Bollywood needs to shape up or be ready to ship out
The Tamil movie Mandela has, for its protagonist, a very unlikely hero (strictly in terms of mainstream Bollywood.) He is not hunky, he’s not brave, he can’t woo a woman, he cannot sing or dance, he cannot roar like a lion or take on a bunch of villains…hell no, he doesn’t even have a real name! Realistically speaking, a character like this would be used only for comedic relief in a Bollywood movie. The henchman’s seventh sidekick who gets laughed at or is made to mouth ridiculous dialogues to fill up the space for comedic relief. The heroine is unlike the Bollywood heroine. She’s neither delicate nor soft spoken. She has a lock of white hair, she rides around on a moped, she has an absolutely unconventional (in Bollywood terms) profession (she’s the postmaster of the village post office) she doesn’t have brothers or bodyguards to protect her. Oh wait, she also has a working brain, plenty of common sense and loads of gumption. But what this movie tells us is that there is a s