My count is 64. Or may be even twice that, who knows. And its strange that everytime I am as involved, as enchanted and as fulfilled. It so happens that on repeat viewing, one tends to pick up the nuances that one has lost earlier, but I am past all that. Now the ONLY reason for me to watch Chupke Chupke is that I enjoy watching it. Over and over again. Just as much as I enjoy watching Bawarchi,Golmaal, Choti Si Baat, Khoobsoorat, Naram Garam...I am a huge Bollywood fan and these middle class family entertainers manage to retain a peculiar resonance even today.
There is something about this genre that connects me in a unique way. The intensity, simplicity and the exceedingly good-natured characters makes repeat value of these movies quite high. But I feel there is a deeper reason why these movies appeal to us to such an extent and for such a long time. For these films are the best ads for what we see as our 'middle class values'. Each of these films evokes a world that we long to be a part of- a warm kinship unsettled by an odd idiosyncracy that gets comfortably correctec, so that all is well again. And they manage to do this in many different ways.
The characters are a far cry from the Eastmancolored Hyper-heroes with biceps and maaa (I love them too btw); they usually live in small houses and take the local train or bus. The dramatic tension usually comes from the constraints imposed by human whimsies. In Golmaal, there was Utpal Dutt who insists that his employees sporting a moustaches and in Naram Garam he is driven by astrology. In Khoobsoorat,there is a matriarch who is fixated on discipline and in Guddi, a young girl is obsessed with movie stars. Regardless of whether or not the porotagonists live in scarce circumstances, their problem rarely arises out of poverty. The minor flaw in an otherwise "perfect" world is usually corrected by taking recourse to harmless subterfuges that create mayhem, before things settle down at a higher level of equilibrium.
Unlike other mainstream Hindi movies which arrayed around some key axes of conflict, the primary among them being the battle of an individual to get some sort of a freedom,enacted of course with the quintessential melodrama, the middle class family entertainers left enough room for the individual; the characters here were more than the Vicky Malhotras that otherwise dominated the screen.
It is interesting that these movies fulfil the same purpose as the other genres. However unlike the other family movies, which usually depict an ideal family breaking up and reuniting after a lot of cravenness and tears, the breezy comedy does that in a much more sophisticated way. Lessons are gentle and rarely overt.
Yesterday, I was having this discussion with my mother about today's definition of a "good job" and a "good life". That moment I just thought about these movies and I just could't stop smiling. The main reason why these movies continue to appeal to all of us is that they tell us that happiness is independent of money. Just look at Bawarchi and it's remake-of-the-sorts Hero No 1. In both the movies the protagonist is an impostor do-gooding servant who brings peace to a disintegrating family. However, if in Bawarchi the instruments employed for the reconciliation are good food, classical dance and music, and an occasional wink at the drink, in Hero No 1 it is the power of money and influence. Rajesh Khanna wins people over by his numerous abilities in cooking, singing, dancing and mathematics, Govinda by his physical prowess in saving the daughter of the house from being raped and by the power vested in his father's money. Hero No 1 is a chronicle of our times, making us nostalgic about the purity of the value system depicted in Bawarchi, however romanticized that depiction might have been.
As the world becomes more monetized, and as our pleasures become more loaded with sensort excess, the nostalgia for yesterday's simplicity is likely to grow. A Chupke Chupke tells us that there is always a way to be happy and that the answer lies within our existing way of life. Change is gently neutered as we all chuckle at its foolishness....
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