Bring on The Empty Horses

He loved leaving his pajama strings dangling.
He converted to another religion to marry his mistress; the lady is considered the epitome of dignity and the upholder of cultural values.
She filled the screen with her bikini line.
He mimicked Hitler.
She hid her face but little else.

He. She. He. She…They are not merely names like Shakti Kapoor, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Celina Jaitley, Asrani, Zeenat Aman, who candidly said she carries a hand sanitiser while campaigning. They are the new face of Indian politics. The branding of democracy with a stamp of supra-populism. The marketplace where you do not need to buy masses to listen to speeches, but to purchase the glamour of fringe stars: Oakley eyes, bleached smiles, sun-blocked faces, limp wrists waving pink hands.

You pay for them because in times of the rising GDP, the masses do not count. The great middle class space has been enlarged to include the solitaire society, where you aspire for the Miss Universe and Mr. Hunk titles, where you want to reach Alaska on a flight that does not serve garlic, where housewives transform magically into career women when they cut their old saris and market them as sarongs, where conscientious citizens are ones who nibble canapés while talking about AIDS, where public awareness is often taken over by a man who used to advertise soap under a waterfall and is called “god”, where people break homes, and I am talking walls and ceilings, so that they can give out the right vibes, where dead souls assiduously practise the Art of Living at the feet of a guru who looks so rejuvenated he could have just stepped out of a Bangkok massage parlour, where everyone thinks they are on the Oprah Winfrey show, so they select even their dirty linen with much care. The problem is you cannot write gossip about these people, because they want to hear horrible things about themselves.

This is where we are at. This is how we are shining.

The other night there was one of those entertainment programmes being telecast. It was sponsored by The Indian Express. I was wondering which awards function it was. Surprisingly, it was a show to tell people to cast their vote. High society, instead of being brought in by the truckloads, came in their Mercs and Chevrolets to understand the value of their vote, and the middle class watched. They watched again as barely-known starlets and society dames took to the streets protesting that their names were not on the electoral rolls. Do you think they care? Did they check whether their maids, their drivers, their peons had their names in the list? The democratic process today, more than ever before, is for the people, by the people, of the people in the right place. And since fame means getting a toehold as a MTV bakra, 15 seconds is all it takes to bleed a spongy valentiny heart.

Everyone finds the Indian elections a huge tamasha. But the trapeze artistes are being camouflaged beneath consciences. And they know their targets well. They therefore sell Morality. Uprightness. It is the disconnected deciding who is good for us. And you can see the chasm as you open the wrappers.

If a man who legitimised the bastard and made alcoholism seem funny and took the law in his own hands could represent us in Parliament, then why must we be cynical about someone who is perpetually in a jerking frenzy?

Why is it that an Amitabh Bachchan gets respect (despite calling Indian politics a cesspool) but we think of Govinda as a joker? It has little to do with their intrinsic merit and more to do with how we superficially perceive people’s worth.

Govinda ought to be a real example of India Shining. He is hick-town at its most potent. I think it was his gumption mixed with the ability to fall at people’s feet that gave him the first break. He danced like a street urchin, and continues to do so. Not because he knows that it appeals to people, but for the simple reason that he cannot do otherwise. Much is made of this “Virar ka chhokra” business to underline the fact that he has come up the hard way. The truth is that he is still lodged there. As he once said, “…a person who is not assertive is considered a fool.”

But beneath the naiveté is again a mind that has gauged sharply that nothing lasts forever. So he play-acts all the time, without intending to be a sham. He works on people’s emotions. He uses his mamma’s boy image to lethal effect -- a mother who wanted him to be a clerk for that is as far as their lack of money and finesse could let them be ambitious. Yet he insisted on joining films. That is unexplored territory. I do believe that having an inadequate role model in a failed actor as father, Govinda wanted to be his own man and avenge the ignominy of one he could not look up to. He gave himself one year to knock on people’s doors -- a small suburban young man trying to be a star. I doubt if he wanted to be looked on as a great actor at the time; he just wanted the applause, to tell the people in his lane that one of them had made it.

He is quite willing to humiliate himself with those pelvic thrusts and a pudgy frame because he knows he will be accepted precisely because others will feel better about themselves. But he did indeed upset the apple-cart for a few years. He made intellectuals eat crow and gave the unwashed masses a tremendous boost. He was at the toniest parties rubbing shoulders with the suave and sophisticated and was being feted not for having risen to their level, but for bringing them down to his. It was in five-star discotheques that they gyrated to, “Main to rastey se jaa raha tha, bhelpuri kha raha tha….” And it was at five-star gatherings that they dropped their carefully-structured manners and accents and talked like they were in some down-market movie.

But is this legitimisation without strings attached? Isn’t he somewhat like Laloo Prasad Yadav who is a ‘hero’ only because the crème is milking him for all he is worth: their ticket to a virtual trip to langoti land to display their Calvin Kleins? Everyone can touch Govinda and feel his shiny clothes. They can laugh at his face, make him feel like a little boy. He makes it obvious that he so desperately wants to be loved.

Is this what makes him believe he has arrived? Is that why he wants a change of image? His flamboyant dress designer was sceptical, “Govinda is really above clothes… when they (the audience) go for a Govinda film, they want to see colours.” For him it was not about colours. It was about doing umpteen substandard films due to financial insecurity. As he once said, “Since I was from a non-metropolitan milieu I had the stamina to sustain this impractical routine.”

He became a Phenomenon perched on a straw pedestal. Instead of feeling debilitated by it, it has become his raison d’etre. He may have felt bad once for getting the Best Comedian award in a film where he was the hero, but his attitude was remarkably stoical. “They didn’t mean to demoralise me…they just wanted to appease their own conscience.” He does not regret being shunned by the real big banners. In those he would be a puppet; he seems happier as a wise fool. “You could say I am manufacturing my own ice-cream…In Charlie Chaplin’s films only one person matters.”

Like Chaplin, he too makes his co-stars feel important, knowing well that no one can take the shine away from him. He might, however, by his magnanimity make a person feel special and indebted. The reason some of the most beautiful and chic actresses have always been enthusiastic to work with him could well be attributed to this. That he is often linked with these women is part truth, part fantasy. To be accepted despite his orange shirt and purple trousers may be considered a great leap forward.

Contrast this with the attitude towards Amitabh Bachchan. He is not in the active electoral fray this time, but he is providing covert support to his ‘friends’. He keeps harking back to his roots in Uttar Pradesh; it is seen as a genuine feeling. Govinda contests from the constituency he grew up in and travels by train for his campaigning; there are sniggers: why did he not travel by train earlier? No one would dare to ask Mr. B such a question.

For he is the sophisticate, impeccably dressed, the manner paternal even if slightly tinged with irony. He appears to weigh his words and punctuation marks to give the impression of intellectual contemplation. From playing the media scapegoat to the television’s biggest star and now a head-to-toe endorsement, he has calculated his every move.

He always seems to be in control. He has been permitted a silence that does not bespeak of anything. He appears like a philosopher-king. From martyrdom to ‘barterdom’, it seems that Bachchan has a strange effect where people cannot reach out to him and yet they can sense his presence. The moralistic middle-class would feel safer with him. On the TV quiz show he hosted, he was the superstar smartly coming down a notch or two to be like any other ordinary guy. Amitabh will be a politician in whichever field he is.

Govinda can at best be described as a circus clown who makes you laugh and makes you cry as he grapples with toothless wild animals. Outside that huge tent you wouldn’t give him the time of day. He knows that. This is why he continues to be humble. He has no choice. Our leaders can learn a lot from him.

Empty horses run wild, they don’t win races.