E : End Credits in Hindi Films / Bollywood #AtoZChallenge 2019

It seems Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has got it right. They treat their End Credits with a lot of respect. Though they don't know that in Indian cinema halls, lights come on before the End Credits start rolling and almost everyone in the audience stands up blocking my view. I don't budge though. I am Iron Man that way! I sit through the MCU films'  End Credits doing 3 things:

• Watch the Mid-Credits scene, despite the bright lights almost spoiling it
• Watch the Post-Credits scene, though it is almost, always underwhelming
• Note how many Indians have contributed to the making of the film (I am patriotic, nationalist and Iron Man that way)

Uri : The Surgical Strike a recent Bollywood blockbuster, had a Post-Credits scene too. I have a habit of sitting through End Credits - MCU or no MCU.  I think the scene was funny and unnecessary but still a great addition. You can watch that scene below. But let me remind you, this is not the norm in Hindi / Bollywood films. 

Hindi films these days have two kinds of End Credits. And both are pretty unimaginative and cliched. 

In the first kind, they show bloopers or making of the film as the End Credits roll by. And I have seen several bad films to reach a conclusion, that these bloopers are most entertaining part of the film. Some films are so bad, that I don't know whether I enjoy those End Credits more because the film has ended or because the making / bloopers are interesting. A case in hand is Housefull 2. I found the End Credits funnier than the entire movie, especially the beauty - beti (daughter) sequence, enacted by Ranjeet.  Watch the video from 1:18 minutes onward.

The second kind and more popular, and thus more hackneyed way End Credits in Hindi Films roll by is that they accompany a ridiculously popular song and dance routine. A song and dance routine which mostly will have nothing to do with the plot, grammar and tonality of the film. Sometimes the actors in these songs are not even in the movie. A recent hit film Luka Chuppi, had in fact two songs (not the usual one) during the End Credits. 

Karan Johar, produced a horror film called Kaal, that released in 2005. He claims in his autobiography, An Unsuitable Boy, that when he saw Kaal, before its release, he didn't feel scared at all, despite it being a horror film. This horrified him. So he shot two music videos and put one in the titles and one in the End Credits. Those songs were super-hit and brought in the unsuspecting audiences to the theaters. That helped him recover the money he had put in the film. End Credits saving a producer! What more can be expected from these humble End Credits?

There are times when I miss the most common way the films used to end earlier. Credits were usually shown in a 2-3 minutes montage at the start of the film. And after the last scene of the film, simply, a frame will appear with "THE END" written on it. 

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is Hindi Film Industry / Bollywood cliches. You can read the theme reveal post here.

2017 Challenge Post from Letter E: Engineering - It was a post about fun times we had during the engineering days. Click here to read.

2018 Challenge Post from Letter E: Education Kills - It was a post about ills of our education system and how to change that. Click here to read. 

D : Death Scenes' Anatomy in Hindi Films / Bollywood #AtoZChallenge 2019

Death is celebrated in Indian cinema like no other cinema. More so, the ones which take place near the climax, especially, if a lead protagonist is dying. The way the film-makers write these death scenes, or the way they shoot them, and the way the actors give their best in these scenes, clearly shows the effort. As most Hindi films end on a happy note, where all issues are resolved and where all knots are untied, death of a lead protagonist in a climax of a Hindi film is a rarity. 

Death that occurs early in a film serves three purposes according to my limited knowledge:

1. It sets into motion a revenge saga. (example : Sholay and all Telugu language films dubbed in Hindi, we get to see on Set Max)

2. It sets into motion a suspense film or a thriller. Either the dying person reveals half a secret and the film is about completely unraveling it or one has to find the killer by the end. (examples : Khiladi, Baazigar and all the decent films, director duo, Abbas-Mustan made before they launched RACE franchisee) 

3. It sets into motion a coming of age drama (example: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai where Karan Johar really milked the death scene, while other coming of age dramas are just about the death of dreams)

Coming back to death scenes of lead protagonists in climax of Hindi films. There are several movies that got it right. They did it with right amount of pathos and relevance. I really had goosebumps at the end of Rang De Basanti. And who can forget the climax of Anand, where a recorded message of the dying protagonist, makes the audience tear up! Watch it below.

But then the theme of my challenge is Bollywood Cliches. So I have to talk about those death scenes, which last for eternity. This cliche is  most common in those Hindi films which end with a series of fight scenes, where good eventually triumphs over the evil. But it takes a really long route. Almost 30 minutes. Here is the anatomy of that done to death (pun unintended) , Death Scene. 

0 - 5 minutes: Hero kills and maims almost everyone on the wrong side. But he gets hit by two bullets - one near his heart and other in the back during those 5 minutes.

6-10 minutes: Hero is about to kill the villain, when a loyal goon in the villain's gang back stabs the hero with a knife. What bullets couldn't achieve, a knife does dramatically. Hero falls to the ground and there is no chance of his revival. Villain appreciates the goon and gives him an on the spot appraisal. They celebrate the hero's death with really cheesy dialogues.

11-15 minutes: The hero's mother or wife or daughter (woman power) will shout and ask the hero to get up. Hero takes blows out a deep breath and dust flies around his face. (Cue for audience to clap). His one eye opens and then the other. Hero gets on his two feet without the villain realizing it. Hindi film villains are dumb. He then kills the villain, but not before the villain shoots another bullet in hero's heart. 

