Rajat Kapoor feels Hindi cinema lost its ‘feminine’ hero with Amitabh Bachchan’s Angry Young Man in 1970s: ‘Only violent men on screen today’

Rajat Kapoor and Vinay Pathak share a professional association of over 25 years, which extends across theatre and cinema. Their most recent collaboration is the former’s new directorial Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa. While Rajat also plays a key role in the rich ensemble, Vinay plays the titular protagonist, the one who’s ironically found dead at the start of the film. Handa is somewhere symbolic of the leading man we see in Indian cinema today — an aggressive, violent, entitled man, who’s undeniably charming and unmissable. On SCREEN’s Creator X Creator, chatting with his longtime collaborator Vinay, Rajat points out that the Hindi film hero used to be conventionally very gentle and in touch with his feminine side. “The Indian man has lost that feminine side. If you look at films of the 1950s, you’d see a lot of gentleness. Actors like Shashi Kapoor were celebrated. Or there was Rajesh Khanna, the ‘chocolate hero’. Or even Dilip Kumar, the tragic hero,” argues Rajat. “Balraj Sahni,” adds Vinay as Rajat seconds that inclusion. Rajat feels a tectonic shift in that landscape happened in the 1970s with the advent of Amitabh Bachchan as the Angry Young Man. Though Bachchan also played a gentle hero in films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, his metamorphosis into Vijay by legendary screenwriter duo Salim-Javed remains his most enduring legacy. “We lost that gentle, caring guy in the 1970s maybe when the Angry Young Man came in. Maybe with Shah Rukh Khan, the sweet, gentle face got revived again (in the 1990s). But ya, we’ve lost that man with feminine traits. Now, of course, we see violent men on screen,” adds Rajat. Even Shah Rukh is playing the violent man on screen now, with blockbusters like Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan and Atlee’s Jawan in 2023, and his upcoming action thriller, King, also helmed by Siddharth. As of now, even the two highest grossing Indian films  at the domestic box office star Allu Arjun and Ranveer Singh as extremely violent men — Sukumar’s 2024 Telugu action thriller Pushpa 2: The Rule and Aditya Dhar’s spy thriller Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge, which released earlier this year. When Vinay asks if men have informed violence or vice-versa, Kapoor claims it’s a symptom of a larger societal shift. “When you’re rooted to the ground, based in a village, agriculture is still your primary activity, and you’re addressing that audience, then you make a Do Bigha Zameen,” argues Rajat, referring to Bimal Roy’s 1953 seminal film, starring Sahni in the lead role. When Vinay enquires if that film is reinterpreted today, would it be a violent movie, Rajat laughs and says, “I suppose so. Who knows?” “The whole shift to city, the migration, and the loss of connection with the pind has something to do with violence. Cities are violent. To survive in a city is violent. You’ve lost the connection with your roots, your home. That must be the beginning of the violent gene that I’ll be a gangster and rule over this city,” adds Rajat. For Vinay, however, slipping into the role of a violent man as Sohrab Handa wasn’t a task despite his bumbling onscreen image. “I hail from a very middle-class family in Bihar. Even the most lovable human in the state I come from has a very evolved and accepted streak of violence. I don’t think anyone in Bihar would be shocked with any kind of violence even though they’re not violent themselves,” claimed Vinay. He points out that in the history of Bihar, there’s a lot of blood in the form of Kalinga War, resistance to Buddhism and Jainism, the modern struggle of Bihar to be autonomous, the class and caste divides, the zamindari pratha, and the coal mines. “Bihar is a complete life in itself. It’s fascinating to find a streak of that in a character somebody else thought of, who has no Bihar connection (laughs),” adds Vinay. Also Read — Dhurandhar 2 Worldwide Box Office Collection Day 27 LIVE Updates: Aditya Dhar-Ranveer Singh’s film franchise crosses Rs 3,000 crore, Dhurandhar 2 sold 17.32 mn tickets so far Vinay admitted he was quite scared to take up this role because there were so many Handas around him growing up, some of them even related to him. “Some of them are still around,” says Vinay, to which Rajat responds, “Still alive?” as both crack up. Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa is streaming on ZEE5. Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.