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amitabh bachchan, Arjun Related posts, arjuna, clark gable, feroz khan, howard roark, Mahabharata, maximum comments, rhett butler, shaheer sheikh, sherlock holmes
Do you blur the line between an idolized character and an actor portraying him?
Vanaprastham – The Last Dance is a Malayalam film where Mohanlal, a Kathakali artist finds solace in theatre.
Once, his audience includes Subhadra (Suhasini) of an aristocratic family. In love with the valiant warrior Arjun of Mahabharata, she personifies Mohanlal as her dream hero. The eventual affair leads to the birth of a son. However, Subhadra content to be pregnant with the seed of Arjun – her idolized version, rejects the flesh & blood Mohanlal.
The storyline struck a resonance within me.
I remember going to a late-night Marathi musical Saubhadra, based on Krishn’s orchestration of Arjun-Subhadra elopement. I went solo, but purchased 3 tickets (to free myself of annoying coughs or jutting elbows) on either side of ‘my space.’
The play was low-budget, Subhadra was played by a man (the play was an echo of bygone era when only male artistes dared to be onstage!), who was atleast 12 inches broader than Arjun. The artist playing Arjun was a mediocre TV actor, and not in my league of ‘favorite gentlemen’.
And yet, in the darkened theater, I sat transfixed and entranced by the magic of Arjun (click here for Arjun’s influence on my life). Pulses quickened, my palpitations audible, a delicious tense knot coiling within me, I reveled in Arjun’s charisma , intact and vibrantly alive across a span of 6000 years.
I was not merely audience at a theatre. I was the passionate Draupadi, the enamoured Subhadra, the lusty Uloopi, the rebuffed Urvashi.
Does this happen to you? Transfer of emotions from an unattainable idol to an actor?
I always harbour a soft spot for an actor playing Arjun. Irrational and illogical, but I cannot escape it. Only, instead of going to the extreme (as in Vanaprastham), I am content to capture them in carbon sketches.
Here are two of them: Arjun Feroz Khan in B.R Chopra’s and Shaheer Sheikh in Siddharth Tewari’s Mahabharat serial.
Arjun is a historical figure, not mythological. Krishn (click here for my take on Krishn enigma)-Arjun are as much factual as Chanakya-Chandragupta or Samarth Ramdas-Shivaji Maharaj.
But even fictional, literary characters can take root & wings within our hearts as live beings.
The book ‘The Early Ayn Rand’, features edited-out excerpts from ‘The Fountainhead’. The editor’s note notes, ‘These scenes are not part of The Fountainhead. To state paradoxically, for emphasis – these events did not happen to Howard Roark – they are pure fiction!’
When Gary Cooper played Howard Roark, I was sorely disappointed. Roark’s ‘inflexible integrity’ was translated by Cooper as ‘inflexible facial expression’.
In contrast, when Margaret Mitchell created ‘Gone with the wind’, she envisioned Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and did he vindicate her! Frankly, my dears, can you imagine anyone else mutter, ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’ ?
Jeremy Scott (and more recently Benedith Cumberbach) and Sherlock Holmes. I never wonder if the actors possess one-tenth of Sherlock’s IQ, but I still attribute all of Doyle/Sherlock’s genius, deductions and eccentricities with them.
Amitabh Bachchan and Vijay – where did one end and the other begin? Amitabh’s smoldering voice, the gaunt figure, the barely leashed fury was synonymous with Vijay, the ‘rebel with a cause’ of Bollywood.
Shahrukh Khan and Rahul/Raaj Malhotra – who apes whom? Whom does the audience root for? Ben Kingsley and M. K. Gandhi; Pierce Brosnan and James Bond; Amjad Khan and Gabbar Singh.
The ‘visible’ actor often thrives on multiple ‘backstage’ artistes.
The writer who pens crisp lines, the singer who strums his flexible vocal cords, the lyricist who waxes Sufi & Urdu (never mind if the protagonist is illiterate, a goon, a Don or a professor), the Director who visualizes the film and the producer who funds the vision.
Yet, the actor becomes the face & voice of these collective talents, the poster boy of borrowed/pilfered/stolen/unacknowledged talents.
Can you be objective to an actor portraying your beloved historical/ fictional character?
Which is your ‘wow’ and ‘yuck’ literature-to-film portrayals?
Do you transform into a casting director every time you read a book?
You are blessed and talented you can transform yourself to the opposite of your favourite character. In the recently concluded Mahabharata, Arjuna was quite well depicted and suited the character. Why can you not adore Karna. He gave up all his armor and blessing, he was cursed with an unfair curse so his chariot sank in mud. Then only Arjuna could defeat him.
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Thank you. I did not understand by ‘transform myself to opposite of my fav character’.