16-30 minutes: Villain is dead. Irreversibly. Period! But Hero falls down again though cushioned by a woman's embrace. Now is time for homilies. Last wishes. And the will. And the promises of meeting in next life. No one calls an ambulance. No one gives first aid or CPR. Police arrives, late as usual (another cliche in Hindi films). Hero gathers energy and gives his testimony. He also hands over the evidence against the gang, so that police can dismantle the network of the dead don. Police immediately awards him with a medal and a salute. Hero says, Äah! Maa! Aah ! Mala ! Aah!  Devki! . Exactly three Aah's with interchangeable names of women in his life and dies. Just like that.

On the screen Appears THE END.

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is Hindi Film Industry / Bollywood cliches. You can read the theme reveal post here.

2017 Challenge Post from Letter D : Divinity - It was a post about my experiments with things divine and religious. Click here to read.

2018 Challenge Post from Letter D: Do's and Don'ts of Life - It was a post about the codes we should live by. Click here to read.

C : Courtrooms in Hindi Films / Bollywood #AtoZChallenge 2019

Off late Hindi films showcasing court cases or court rooms have become too sanitized for lovers of commercial potboilers. Some of the recent films based on court cases or law like Shahid, Court (Marathi / Hindi language) and No One Killed Jessica, are narrated more like a procedural. They are bereft of any drama and they sometimes focus on mundane. No doubt these films are engaging in their own way. But this post is not about films that fall under the genre of courtroom procedural. This post is to share with you some of my favorite moments from the courtroom DRAMAS that have been every Indian cinema lover's staple diet growing up. 

Dialogues

There are some time-worn dialogues and phrases used in Indian courtroom dramas. Sample few - 

Objection Milord! Your Honour! (British - Colonial Hangover)

Mere Kaabil Muakil! (means 'my worthy client' in Urdu / Arabic; Urdu is used liberally in Hindi films by lawyers)

Tazirat-e-Hind, Dafaa 302 ke tahet sazaa-e-maut di jaati hai (If not for this dialogue I would have never learned about Section 302 in the Indian Penal Code and death sentence)

But the most iconic dialogue from a courtroom drama in Indian cinema ever is from a film called Damini. Spouted by none other than Sunny Deol this dialogue is famously known as 'Taareekh pe Taareekh' ( Taareekh means a calendar date!) In this scene, a key witness has not reached the court at prescribed time, as some goons are trying to kill her on the way. As the honorable judge at the behest of the opposition lawyer is about to adjourn the case to the next available date, Sunny Deol, breaks into this diatribe against the flaws of justice system.

After watching this scene anyone would like to enroll for public speaking and dramatics courses to practice law.

Bravado

There are lawyers who argue in court to prove their point. And then there are lawyers who take strong actions in the court to prove their point. Actions that sometimes blur the line between stupidity and bravado. In the film Waqt, the lead lawyer Sunil Dutt, to establish a chain of events, uses a dummy dead body and then also drags a heavy body bag, with leaking fluid (substitute for blood) in multiple ways. I found it fascinating, that courts actually are like labs and lawyers are physicists. Later in life, I discovered that actually this is the job of forensics department and not of lawyers who excel in physics. 

There are many such scenes in many such films, where courts are like playgrounds, and lawyers are like athletes. But one scene that really left an impression on me was from the movie 'Meri Jung.' The hero of the film, Anil Kapoor, is a defence lawyer who is trying to save a doctor accused of killing a patient by poisoning him. The patient had actually died of poisoning. But someone had replaced the medicine bottle with a poison bottle. So doctor was innocent. So how did the defence lawyer prove his client's innocence in the film? In front of a packed courtroom, he picks the same bottle of poison from the items of evidence on display and consumes it. The poison is supposed to act after few minutes. The judge immediately pronounces his judgement and declares the doctor innocent. No Taareekh pe Taarekh here! Soon after Anil Kapoor runs out of the court and is attended to by a doctor waiting for him. Watch the first few minutes of the video below.

After watching this scene it is very clear that our courts are capable of speedy justice, but we don't have enough daredevil lawyers.

Vigilantism

Shahenshah is a vigilante film in which Amrish Puri, the bad guy, is hanged to death during the climax scene from the roof of the courtroom by Amitabh Bachchan. Why wait for a judge to lord over the case! The cliche here is not the vigilantism, but the fact that courtrooms in Hindi films are so big, with high ceilings. Almost like banquet halls. The real courtrooms are nothing like them. Also I just realized, that Amrish Puri was the bad guy in Damini, Meri Jung and Shahenshah. Some body of work!

Comedy is another courtroom cliche often used to diffuse the tension in Hindi films. Either the judge saying Order! Order! with no one paying heed to him or a witness would often turn out to be a buffoon. 

Many a time, when evidence, argument or bravado is not enough, the leading lawyer will do a rapid fire Q&A session and the criminal will often have a slip of tongue and that would be treated as an admissible and irrevocable evidence. Clearly villain's lawyers always miss the trick in Hindi films. Watch the scene from Waqt, below to know what I mean. 

Lastly the spectators sitting in the gallery of the courtrooms would always applaud for the hero at the end. And judge will keep shouting, "Order! Order!"  with no one paying heed to him. 

Is it some kind of meta cue for the film audience to clap as well during that scene? Clever! Really clever! May be this is also a cue for you to appreciate my efforts in the comments section. 

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is Hindi Film Industry / Bollywood cliches. You can read the theme reveal post here.

2017 Challenge Post from Letter C: Chat rooms - It was about a practical joke we played on someone. Click here to read.

2018 Challenge Post from Letter C: Conversations that influenced me - It was a reflective post in which I cited some conversations that I remember till date. Click here to read.