What has happened to our Bollywood Heroes?

Last Saturday, I managed to catch the latest Farhan Akthar flick, Kartik Calling Kartik. And like all Farhan Akhtar movies this also got me thinking (A case in point - my blog on Luck By Chance). Well, I intend to make two observations here. The first one being that all the 3 Farhan Akhtar films that have released so far have English names & the second one is the point that I wish to make through this blog. I am really wondering what has happened to our Bollywood Heroes.

Time have changed & with time the way movies portray the main protagonist (aka Hero) has also changed. Gone are the days of masala movies, where a hero had to the macho man. He was the one who had to take care of his family, do the comedy stuff, woo the girl by running around trees & finally seek revenge from the villain for some reason or another. These days in most films, the story revolves round the vulnerabilities of the main protagonist. He is shown to be the one suffering from some ailment or the other. He is no longer macho any more. The Masala movie Bollywood Hero is dead. It is chic to be a Bollywood hero with a medical issue.

My medical knowledge seems to increasing after watching the numerous ailments that our heroes suffer from. Blindness, deafness, physical impairments still exist for heroes in movies, but the heroes now suffer from various other newer ailments, which were left untouched till now.

I would want to list down a few of the latest movies where our Hero is shown suffering with medical ailments:

• Kartik Calling Kartik : Farhan suffers from schizophrenia. He imagines that he is receives a call from himself when actually its the imported Japanese phone which does the trick in the movie.
• My Name is Khan: Shahrukh suffers from Asperger's syndrome - a form of autism. This ailment added extra layers to his character otherwise the film was a simple story in which the heroine's son dies & to seek redemption Shahrukh wants to meet the president.
• Paa: Amitabh suffers from Progeria - the ailment of growing old. This helped differentiate the film from the various others films based on child born out of wedlock.
• Ghajini: Aamir suffers from short term memory. It was a normal revenge story, but Aamir ailment made it different. But the end-result remains the same. He got his revenge.
• Koi Mil Gaya: Hrithik suffers from Autism. Jadoo did the magic here.

There are various other movies like Kyun Ki, Deewangee, Main Aisa hi Hoon, Tere Naam, Iqbal where the Hero's illness was the crux of the movie. And there is going to be many other movies in the future as well which will portray a vulnerable Hero (Hrithik is a paralegic whose Guzarish is to die). As long as the movie turns out to be good, I won't be missing the macho Bollywood Hero.

Three cheers to our special Bollywood Heroes !!!