I am bored of my posts. Verbosity, forced philosophical innuendos, too much reading into things and the same dour themes. Hell, I needed a break. So I went back in time and read those dog-eared cinema diaries from my childhood. Back in those days, I had no choice but to sit with my family and watch those films of the 70s/80s and the early 90s. It’s only now that I am this pseudo-intellectual avant-garde cinema snob. Anyway, in this post I thought I’d write about the clichés of yore that are not much talked about, that we all probably grew up watching. We all know about the flowers that cover up the kisses, the kaali mata ka mandir-howling-ghantis or the rich heroine and poor hero clichés. So I thought I’ll write about the clichés that have not been talked about much. However, I can’t promise complete novelty here nor can I promise LMAO stuff that would make Chaplin turn in his grave and fart in appreciation. Okay, here goes:

Damsel in distress jumps diagonally: When our heroine has to cry because the hero cheated on her, she would run wearing a flaring white “nightie”. She would climb up the circuitous stairs. After this short effortless run she jumps diagonally on the bed and buries her head in the pillow, her hair is let lose in this scene. Then she would cry by stroking the pillow with her head. The pace of stroking the pillow is directly proportional to her misery (stop reading between the lines).

The Kodak finale: A parivarik saaf suthri film ends with all the leads of the movie standing in a line just about covering the camera eye. The salt-and-pepper hair maaji, her husband with a black stick and rimmed glasses, the heroine with red wrists after the rope was undone, the hero all bruised fighting out the baddies, the villainous relative who becomes a good guy and the house servants, all of them stand together in a line. At this, the standard comedian would crack a joke to which everyone laughs in perfect synchronization and immediately the credits roll. Sometimes it says” This is not the end, it’s the beginning” (Tip: Raja Babu; Shakti Kapur does the honors here at the end)

Hawas, tapish aur sulagte jism: When a hero and heroine are making out this would most likely be in slow mo with some soothing music so that it doesn’t seem vulgar ( Tip: Dor; Both the couples are making out in separate locations and it is shown in slow mo).

Next is a special category in kinds of makeouts; rape scene. Now when our dear villain is making out with our damsel in a rape scene, it would most likely be raining, villain pouring down a whisky bottle and in all likelihood the damsel will act naïve. The damsel wears a special rape dress for this momentous occasion. Usually white in color, this special dress is such that the left sleeve, the right sleeve, the back is detachable and the villain detaches them in that order. Watch how the camera pans around not to show the actual rape. So you’d see a stuffed tiger head on the wall that is zoomed in and zoomed out (you get the metaphor here, don’t you), thunder and lightning, a squeaky fan going round and round, windows shattering. Watch carefully our damsel here shows the amazing act of irony; she needs to fight back but yet willfully submit to the villain’s force. So she would sway her head left-to-right in harmony with a nahhiiinn but will never kick him in his balls which should be lot easier. In the end, when it’s all over, the damsel will definitely have spread out red sindoor ( even if she did not have a proper one in the start) and she’d walk around like a zombie.

Another kind of make-out is when the lead protagonist is indulging into territories he/she should not have. Like when the hero is accidentally sleeping with the heroine’s friend. There will definitely be a sax playing in the background; highlighting the oncoming guilt trip and also balancing the act of keeping the protagonist’s image clean ( It was all circumstantial, that’s the message).

Wait, how can I forget the make-outs in the semi-porno flicks with names like Adh-nangi-nagan-ka-inteqaam. In every make-out session the lady will be a buxom aunty and she would never let the poor lean guy smooch. 70% of the time you will see lip biting and scratching one feet to another; that should make for a good mosquito repellant viral ( Tip: watch any south Indian masala flick and you’ll know what I mean).

It’s all in the name: Rich people are mostly likely to have last names like; Singhania, Malhotra, Bajaj, Kapadia, etc. Working class people are most likely to have names like: Deenu kaka, Ramu Kaka, Shanti bai, Ramu, Gangu Bai, Phoolwanti, Saku Bai. Don’t get me started on Rahul and Raj.

