Mad Tales from Bollywood Portrayal of Mental Illness in
Conventional Hindi Cinema 1st Edition
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First published 2006
by Psychology Press
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bhugra, Dinesh.
Mad tales from Bollywood : portrayal of mental illness in
conventional Hindi cinema I Dinesh Bhugra.
p. ; cm. - (Maudsley monographs ; no. 48)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-84169-646-3 (hbk)
1. Mental illness in motion pictures. 2. Motion pictures-India.
[DNLM: 1. Mental Disorders-India. 2. Attitude to Health-India.
3. Hinduism-India. 4. Motion Pictures-India. WM 140 B575m
20061 I. Title. 11. Series.
PN1995.9.M463B48 2006
79 1.43'6561-dc22
ISSN: 0076-5465
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The Narangs-Chander, Shashi, Rajiv, & Sanjiv
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Contents
List ofjgures and tables xi
...
Prclface xi11
A cknoivledgernents xv
1. Cinema's culture 1
Why study cinema? 1
Definitions 7
Signs, symbols, or phenomena 7
Viewing the film 16
Reading the image 18
Conclusions 23
2. Culture and mental illness 25
Psychoses and the western perspective 32
Conclusions 35
3. Cinema, emotions, and psychiatry in India 37
"The other" in the Indian context 45
Conclusions 50
4. Attitudes towards mental illness 51
Conclusions 54
5. Socioeconomic factors and cinema in India 57
Concepts of Hindu identity and self 60
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viii CONTENTS
Working class and cinema in India 62
Type of film 62
Middle class and cinema 64
Literature and middle-class cinema 65
Role of music and song in cinema 69
Conclusions 76
6. History of Hindi cinema 77
Background and historical development 77
The 1960s 86
The 1970s 87
The 1980s 89
The 1990s 91
Conclusions 92
7. Indian personality, villainy, and history 95
Conclusions 104
8. 1950s fun, Funtoosh, and Kishore Kumar 107
Conclusions 127
9. Psychoanalysis in the films of the 1960s 129
Psychoanalysis and the cinema 131
India and psychoanalysis 135
Cinematic identification 137
Conclusions 159
10. Arrival of the new villain 161
Sholay and beyond 167
Conclusions 183
11. Rootless 1980s and fundamentalist 1990s 185
Conclusions 21 1
12. Why should women remain behind? 213
Murdering Kaun and keeping the secret Gupt 219
Conclusions 225
13. New century: New villains 227
Conclusions 234
14. Family fun, frolics, and madness in Khilona 235
Conclusions 247
15. Electric shock treatment in Hindi cinema 249
Brief history of ECT 250
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CONTENTS ix
Implications for public attitudes 251
ECT and Hindi cinema 252
Memory loss and terror 256
Conclusions 258
16. Conclusions 259
References 26 1
Selected jilmography 27 1
Appendix 293
Author index 295
Subject index 299
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List of figures and tables
FIGURES
1.1 Reading an image 19
2.1 The relationship between culture and symptoms 34
8.1 Scene from Anhonec (courtesy of National Film Archive of
India) 125
8.2 Scene from Anhonee (courtesy of National Film Archive of
India) 126
9.1 Differences between Greek and Indian myths 136
9.2 Scene from Klzumoshi (courtesy of South Asia Cinema
Foundation) 141.
9.3 Scene from Raat uuv Din (courtesy of National Film Archive of
India) 153
12.1 Ittefaq (courtesy of National Film Archive of India) 220
13.1 Scene from Anhonee (courtesy of National Film Archive of
India) 231
14.1 Scene from Khilonu (courtesy of National Film Archive of
India) 242
TABLE
5.1 Seven dimensions of Hinduism 61
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Preface
Hindi cinema has been the staple source of entertainment for millions of
people over the past century and more. While, both technically and
performance-wise, Hindi cinema has come a long way, its portrayal of
mental illness has remained remarkably poor.
