, that the Hot Chicken Wings at All Stars is better than anywhere else.At times, our group has ordered like 40 wings amongst 7-8 dudes;all wings getting over in a jiffy. On a typical work day, you'd find a whole bunch of people hanging in those bars and catching on the latest MLB/NBA/NFL game. These sports bars are nothing but paid Kattas IMHO. They provide the necessary platform for that Katta-giri i mentioned.

So is Katta-giri universal?

YES is the resounding answer. It totally is. No doubt about it. Watch Sopranos (the term, "breaking balls", i picked from) It is a good example of that. How the Italinos believe in the Katta thing. How they break balls and crack jokes around a table is very relatable. Both the American and UK versions of "The Office" give a good peak into the Katta-giri of both the nations. We all know how Europeans in general have the Katta thing going on with the enormous pub culture clubbed with Soccer passion. I am sure this holds true in China,Japan,Australia and where have you. All places have theirs.

Countries in the world have their own Kattas in some form or the other. In India the "cutting" chai replaces Beer at a Katta. The cutting chai is the single most drunk beverage in India. It beats the second best (whatever it is) by a few hundred light years. At any street corner or a Katta, it is the sip of that chai that keeps the talk going. Chai is the quintessential Katta drink of India. The awfully sweet, sometimes muddy chai cup is the lubricant for a smooth conversation at Katta.

For any guy who could not relate to this article or have not been a part of this Katta culture - i can only say - TOO BAD. You surely have missed something priceless.

Sankrant in Nagpur

According to me there are two festivals that are celebrated uniquely in Nagpur. Sankrant and Holi. Although both are possibly celebrated all over the country, in Nagpur these two take an altogether different meaning.
Well may be not anymore, but it used to, not too long ago.

Sankrant was special for me. I was passionate about kites. So much so, that if i ever rebelled against my father in my entire life, that was once in my very early teens, and that too for Kites.
Yes kites.

It so happened that we had moved into this new building just a year ago and our building secretary was a real jerk. An old guy in his early 70s who had the keys and control to the building terrace or gachchi as it's called in Nagpur. And that Sankrant day in 1987, this jerk was being real cranky. He refused to let us on to the terrace. We, young kids got restless and made some noise and complained to our parents. To my dismay my father instead of supporting us, sided with him. This was too much to take for me. I remember that was the first time in my entire life till that point that i actually answered back to my Dad. Such was the passion i had for kites.

My obsession for kites was so overwhelming, i actually crossed the line that day. And if you have been a kid in Nagpur during the 80s, you would know i was not the only one so passionately in love with kites.

During the kite season, which had a one-two month build up period from say November, till passions reached its zenith on the D-Day, the 14th of Jan, the day Sankrant was celebrated, we were totally mesmerized by Kites.
Each neighborhood had these local heroes, who were like the real Kings of the kite flying domain. They almost reached celebrity status during this time of the year. Nobody would challenge them, as in no one would take a "pecha" with them. Pecha is a term used for a kite contest where one fella tries to "cut" the challengers Kite. It's one helluva on-air battle.

During the kite season we would get the most tan per square cm of our skin. The reason being we would invariably be on the terrace of our building on every weekend in scorching sun flying kites, ALL Day.

There were a few popular kite stores that had become famous during my time. Ramu patang store in Giripeth was one of them. This simple immigrant from UP [probably], Ramu had become quite a stud. He was doing roaring business during the kite season. He had almost acquired a brand loyalty. So much so that basking under his glorious brand his neighbour actually opened a parallel competition called Shamu patang store. Ramu and Shamu both did great business during the season.

The Sankrant day was no ordinary day for us in Nagpur. It was the day when guys/men of all ages would come on the terrace very prepared. Each had a territory fixed for years. It was lame and a non-guy thing to be sitting at home without friends on the day of Sankrant. Even if you had no interest in flying kites it was the moral duty of every male kid to be on terrace and if not fly atleast support his more skillful friend in shouting the competition down.

