By the time the audiences saw Apte in last year’s revenge drama Badlapur, she was a known name in Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam cinema apart from being hailed as one of the most promising young actors in Indian cinema. Chadda debuted as the second lead in Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye lucky, lucky Oye (2008), and Bhaskar in Madholal Keep Walking (2009), a box-office washout. In fact, if anything, these women - even though throwbacks on yesteryears in some aspects (more on that later) - are still pretty much the antithesis of almost everything that has been assumed of actresses across all kinds of Indian cinema.Īll four have non-film backgrounds and besides hailing from cities far removed from the glitz of films, barring Qureshi, they even share a similar career trajectory of transcending from blink-and-you-might-miss roles to author-backed supporting roles to the lead in the regular sense of the word.Īmong the four, Qureshi enjoyed a traditional launch of sorts with an above-the-line billing in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur I and II (2012) following a successful stint in television commercials, while Apte’s first acting role was in the largely forgotten Vaah! life Ho Toh Aisi! (2005). Outside of the run-of-the-mill popularity of a Priyanka Chopra, a Katrina Kaif or a Deepika Padukone, the in-a-league-of-her-own stardom of a Kangana Ranaut, the unique-in-every-singular-way stardom of a Tabu, and the must-have-second-generation recognition of an Alia Bhatt or a Shraddha Kapoor, a quartet of women has unknowingly created a special space for themselves that is far removed from the tried and tested norms of leading ladies in Hindi cinema.Īlthough on the face of it nothing might be traditional about Radhika Apte, Richa Chadda, Huma Qureshi and Swara Bhaskar, but what makes them exceptional is that nothing about them is not even non-traditional in terms of what has come to be associated with the unconventional in popular cinema in India.
Of late, the industry as well as the audiences is witnessing the unraveling of an interesting phase with regard to the idea of the leading lady in popular Hindi cinema. Of course, intermittently there have been trailblazers such as Kanan Devi, a singer-star, who back in the 1930s was considered to be in the same league as the iconic Kundan lal Saigal, or the legendary Nargis, the diva whose Mother India (1957) has come to be seen as the standard definition of one of the greatest ever roles in Indian cinema, Sridevi, a star who could reduce male counterparts, including ‘the’ Amitabh Bachchan, to appear as glorified extras, and now Kangana Ranaut, someone who could become a superstar in her own right without ever sharing screen space with either of the three Khans - the biggest contemporary male stars.īut in spite of everything, unlike the men, actresses across every generation have always had to reinvent the order. For a better part of its existence, mainstream Hindi cinema on more occasions than it’d like to remember has relegated women to being ornamentation in the grander scheme of things. Leading men across Hindi cinema operate on a simple premise that the more successful they are, the more ageless they become, but the leading ladies are governed by a different set of rules. It is such reality that runs the risk of transforming filmmaking into an exercise in redundancy after a while and more so, for the women when it comes to mainstream Hindi cinema. But soon box-office collections, return on investment and such push all things artistic to the background in filmmaking. A reel character instills hope in the hearts of the viewers, living it in the darkness of a theatre. Now, this quartet has come to be identified as ‘the’ roleĮvery now and then a film makes the audiences believe in something much bigger than life itself. But the freshness that Huma Qureshi, Radhika Apte, Richa Chadda, and Swara Bhaskar have ushered in is a mix of what they are and what they do.
Earlier, the ability of an actor to shine in a part that wasn’t as big as the lead was the yardstick to gauge a performance.
0 kommentar(er)