My adoration of Arjun arises from reading the Sanskrit verses of the most ancient available version of Mahabharata. You would be astonished at the number of interpolations inserted in the English version. I have not relied on dramatized TV serials or fictional novels.
Karna ‘traded’ his armor for Shakti-astra, as he says ‘ Unless and until you gave me Vasava in return, I shall not give the armor.’ Plus, he was defeated multiple times even with the armor, so I am doubtful of the integrity of the armor.
If you read the text in detail, Arjun’s chariot sinks during Nagastra incident; and while Krishn is involved in extracting it out, Karna shoots arrows at unarmed Krishn. So he loses every right to complain when Destiny turns the table on him next.
And Arjuna defeated him at Draupadi swayamwar and at Virat war pre-Kurukshetra. Kurukshetra was merely the culmination.
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I actually didn’t like any of the current mythological series that was on television. The only one which looked authentic was the “Mahadev”…which I used to watch. 🙂
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Oh, Shiva, the hermit? I did not enjoy the Meluha book, so I did not watch Mahadev. And you are right, I gave up the current Mahabharata serial quite early on, right after Draupadi swayamwar, actually. They started twisting and changing too many incidents. I mean, interpretations or fresh view points are fine , but this was gross distortion.
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What an elaboration Dr. Sweety Shinde. Really never thought from all these angels, you type of opened the eye. It is a fact that we do feel such things, but are not at all aware…
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Thank you Alok. It is a pleasure to pen thoughts that strike a chord with everyone. You did not tell me about your favorite casting or a casting you thought was a terrible mistake.
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Funny.. I have hated every actor who played Alexander and Achilles … including Collin Farrel and Brad Pitt respectively …
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That’s bcos you must be having a mental image of how they ‘ought’ to look like. And every actor must have been a let-down.
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or mayb bcos they chose known faces. It is that much more difficult to disengage known faces from known movies and re-attach them to the role of legends. Choosing an unknown new actor would have worked better.
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Interesting post. I agree with you on Clark Gable and Rhett Butler. (We were in Atlanta a few months back.). Also, Ben Kingsley and Mahatma Gandhi. I have no idea about Hindi movies because I have not seen any Hindi movie yet. The closest I can think of is Sivaji Ganesan and Kattabomman.
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Hi, thank you.
Unfortunately, all I know about Sivaji Ganeshan is the Rekha connection. Is Kattabomman a character or a movie? Intriguing name, but could you give me a synopsis or a photo to boost my imagination?
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Rekha connection is Gemini Ganesan and not Sivaji Ganesan. Sivaji acted in a movie called Veerapandya Kattabomman. He won the best actor award at the Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo, Egypt for his portrayal of Kattabomman.
Kattabomman was a courageous 18th century polygar in the southern most area of Tamil Nadu. He fought the British 60 years before the war of independence occurred in other parts of India. He was captured and hanged in 1799.
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Ooops! There I go exhibiting my half-baked knowledge!
I hadn’t heard of this particular freedom fighter. Thanks for the information. I will Google for more details.
P.S: My grandpa was part of the freedom movement too, though he was a hardcore Gandhian.
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I am proud of you for being part of the family that took part in the Indian freedom movement.
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Yes. We really don’t know the value of ‘Independence’ that we take for granted. It’s become just one of the annual holidays for us, or the stuff where we play Gandhi or Bhagat singh movies whole day long on TV.
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I never find literature-to-film portrayals as interesting as the literature itself. May be it’s my shortcoming but literature always makes me more thoughtful and imaginative. I agree with you on Holmes and Roark.
Karna is my favourite character in The Mahabharata. I haven’t watched even a single episode of the recent Mahabharata on TV. So can’t opine on that……and yes I’ll sing in unison with you on the Meluha book…no question of watching Mahadev…
Enjoyed your article….thanks for sharing your thoughts …. 🙂
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Hi! And a warm welcome to my space.
Reality can never match up to imagination, can it? That is why most screen interpretations will remain short of ‘my fantasy & dream’.
Unless, I haven’t read the book at all. Like it happened with Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Masoom’. I loved the film, but read the book many years later. By that time, the film actors were firmly embedded into my memory and they nudged out the book protagonists.
So, perhaps first impressions are the one that last.
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Kevadhe abhyaspurn lekhan aahe ! Sagalya kamatun vel kasa kay kadhates ?
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It writes itself in the mind over the week. I merely pen it down, or rather, keyboard it down.
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Every time I read what you write, and the discussions that follow, I not only learn something but feel strangely happy within. It’s like having a dinner conversation with the family every night. The siblings almost never have the same opinion, but the conversations are always so delightful and insightful and mom is always so lovingly neutral
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Mom is not neutral. She is the pacifist and the final referee.
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