The Rockstar Catalysts
A still from Wake Up Sid (2009)
From Wake Up Sid and Rockstar to Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Tamasha, Ranbir Kapoor became the poster boy of young men coming-of-age into his identity. Ananya argues, however, that the the true catalysts of these metamorphoses were always his female leads.
- Ananya
They’re young, restless, and confused, and yet, they come packed with ambition and enthusiasm, as well as a drive to experience more out of their lives. Coming-of-age films hit the sweet spot in their ability to portray the aspirations and challenges of the urban young population—many of whom have drifted away from previous generations’ deep-rooted traditions—who find themselves in the seams of a city, aching to carve out a corner of their own.
Navigating the tracks of career and relationships—both with other people and with oneself—is a journey often afflicted with trial and error. And this is why, for a golden period, the actor Ranbir Kapoor became the poster boy for the muddles and undiluted struggles of the coming-of-age narrative. With Kapoor as the face of their narratives for these intimate young adult narratives, two iconic directors—Imtiaz Ali and Ayan Mukherjee—succeeded in tapping into the complexity of this niche. In Mukherjee’s 2009 debut Wake Up Sid, Kapoor emerges as the eponymous Sid, clad in a t-shirt, hoping to take only the smallest steps towards adulthood. Ali’s Rockstar (2011) introduced us to Janardhan Jakhar—or ‘Jordan’—the naive Jim Morrison-inspired Delhi boy. Mukherjee returned in 2013 with Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, a high-spirited, full of zest Kapoor, portraying the role of Kabir aka Bunny, embodying our subconscious rootlessness and echoing the bug in every person to chase the dream on the other end of the horizon. “Main udna chahta hoon,” he expresses, “Daudna chahta hoon, girna bhi chahta hoon ... bus rukna nahi chahta” (I wish to fly, run, fall… but not stop). Ali’s Tamasha (2015) featured Ved—forlorn and undistinguishable in the rat race—attempting to conjure up some courage for himself.
It is in these characters that coming-of-age movies found a profound impact on young adults. Both Tamasha and Rockstar mark their 7th and 11th year anniversaries respectively this month. With the time passed, it has become imperative to shift the focus of these cinematic memoirs to the characters who always stood right beside Kapoor’s male protagonists, with their own plot lines, dilemmas and metamorphoses: The female leads.
There stands the male protagonist—his turmoil and joy upturned and tuned to the camera—giving us a close perception of his inner life. We sympathize with the female lead who occupies the seat beside him on the bench, on almost an equal footing. The camera remains focused on the male, and yet, it’s impossible not to notice her; she has a profound impact on the man, not simply to employ the romance trope, but in a transcending role of mirroring each other’s character developments.
These characters become a trigger for the growth and development of their male counterparts—allowing the men to have enough space to remain clueless and confused, to struggle and to make mistakes. In return, the female leads are barely allowed such a privilege, peaking into their full individual potentials, only left with the capacity to redeem the male protagonists.
From Heer in Rockstar, Tara in Tamasha, Aisha in Wake Up Sid and Naina in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, all our female leads have a similar role to play, one that acts the catalyst for the male lead’s character development.
Both Mukherjee and Ali depended on the age-old trope of clutching on the romantic interests to provide a catalytic shift in the life of the male protagonist. The onus of change in the lead character—be it Jordan, Ved, Bunny, or Sid—is burdened on the women. And in return, the women’s own narratives are moonlighted by the male lead.
Both played by Deepika Padukone, Naina and Tara are epitomized versions of mature, self-reliant and value-aligned women. These characters become a trigger for the growth and development of their male counterparts—allowing the men to have enough space to remain clueless and confused, to struggle and to make mistakes. In return, the female leads are barely allowed such a privilege, peaking into their full individual potentials, only left with the capacity to redeem the male protagonists.
There is a shadow of truth and reflection in the roles portrayed by these women. Rather than limit themselves purely as romantic interests—offering maternal care and unconditional devotion towards the male counterpart—we don’t always see the women in Ali or Mukherjee’s films hand-holding Kapoor’s many avatars. Take Wake Up Sid, where Sid is the prototypical boy next door. He holds a camera, he’s lost in the bustle of his own city. Sid and the female lead Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma) are personifications of the confusion and struggle of young urban youths, attempting to find their footing in the chaos of the never-sleeping city. Sid sees the entire city through Aisha’s eyes; it is her relationship with the city that he tries to reflect onto himself. Theirs is a soft, platonic friendship, shared without sexual tension. Where Sid’s other friends fail, Aisha portrays her maturity in an ingenious manner, and assists Sid’s as well.
The absence of strong passion or sexual tension gives Wake Up Sid a slow, cathartic feel. Slowly but surely, Sid’s character development parallels Aisha’s: a coming-to-terms with a new way of life, coupled with a sense of belonging and happiness.