Professional and cultural stereotypes:

Doctor: Patients are never expected to go to hospitals, doctors do home delivery (well literally). They usually wear a black suit, stethoscope around their necks and a black suitcase that god only knows what’s in there. The host carries the suitcase and the patient is never told what happened to him/her even if it is common cold. Every doctor has some standard lines in every movie: “ Injection de diya hai, subah tak hosh aa jayega”, “Ab inhe dawan nahin, dua ki zaroorat hai” , “ Ab who khatre se bahar hai”, “Mubarakho aap baap ban gaye”

The Law: The cop is always sporting the line “Kanoon ko apne haath mein mat lo”, “chup chap apne aap ko kaanoon ke hawale kar do warna…”, “Kanoon ke haath bahut lambien hote hain” . Stereotype supercop award definitely goes to Iftekhar. He has played a police wala 18 times in his career. Yes I actually googled up this trivia. By the way, Iftekhar has also played the judge in many movies. The judge has one motherhood line “Tamaam sabooton aur gawahon ko madde nazar rakhte huye, mujhrim ko taaze rate hind, dafa 302 ke tahat sazae maut di jaati hai…” . As soon as the judge announces this, some of the stock scenes show up; like the poor pigeons outside the court will fly out and then freeze, waves are shown to smash the shore and then freeze, the affected person will have his image halved or the best is, the insaaf ka tarazu is shown and it evens out.

Catholics: Women are wearing a skirt, usually widows and every sentence ends with “man”. Men are alcoholics and have names like Peter, John, Tony etc. Catholics are shown quite god fearing so much so that they keep uttering god in every statement followed by a “man” of course. Sab rasta god ki taraf jaata hai man.

Goldie Hawn once said “There are only three ages for women in Hollywood – Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy”. Now we have a Bollywood version too: There are only three ages for women in Bollywood: Maaji, Mamta aur Mallika. “Maaji” is a woman in her late 60s; she will either be a shrew or a very naïve old woman. If she is a widow then she gets more screen time so her husband is usually killed in a plane crash or by the goons ( the hero is obliviously taking revenge) There will be a mid 30s-40s Mamta who will be a wife or a mother to two kids. She is a homemaker too like our Maaji but the problem is that she is usually given a small screen time. Either she is shown back in those days when she was a gal or she ages fast to become Maaji. And then there is Mallika, the hot siren, the heroine, the temptress, the babe. Mallika would be wearing cool clothes in college, won’t talk to random boys but would spew venom at the hero and eventually fall for him. Mallika is dumb; beautiful, rape-prone and has no opinion of hers. Just when we were enjoying these women stereotypes Anurag came and ruined it. He killed the concept of Maaji, Mamta aur Mallika with his liberated women in his movies

The fight chase props: It’s either a water filled pot, fruit cart or a vegetable cart that invariably comes in the way of a fight chase. The villain’s sidekicks will be thrown on the fruit cart in slow mo. When the fruits and the villains have fallen off the cart, the hero gets on top of it to continue his chase. In a car chase, there will be a mother who is carrying her baby and crossing the road. In case the car hits the mother the baby will take a parabolic flight and so will our hero, just in time to catch the baby. It may also involve a blind man or a man on wheel chair. Hordes of people either running or on bicycles form the speed breakers in a chase. Even the gang shooting in the middle of all this won’t deter them from crowding the road.

Losers Inc. they all die: Hero Heroine finally coming together at the climax involves many sacrifices. One of them involves the second heroine who sacrifices her love for our hero. So she will have no purpose in life after discovering hero and lead heroine are in love, she is madly in love with the hero. So when the hero is being shot at, she will take the bullet in her chest and following her dying (unending) speech she will put the hero and heroine’ s hands together. Men are in a more bad shape here. Usually if the hero’s best friend is not seeing anyone, he must die after taking the bullet for the hero. The price you pay for being single I tell you. Another kind of sacrifice is by the scheming saas, the rich capitalistic dad, or the vamp. Now throughout the film they will be against our hero/heroine but at the end when they turn good people (this usually happens with one line utterance of “Tumne meri aankhein khol di”) they will take the bullet. All the losers who die in these scenarios get a 3 word climax for them too, an obituary of sorts. It goes something like this. Let’s say Sita, the other woman, died in the hero’s arms. The hero would show his grief in the exact 3 steps: Sita! (Gently as though he is trying to confirm her death), again Sittaa!! (this time there is minor shock) and then with an orgasm like cry he would go Sssssiiiiiitttttaaaaa!!!.

So it would go something like; sita, sittaa, sssssiiiiiiiiittttaaa!

PS: I had initially published this post on PassionForCinema