O Par, was the war cry for every victory achieved on the on-air kite battle. If you happen to beat an expert the cry would be much louder. We would actually keep a count of how many competitors kites we were able to dislodge and how many of our boys we lost. At the end of the day if your balance was in the positive, you had a great day.
Surprisingly nobody would ever concede that they lost more kites than they won. This was defying the logic of sum of the total kites available in the Air.

Nevertheless there was so much obsession and passion involved for kites we actually would have fist fights over a 50 paise Kite. The stealing of manja [or the sharp thread] that is used for flying was another issue people would get worked up with.

But we all survived those moments. We were happy to be a part of the great kite flying community. We all had our own territory to guard. We always had plans made for the final day. Some of us prepared the manja till late in the night on 13th Jan, one day before Sankrant and most of us had the stocks full of kites for the final day.

Nagpur came up with unique terms for kite fliers. If you were a regular kite flier those terms were pretty much a part of your lingo for the rest of the season.

Girgot, laggi, kanna etc. Even different kites had different names. There was the macho Khada Sabbal Muchcha Khada, then bhang dar and then bhangdar tokdor. Funny names like haddi muddi or dabbedar were pretty common.
You would have no idea what i just talked about if you were not a part of that kite flying community. But even if you remotely were, then these names wouldn't be alien to you.

Even the manja had two popular ways of making them. There was the luddhee way and then there was the professional seerus way. Even the saddhhi or the original white thread that ultimately gets converted into the deadly manja had various names.

So while the guys flew their kites the girls and their mothers would be busy on the day of Sankrant with what is called as Haldi Kumkum - a marashtrian ritual where the women folk of the household go to each others houses and do something. That something, I never knew what it was, as i was always on the terrace during that time. But i knew that was a ritual religiously followed at my home for years.

The fathers would usually stay away from house during that time. The guy kids would be on terrace and sisters would be with mothers helping them with haldi kumkum.

Sankrant is possibly the only festival where fathers were "left out" of the action. Some enthusiastic fathers though would join their sons on the terrace. But not many i can tell.

On 14th of January every year, the skies of Nagpur had a decorated look. The makeover from silent sky to a sky full of colors of different shades of Kites, some small some not so tiny was phenomenal. It was like the Gods had decided to add color to the vast open canvas of Nagpur sky. The air would be filled with the clarion sounds of O par every second of the day. Some kid would be trying to catch a kite from dying with his laggi while still another kid would be hiding under the parapet wall of his building trying to steal as much manja as possible from his neighbors lost challenge. Everyone wanted a pound of the kill.
Their would be fights between neighbors over people entering their region. There would be heartbreaks and great victories at the same time. Ego clashed in the Air at every street corner and every moment of that day. The honour was taken after every victory and every fight lost was a moment of great depression.

I actually felt sad when Sankrant would end. It was like the summer holidays getting over or the cricket world cup coming to an end. The fear of the ensuing vacuum post-Sankrant was not very pleasing.

Some of us would keep flying kites even post Sankrant. Some would fly the tri-color kite on the 26th of jan. I am sure not out of any patriotic feeling but just the final passing tribute the season ending. Slowly though the passions would recede and rationality would take over. For those 2 months of kite flying season everything felt different in Nagpur.

In recent years Nagpur has seen the popularity of Kites drop to abysmal levels. The next generation of kids did not probably take over the passion or the skill with equal zeal. Somehow the kite lost its pristine position from every guys sense. I am not even sure if Ramu still sells his kites or Shamu still bothers to compete with him in their great corporate fight over trying to monopolize the Nagpur terraces. May be kites are a thing of past.

As Nagpur advances forward into the new phase of development and becomes more and more commercial, it probably has to let go those glorious festivities that defined it in some sense. As Nagpur finds new avenues of growth the old has to go. May be its not bad as it sounds, but i for sure am going to miss those Muchcha Khaddas and Bhangdars for all the 14th Jans that i ever live to see.