ESSAY: Ishtyle Of The Angry Young Man

ONE AGAINST THE WORLD

He broods. He smoulders. He broods some more. On the surface he seems like a quiet chap with nothing much to say. But there's a hidden volcano inside. In his head he's planning to avenge injustice. He's saving his strength for the ulitmate battle between good and evil. And he's dressed to kill. Hollywood heros fought baddies and rode horses in tight jeans but Bollywood boys have always had more style.

Our angry young man can battle single-handedly against the whole world accessorised only by his courage to stand up and be heard. But a blood soaked saree palloo (to be used as a bandana, and/or a locket) propel him to reach his goal faster. If the mother is alive, and she mostly is, she acts like his moral support and comes forward to bless him and encourage him to go ahead and fight the good fight. If circumstances allow, she puts a red 'tikka' or 'tilak' so he comes back victorious. In dramatic scenes, she even blesses him with a tikka with her own blood and screams 'don't come back until you've killed them all!'

Our early movies were morality plays where the evil was some sort of social injustice and and there was no opportunity to play saviour to eradicate it all. But the idea of the angry young man was sown then. Bimal Roy tackled the caste system with movies like Sujata, but the people around him did not support him and neither was he shown to win the battle. The hero was often shown riding away into the sunset leaving the familiar behind. it was not until the seventies that the lone man decided to take on the world.

Both Dilip Kumar and Sunil Dutt acted in movies where they battled social ills. But you remember them as lawyers and new age farmers eliciting claps from the audience for their speeches in courts, election speeches and encouraging words to fellow farmers in movies. There was angst and fighting for the rights of the people, but revenge in the sense of 'main tera khoon pi jaaongaa'. these were gentlemen revolutionaries.

Dharmendra donned khaki as a mill worker and fought for the workers in movies like Jugnu, Naya Zamana. Khaki bush shirts and khaki trousers became the order of the day, and Dharmendra added a dash of style by sticking a handkerchief in the collar. He even made single toed black leather chappals cool. With flared nostrils he delivered dialogue that had the audience rooting for the common man. And when he raised his fist, you noted the taveez straining on his heavy-duty biceps.

It was Amitabh Bachchan who brought style to the genre. And no, it was not just his teeth-grinding sneer. He wore cowboy boots with jeabs tucked into them, bell bottoms, long pointy-collared shirts, bandanas, hats, hankies tied around hs neck, a knot in his shirts and he wore waistcoats too. Anything he wore in the movies became the fashion of the day. Even the samurai revenge band, worn in the movies was sported by chaps across the country. The broad big-buckled belts that he wore also became a rage. As his fame grew, so did his roles. In movies like Mahaan, where he played both father and son, fashion was the only surefire way to differentiate the two roles. the dad wore kurtas and added a dash of grey to his long hair, and the son wore tee shirts over jeans.

After Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan attempted to get into the mode, with leather jackets and jeans but their careers took them on other paths. Shah Rukh's Baazigar made long sleeved tee shirts popular. What he did single-handedly for blazers and sports jackets, no one else in tinseltown has. Sunny Deol smouldered in Ghayal and created hoards of fans who turned up in brown jackets and and trousers. Sunny made vests a trademark of angry young men.

Aamir Khan in Ghulam experimented in his tapori gear which worked wonderfully for him. Ajay Devgan's leather jackets and sunglasses worked in Vijaypath and Phool Aur Kaante. But the most memorable accessory turned out to be chewing gum. The classic Amitabh Bachchan sneer replaced by gum chewed with anger!

And not too long ago we saw one more actor smoulder on the screen. His sartorial elegance was understated but you could not miss it. The full sleeve shirts had button down cuffs. His trousers were languid and lean. But the sunglasses helped in masking the menace that the stubble and narrowed eyes created. That young man was Abhishek Bachchan. The film was Sarkar. It's a role that asked him to be a quiet listener initially, and he carries it off with his hands in his pockets. But when goaded into action, the volcano explodes and we see the anger at work. The audience considered him fitting heir to the angry young man title. We too believe that romantic films will come and go, but we love our angry young men will smoulder forever.