In contrast, Rockstar brims with unmet passions, burning desire, and sexual tension that constantly fuels the dramatic scenes and high energy that ebbs and flows in varying intensity throughout the movie. Kapoor’s Jordan is our regular college-going boy, nurturing a dream and willing to break his heart to have a successful singing career. The journey from Janardhan to Jordan is bridged by Heer (Nargis Fakhri). Heer arguably has the most minor agency, simply representing the idea of love, and not love itself. She continues to remain an elusive character, a beautiful yet unfree person, bound by the claws of marriage first, then trapped in her terminal illness, continuing to fuel Jordan’s frustrations. Jordan’s coming-of-age, then, is expressed in a realization he confesses in the film to Khataana Bhai, “Mera Dil Nahi Tutna Chahiye” (My heart should never break). Heartbreak indeed proved essential to his success as an artist, but not necessarily in his personal metamorphosis or in his relationship with Heer.
Heer denotes what Jordan had wished for from the start. Her own incompliance, struggles and the feeling of being trapped mirror Jordan’s conversion into an angry young rebel without a cause, one who gets trapped into his frustrations, channelling them with self-destructive tendencies and unfulfilled love.
While both Jordan and Heer are a comparatively unresolved portrayals of two coming-of-age people, Tara and Ved in Tamasha become more fleshed out, with both characters now seemingly making better choices. Tara is uncompromising in her ethos and doesn’t allow herself to be a hollowed-out version of Ved. It is Ved who has to come to terms with Tara. He needs to be more in tune with himself, too, find more of his confidence. And this is precisely why the couple might eventually work out.
Heer and Jordan were perhaps never suited for a happy ending. In Rockstar, Jordan makes no attempts to understand the true roots of his anguish. His loneliness and frustrations are constantly tethered to the absence of Heer. He simply takes what life offers him and cements it into a tragedy.
Heer is no clutch herself: she remains elusive and in the shadows, serving simply as the cause of heartbreak. The self-destructive patterns of Heer and Jordan are similar. They chase catharsis without going through the turmoil of hard decisions.
In Rockstar, Jordan makes no attempts to understand the true roots of his anguish. His loneliness and frustrations are constantly tethered to the absence of Heer. He simply takes what life offers him and cements it into a tragedy.
Tamasha’s Tara has already come of age. In an alternate ending to the film, Piyush Mishra—as the storyteller—tells a deliriously-confused Ved, “Dil main heer liye, aur heer khoje veerane main?’ The reference here, of course, is not to the ‘Heer’ of Rockstar, but Ved finds his own heer (diamond)—not just as a fuel for his passion or as a ‘concept’ of love, but to carve a niche space for her existence. Tara accepts herself as she is, and she dignifies Ved by pushing him to do the same.
It is again and again through the female leads that these male characters find their own focal point, even the rootless dreamer who finds his home within chaos, one who is pushed to confront his own reality,
“Jitna bhi try karo, life mein kuch na kuch toh chhotega hi, toh jahan hain, wahin ka mazaa lete hai na.” As hard as you try, you’ll miss out on some things in life. So, let’s enjoy the present moment wherever we are. Bunny in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani has to choose between what he has always dreamed of and versus what he wants right now. He has to choose between his changing priorities. His coming of age is an acceptance of these choices: it is an either/or; but not both. While it is arguable whether Naina and Bunny will be a workable pairing at the end, the audience is able to see Bunny maturing into himself through the perspective of Naina’s grounded reality.
Seems like a similar pattern, right? At the surface level, films like Rockstar, Tamsha, Wake Up Sid, and YJHD are the gold standards of coming-of-age movies, ushering a new genre in Bollywood. But the reality is that, while Kapoor takes the centre stage with the lieu of ‘manchild’ character, he is always chasing the lead of his female leads. These male characters are underdogs, just mirroring the values and ethos of Heer, Naina, Tara, and Aisha.
Thus, it is really the maturity of these female leads that allow the Kapoor’s characters to hog the limelight, to make the likes of Jordan, Ved, and more to be the centrepiece of the film posters. Even as the female leads that stand opposite him are brilliant in their own way, they are limited, somewhat, to the shadows. They are catalysts, but are seldom sharpened to become the focal point themselves.
Perhaps it is time that we hum to the song of these female leads, too, as they, too, deserve to experience the highs and lows of coming of age. Perhaps, it’s time for them to be featured front and centre on the posters as well.
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Ananya is a researcher, writer and a literary academic in training. She has a stubborn streak of interest in culture, travel, cinema and creative literature, penning down her words on the same. You can find more of her work here. Ananya is on Instagram: @fadingeversince and Twitter: @na_ananya.
