Being South Indian!

 

I was watching a recent Bollywood song that is all set to rock the dance floors. If you haven’t watched 'Yentamma' yet, please do so to understand the background of this blog. The song stars Salman Khan, Chiranjeevi, Pooja Hegde and Ramcharan, which made me wonder if it was a Telugu song or Hindi. Note that I didn't wonder if it was South Indian or North Indian. For me it’s Indian and entertaining, and makes me want to dance.

Now if you have watched it, you can’t help noticing it was so much like the Chennai Express songs, especially with the word 'lungi' in the lyrics. At least the ‘Lungi dance’ got the lungi right. Here, the veshti or mundu (traditional white/off white clothing that South Indian men wear) is depicted as a lungi. Lungi is a more colourful version, worn by few men 'informally or at home', but certainly not on an occasion. Thankfully school students learn names of Indian clothing religiously since grade 2, so I'm sure kids understand this, but I can’t complain people seem to forget as they grow. The costume designer and lyricist don’t seem to sink here.

Coming back to the context of the song, I wonder why North Indians have this impression that South Indians wear extravagantly bright and dashing colours that hurt the eyes. It’s true that some popular South Indian songs are picturised very colourfully. But what’s it with the pink and red coloured sarees, green-yellow shirts, and an overcrowded ambience where everybody don’t even fit into the screen? And the women look like they are straight out of a jewellery ad shooting.

We South Indians have always forgiven Bollywood for their ignorance about South Indians and the way they are portrayed in North Indian movies. Since Rajesh Khanna's times, we have seen South Indian characters mostly an Iyer who speaks heavily regional-accented Hindi and the lady wears a long string of flowers with a huge bindi. It is time we break these stereotypes please! We are living at times when the film fraternity with the likes of Rajamouli and Maniratnam have succeeded in taking Indian cinema to an international level and winning accolades there. Thanks to OTT, bilingual and multi-lingual movies are being embraced and enjoyed by everyone irrespective of language and nationality. So filmmakers should carry this responsibility of portraying people and cultures backed by some research and facts.

There have been so many stereotypes associated with South Indians and Bollywood movies haven’t helped much. Just like a few Hollywood movies that portray India as a third world country with infected with poverty, famines and caste-based conflicts.

First things first, All South Indians are not Madrasis. I visited a friend here in Muscat and was introduced to her father, a septuagenarian from Chhattisgarh. I told him I was from Kerala, so he introduced me to his wife as a ‘Madrasi’, and she immediately told me her cook also spoke ‘Madrasi’. Luckily, I met the Madrasi cook, who apparently speaks Telugu. I was unsure if it would be impolite to clarify things, but decided to proceed so that I could sleep in peace that night.

I told them 'Madras' and 'Madrasis' are extinct terms today. I enjoyed delivering a Geography lesson on the four (or five) South Indian states, I'm not sure if Goans qualify as South Indians on the basis of whether they wear lungi! They did look surprised when I told them each of these states had different languages too. I applied self-restraint and didn’t mention that we neither eat idli-vada-sambar every day, nor do we have noodles with curd! 

So next time you watch a Bollywood movie exaggerating South Indian practices, just look up a few decent regional movies, and watch the regional versions with subtitles (rather than the dubbed ones). Bahubali, RRR, Drishyam, KGF, PS-1, Android Kunjappan, Kantara, Asuran, Soorarai Potru, Magadheera, 777 Charlie are some of the recent ones to name a few. You will appreciate that not all South Indian movies have illogical stunts, not all villains are dark and giant-sized, that some heroes may not be as well-groomed and six-packed as their Bollywood counterparts but naturally fit into the roles they portray and finally the women do not always dress up like Goddesses. Again, let me warn you to exercise caution and not judge South Indian movies based on few action scenes of Balayya or certain dialogues of TR! This gets bizarre, if not hilarious.

It is indeed comforting to watch an increasing number of South Indian actors appearing more often in Bollywood movies and vice versa, there is no need for a divide here. Ultimately it is Indian cinema, and true Indian cinema is not just Bollywood anymore.  

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