As a practising psychiatrist, I have always been intrigued by the way
characters with mental illness are brought into focus and abandoned in
Hindi films. Notions of "the other" in the Indian psyche are well ingrained,
be they based on gender, caste, age, or even other characteristics. "The
other" plays a key role in releasing the venom, adding the spice of humour,
or providing a counterpoint mostly to the main protagonist and the way he
or she functions.
This book starts by focusing on some basic aspects of cinema, including
how to view a film, how Indian cinema developed, the interaction between
culture, mental illness, and cinema, and then covers films according to
chronology.
My hypothesis is that the portrayal of mental illness in Hindi films has
been influenced by social, political, and economic factors over the past 50
years or so. Independence was followed by the idealism of the 1950s and
1960s, when the portrayal of mentally ill people was gentle, as in films such as
Funtoosh, Karorpati, Pagla Kahin Ka, Khamoshi, and Raat aur Din. In the
1970s, people with mental illness started being shown as rough and violent, as
in Sholay. This tinge of psychopathy became a full-blown personality dis-
order in later films, including Khalnayak, Baazigar, Anjaam, Darr, Dastak,
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xiv PREFACE
and Daraar. During the 1990s, women joined in psychopathic activities in
films such as Kaun and Gupt. The role of the family in managing mental
illness and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in curing the illness has been
quite useful and films have reflected this: sometimes successfully, but mostly
as stereotypes.
Many sources of film reviews were used and these are indicated in the
Appendix. The Selected Filmography is confined to Hindi films and is
selective, focusing only on films with significant mental illness. For ease of
understanding chronological changes, these are presented in the order in
which they were released. The diagnostic categories used should be seen as
directive and portrayal by various actors does not reflect on their personal
lives.
I have deliberately stayed away from the issues of alcohol and substance
misuse, and bereavement and the resulting trauma. When I embarked upon
this study, I knew of very few Hindi films that dealt with mental illness. As
I went along, I discovered many more. My selection of films for this book is
a matter of personal choice and focuses on psychoses. There are more films
out there and, one day, I hope to get back to them. Personally, I don't like
using the words "Bollywood" and "mad", but these are well recognized
and understood and there is a journalistic licence in their use. This book is
the culmination of a number of strategies and strands; not all may have
been successful and I acknowledge that.
Dinesh Bhugra
September 2005
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to many colleagues and friends who took time off for
discussion and offered names of films for review. Satyendra and Mridula
Tyagi, Monisha Wadhwa, Reenu Mehra, Raj Brahmbhatt, Vihang Vahia,
Rajesh Mishra, Cleo van Velsen, Peter Byrne, Rachel Dwyer, Geetha
Oommen, Govind and Swati Jog, Professor N. N. Wig, and Mohan Agashe
were among those who gave me their time freely. 1 thank you all.
My discussions with Richard Dyer, Rachel Dwyer, and Simon Cohn
were extremely helpful in guiding me in the right directions. A course
organized by Harvinder Nath and Pushpinder Chowdhury whose Tongues
on Fire gave me an opportunity to link up with Girish Karnad, Nasreen
Kabir, and others. My thanks. Rohan Sippy pointed me in the right
direction, thanks. Martin Guha, Clare Martin, and Sarah Bentley at the
Institute of Psychiatry library were unstintingly and unfailingly helpful. I
really appreciate your help.
I am grateful to the Wellcome Trust for funding my sabbatical to allow
me to research the subject. I acknowledge the valuable assistance and
advice received from the Wellcome Institute of History of Medicine,
especially from the late Roy Porter, Chris Lawrence, Michael Naeve,
Trevor Turner, and Sillly Bragg.
The staff of National Films Archives of India in Pune went beyond the
call of duty in their help. The director, Mr Sashidharan, and his staff, in
particular Mrs Aarti Karkhanis, Mrs Lakshmi Aiyar and Mrs Urmila
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xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Joshi, were superb and ungrudging in their help: I am grateful. Thanks also
to Tony David and Joanne Forshaw for their patience and support.
Rebecca Schilling, Sarah Sheppard-Wright and Andrea Livingstone gave
the book shape-I am grateful.
