Bollywood songs and the culture of sexual harassment

Songs are an integral part of Hindi cinema (or Bollywood as it is popularly known all over the world now). As a kid and teenager, the only sources of entertainment for me were Hindi/Marathi cinema and the Indian government TV channel Doordarshan. Like any other generation, the life of my generation was also heavily influenced by the contents of the entertainment that we consumed. In one of the episodes of Amir Khan's show "Satyamev Jayate" and also my daughter Sara pointed out that many Bollywood songs openly encourage the culture of sexual harassment. This was a bitter pill to swallow as I love many Hindi movie songs as I grew up listening to them, but when I look back I have to agree that many of these songs propagated sexual harassment. In almost every movie, the main protagonist of the movie (the Hero) used to chase the leading lady (the Heroine), harass her, and stalk her until she eventually fell in love with her. Also, there used to be another person who did more or less the same acts, but without any success and that character used to be a villain, some villains used to take an extreme step of raping the heroine to punish her for rejecting their advances. So, this was the general path to conquer love which we used to watch in almost every movie. Hero's harassment was considered as "love" as eventually his target of harassment used to fall in love with him, but the same acts of the villain were not OK, as he did not get the heroine, but both performed the same acts, one succeeded and another failed. As an audience, we used to know who was the hero and who was the villain as actors were typecasted in these roles. 

Generations got their "how to win love" lessons from these movies and their songs which were extremely popular.  Many songs of the sixties are still popular, their lyrics and music are great and I love many of those songs, but if I watch them now I can see why generations who grew up watching these songs did think that harassing a woman is OK. Everyone who watched those movies knew that the hero succeeds and the villain ultimately fails, but in real life who wants to think that they are villains, everyone used to believe that the girl they like is their heroine, they are her hero, and eventually they can win her by using the same tactics which the hero employed in movies. This propagated the culture of sexual harassment which continues even today. Boys were taught that they need to be aggressive and persistent without being bothered by the girl's response, to the extent that the girl has no option but to accept their so-called love. Girls were taught to say no and not to express their feelings even if they liked the boy and be tolerate such harassment as a part of being a girl (For example, watch this superhit song, mana janab ne pukara nahi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3WKSb1q_Q). There is nothing wrong with the lyrics of the song, and that's the beauty of these songs, their lyrics are not at all offensive, but the way they are picturized is where the real problem lies.

I must provide some other relevant examples to prove my point because one random example is not enough. Dev Anand was known as a chocolate hero, a very cute and mild-mannered love boy, and an evergreen hero. Many of his songs and movies are still popular, below is one of his super hit songs "hai apana dil to awara." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4FC7hlqsZQ

In this song watch, how the hero (Dev Anand) tries to make the heroine (Waheeda Rehman) feel uncomfortable in a public place. Also, how the public reacts to Dev's acts even though they see that the girl he is trying to impress is feeling uncomfortable they do nothing about this but watch him with awe and admiration. This movie is from 1958. There is no physical harassment in this, but readers can imagine things getting worse from here. Check this 1967 movie, An Evening in Paris, another super hit song, "akele akele kaha jaa rahe ho," and superhit romantic hero Shammi Kapoor. The heroine, Sharmila Tagore, is actually trying to avoid both him and the villain, please let me know if anyone thinks this is not harassment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeWoNv2JMiY

There are many songs like these, I can make a comprehensive list, but providing such a list is not the aim of the post. I have seen the effect of these songs and felt it myself. I agree with Sara that these songs do teach that harassing girls to win their love is okay, I cannot imagine the problems girls were forced to deal with all these heroes who were harassing them while imagining themselves as some Bollywood hero set to pursue the love of their life. I am glad that finally, Amir Khan acknowledged this problem and hopefully the Indian movie industry will take steps to address this issue. I do understand that movies are meant for entertainment and should be taken only as entertainment, not as a moral teaching tool, but if they teach something so persistently, it is bound to have an effect on society. 

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Rajesh Khanna-the first superstar of Hindi cinema

Today on 18th July Rajesh Khanna died, he was 69. He is considered as the first superstar of Hindi cinema. I don't belong to the generation who witnessed the superstardom, or hysteria he created among his fans, his movie career was already on the decline when I was born. I watched his movies on TV (on the Indian national channel Doordarshan) but only understood his magic during my teenage days...then I understood why he is called as the ultimate romantic hero of Hindi cinema. Many of his movies like Do Raste, Kati Patang, Aradhana, Amar Prem, Safar, App Ki Kasam, Bawarchi, and above all Anand are just amazing. I still listen regularly songs from these movies and even though he was not the singer or music composer of these songs his personality is an integral part of these songs..for example, Manna Dey sang very beautifully the song 'Jindagi kaisi hai paheli' in 'Anand' but whenever I listen that song all I remember is image of Rajesh Khanna (Anand) walking on the beach with his chappals in his hand....he was unique combination of style and acting. Most of his movies that were released in the 80s and 90s were flops and I don't remember any of them but it was not important because whatever movies he did during his golden era (1969-1975) were enough to show what he was...he was already on the decline when I started watching movies but movies from his golden era made me realize why he became the first superstar of Hindi cinema.

"Anand' is one of my favorite movies and I think it's his best. I don't think anyone can match his performance in Anand...that role was just tailor-made for him or I think he was born to play that role. I am from the generation who adored the angry young man, Amitabh and witnessed the rise of the Khan era, but there was a special place for Rajesh Khanna. For me, he was a unique combination of Dilip-Dev-Raj (Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, and Raj Kapoor), and I think he is the only superstar where all his good movies are also his super hit movies...very few stars are lucky enough to achieve this in Hindi cinema...his off-beat movies like Bawarchi and Aavishkar were also very successful. Today he left us but he will always live in our hearts as the king of romance and our first superstar...I remember one dialogue from his movie Anand...आनंद मरा नहीं, आनंद मरते नहीं...people like Anand never die.

Thanks for reading.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)