L.S.D. and the Great Indian Middle Class in the Films of Dibakar Banerjee

Part I: Before the Shock came the Smiles

Before making Love, Sex aur Dhoka (Love, Sex and Betrayal or LSD for short), Dibakar Banerjee had made two of the most original and authentic movies of the so called new generation of Bollywood since the turn of the millennium. His first movie Khosla ka Ghosla (Khosla’s Nest or KKG for short) was and continues to be arguably the best comedy about a post liberalization middle class family. The closest resemblance that it had was to the movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee about simple and gentle middle class families in the India of 1970s/80s, so comfortably insulated from the chaos of their political and social settings that they could indulge in their funny and often whimsical ‘problems’. Khosla ka Ghosla however, went much further than being a comic tale of a middle class family. It dealt with the hilarious consequences when two seemingly disparate worlds interact with each other as they do quite invariably in our modern India. The sophisticated have to interact with the crude and the gentle law abiders have to deal with the gun totters. In a way, it was also a subtle ‘critique’ of how the middle class likes to isolate itself from the muck around it and how frail and short lasting these attempts are.

Some of the best parts of the movie, however, were the interactions between the pre and post liberalization generations represented by a father and his son. The father played brilliantly by Anupam Kher is driven by the middle class dream of his generation: a good, self owned house. The son also seems to be driven by the middle class dream of his own generation that of getting a job in the US. Neither of them understands the value of what the other values. The new post liberalization generation is typified by a confidence of economic self sufficiency which the prior generation did not have till very late in their lives. This also means that the attempts of the older generation to exercise control over the young one can no longer gain strength from ‘zaaydaad se bedkhal’ (dis-entitlement from the family property) threats that were so common in the movies of 70s and 80s. Instead, the older generation tries to adapt by trying to appease and cajole the younger generation which results in some really funny and yet somewhere heart warming scenes in Khosla ka Ghosla. One of them being where the presumably teetotaler father gets whisky at home to drink with his son or the one where understanding that Chiraujni Lal is a particularly embarrassing name for his son, he suggests changing it to CL Khosla. “Same ka same aur different ka different”

If Khosla Ka Ghosla established his credentials as a sensible and crafted filmmaker, Banerjee’s second movie, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (OL, LO) convinced everyone how good his understanding of the urban middle class sensibilities is. The protagonist (Lucky) in OL,LO is seen in his earlier years as a very normal teenager who lusts after the same attractive things and has the same insecurities that other young people of his age and background have. Of course, he grows up to be a master thief which is not something that ‘regular’ middle class boys do for a living. However, unlike the movies of the 70s and 80s the explanation behind him becoming a thief is not rooted in some great personal tragedy or the prospect of starvation in the face of a cruel, classist world but rather in his middle class desire to be upwardly mobile.

He steals because he wants the good things in life and after a point perhaps because he just loves his work and loves the fact that he is so good at it.  There is a very interesting montage in the movie, when Lucky being frustrated and disturbed by the fraud pulled on him by Paresh Rawal’s character, goes on a spree stealing everything and anything that comes across his way, all through the night. One of the biggest reasons for the success of Lucky (and the real life character on whom he is supposedly based) seemed to be that he did not appear to be the stereotypical criminal, the uneducated, filthy and crass thug.  He would dress well, drive a flashy car (stolen, of course) and appear to be suave and cultured. In short, to the upper middle class of south Delhi, he would appear to be ‘one of them’.

Dibakar does a reversal of sorts in the relationship of the classes in KGK and OL, LO. While in Khosla Ka Ghosla, the crude, loud, uneducated Boman Irani is the exploiter and a gentle, educated, mild mannered Anupam Kher suffers him, in OL,LO, our smart, daring and super successful hero who fools the filthy rich and the helpless police with equal ease is, in fact conned by the sophisticated, educated and supposedly respectful veterinarian played by Paresh Rawal.

The father-son relationship is at the core of both KKG and OL, LO. The actions of the protagonist in both the movies are driven by their relationship with their fathers. In Khosla ka Ghosla, the son (played by Parvin Dabas) does not want to lead the embarrassing and outdated life that his father has planned for him but when he sees how helpless his father is against the corrupt and terrorizing Boman Irani, he devices a plan to get the plot back for him. In OL, LO, Lucky is continuously looking for a father figure (played every time by Paresh Rawal) and is disappointed every time. This supposedly fuels up his hunger for fame and his disregard for the authority and rules of a society which is equally disregardful of his existence.

Having made these two light hearted and yet realistic and sensible movies, everyone was looking forward to Dibakar’s new project and almost everyone expected that it would have the same nice, quiet and peaceful general tone even though it was audaciously titled Love, Sex aur Dhoka. When the movie came out a sizable number of people who went expecting a light hearted or a titillating film were disappointed to put it mildly (I had the good fortune of watching the movie with some of them who went on abusing the family of the director and how the movie was a Dhoka (fraud) upon them, the poor popcorn munching audience). The ‘critics’ and a hundred other serious film-goers were impressed to a great extent but shocked to a greater extent.

(THIS IS THE FIRST PART OF A TWO PART SERIES)