Rahul Bhintade worked as an unpaid research assistant, travelling,
chasing and finding reviews, references, and stills. I am thankful.
Mike as ever put up with it all: books, DVDs and papers on the dining
table, sitting room, and everywhere else. How can mere thanks convey it
all?
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CHAPTER ONE
Cinema's culture
Cinema as an art form not only reflects the society it is set in, but also acts
as a reflector to that society. Some films leave their mark on society; and
society, in turn, reacts to these films in a variety of ways. The key question,
which is somewhat difficult to answer at times, is whether films influence
society more than the other way round. The way certain characters are
portrayed in films, and perhaps the consistency of this portrayal, may bring
about changes in society's perceptions over a period of time.
WHY STUDY CINEMA?
Cinema has been the most powerful medium since the early twentieth
century. The images projected in cinema allow individuals to look into the
workings of another family through a storyline that lets them forget their
own worries for a while. Films encourage people to look at events in a fresh
manner, suggest possible solutions to their own problems, and confirm their
views and, perhaps, prejudices.
Going to the cinema. may reflect a desire to pry into other people's lives
and get the vicarious pleasure of gossiping without really losing anything of
one's own. It is less dangerous than theatre because one can look in, but
cannot be looked at. It is always fun to watch or gossip about someone who
is different, and to feel smug about oneself. Nso, film provides a sense of
fun and entertainment; especially in the case of Hindi films, the viewer
knows that by and large everything will turn out to be all right in the end.
1
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2 MAD TALES FROM BOLLYWOOD
Viewers also feel that their problems are not as bad as those of the people
on the screen. The yearnings that these films give rise to among the audi-
ence reflect a psychological existence which is on the margins of the two
utopias. As Nandy (1998, p. 5) notes, one of these utopias harks back to the
rural idyll of the past, which would make the viewer yearn for the political
and cultural self-expression of the relatively less well-off. The other utopia
refers to the future, the fantasy being that of materialistic gain such as
riches and success. Hence, in order to be successful, popular films should
ideally have everything: from the classical to the folk in terms of music and
story, from the sublime to the ridiculous in terms of execution, from the
terribly modern to the incorrigibly traditional, from clearly written plots to
those that never get resolved, and from cameo roles to the stereotypical
characters which never get developed (p. 7).
Murthy (1980) proposes that, if we accept cinema as an art form, we
have to study it as we study any other art form, as well as its impact on
society. He illustrates the influence of society on cinema, using the example
of the appearance of gangster films in Hollywood in response to the Great
Depression of 1929. In depicting human interaction, film can borrow from
any element and medium, serving as a sociocultural mirror. Murthy goes on
to observe that filmmakers who become too esoteric in their outlook fail to
communicate with their audiences. Thus, the team behind the director plays
an important role in formulating the look and shape of the film, attempting
to ensure that the producerldirector ends up with a film that pleases the
crowd. At the same time, cinema also holds up a mirror to society by
indicating what is going on. There remains a gulf between those who look
upon cinema merely as a medium of entertainment and those who would
like to see it as a medium for communicating cultural and social values, and
thus as a tool for bringing about a better social order (Murthy, 1980). The
latter goal, however, may be better achieved through documentaries rather
than mainstream commercial cinema.
Film is a unique medium in that it can use subjective and objective
viewpoints alternatively. It is likely that the direct and indirect suggestions
made in films will have both an overt and covert impact on the viewer.
Furthermore, film has a captive audience that is compelled to see what has
been edited into it: It shows only what the director chooses us to see. Even
though a film is the product of many contributors and is shot according to
a specific screenplay, the editor and director can still change its shape and
message. As the camera is mobile, the viewpoint keeps shifting, leaving
scope for emphasis, counteremphasis, reinforced statements, and so on. The
final soundtrack, together with the original sound and the background
music, gives its own tinge to the visual experience. The process of editing
the exposed film results in a further manipulation of the image, introducing
a meaning not originally captured by the camera.
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