Millenia's Angry Young Men

The Angry Young Man is dead. Long live The Angry Young Man.

Amitabh Bachchan got a second life, and possible cinematic immortality, by playing reel and real life Godfather (the latter by seeding working class crorepati’s). Meanwhile, his Angry Young Man – the role that created a superstar of a tall, gauche and deep throated youth three decades ago, a role that could be played to perfection only by him – has been resurrected, albeit in a new avatar.

Take a look at three of the recent hits in Bollywood – Rang De Basanti, Lage Raho Munnabhai and Khosla ka Ghosla – and you know what I mean. While Amitabh’s angry young man gave form to a middle class that was just beginning to find its identity and voice, these movies depict the new middle class –one that is comfortable with its new found stature, yet recognizes its limited control over major events. And the best part is that the new Indian middle class no longer relies on the emergence of the lone rebel who becomes a part of the very system that he seeks revenge on – our new pilots, engineers and local dadas can take on the role just fine, thank you. And they will do it more smartly too – drawing upon not just the brawn carefully cultivated in the local gym, but also all other resources at their disposable (brains, family, and most importantly, society).

Take the directionless youths in RDB, out to have a good time with no care in the world, till they lose a close friend to corrupt politics. What do these guys do? Unlike our old angry young man, they don’t just surrender themselves to Big Brother after they’ve killed the joker-politician. No, they first take over a radio station and create awareness of what they have done, and why they did what they did. The rich son doesn’t just leave Dear Corrupt Father to be given his dues by ‘kanoon’ or the local deity – he finishes him off. True, a lot of people found the solution extreme, but then, desperate situations sometimes call for desperate measures.

Or the nerdy engineer in Khosla Ka Ghosla - bent on escaping his embarrassing middle class family and creating his dream life in the US. But when his father is fleeced of his lifetime’s savings and his dream house, he doesn’t flex his Mister India muscles and go out and challenge the goons of the corrupt land grabber. Instead, he enlists the support of a renegade thief and his girlfriend’s drama troupe to fool our smart developer and get back the house, with interest!.

And lastly, good old Munnabhai and Circuit, who effect a change of heart in hardened Lucky Singh by deploying the Gandhian principles of non violence and compassion. A contemporary revisiting of ahimsa.

Why do we like these guys so much? Coz like Amitabh Bachchan was to the 70’s generation, these people are just like you and me. We can relate with their dreams, and empathize with their sometimes vacuous lifestyles. And what happens to them could have happened to any of us. No one knows whether their solutions would work in real life, but then, how many people could have realistically gone and physically fought the bad guys too? What is important is that they are bothered enough by the injustice to do something about it. Madhavan’s friends could have buried him and got on with their foreign dreams. Nerdy engineer could have told his father to write off the house – he would make enough money in a year to buy him two such houses. And Munna-Circuit could have forcibly evicted Lucky Singh and grown their stature in BhaiLand. That they don’t take the easy way out is what earns them our admiration and accolades.

And the trend is not just limited to reel life. In real life too, Delhi, struggling with continued rapes and road rage deaths, is celebrating the conviction of Satish Sharma for the tandoor murder case, even as it waits for justice to be handed out to Manu Sharma and the Yadav clan. As I write this, Shibu Soren has been handed life sentence for conspiring to kill his secretary, and Navjot Singh Sidhu has been sentenced three years imprisonment for a road rage death.

True, most of these judgments have taken over a decade to arrive, leaving the accused free in this period – in an ironic twist, Manu Sharma, accused of killing Jessica Lal in a pub upon being refused a drink by her, has gone ahead and set up his own pub, which is doing quite well. These cases may also be a drop in the ocean (who knows how many cases go un-convicted, un-reported or buried), and have created concerns of ‘who will judge the judges’ (as Barkha Dutt pertinently pointed out).

But then, ridding India of corruption is like cleaning the mythical Augean stables. Granted, what we have now is probably just a wayward, spluttering stream. But let us not downplay the importance of these small victories either – for they open the frontiers of possibility, and give us hope. And it is up to us now to not just applaud, but seize the momentum. Long live the Angry Young Man.