Why all this kolaveri di about how Dhanush looks?

Okay first of all, Dhanush is an awesome name. It’s one of those names that you instantly imagine getting its own jingle, so that every time Dhanush walks into a room, a small band of gnomes follows him singing something along the lines of “Dhanush… dhin chik dhin chik dhin chik.” I imagine it’s the sound he made as he whooshed his way into the world from his mother’s hoo-haa, and his father was all, “It’s almost as if he came with his own label!” And thus, Dhanush was born. Now before I get a barrage of comments telling me that it’s not his real name, let me mention that I have Wikipedia too, so bugger off, everyone. He wants to be called Dhanush, so Dhanush he will be. Hey, you know what else he will be? A National Award winning actor with average looks, but apparently exemplary acting chops. He won the award for his movie, Aadukalam, where he played a cockfighter and was the youngest actor ever to do so. All of this wasn’t enough for us Indian audiences however, because when the trailer for Raanjhanaa broke, we were all very quick to christen him chaiwallah, as if we were all momentarily possessed by the spirit of Anil Kapoor in Slumdog Millionaire. And it didn’t end there. Within weeks, everyone I know had called him everything, from watchman to paperboy to “If he shaves, he’ll lose a third of his body weight LOL.” [caption id=“attachment_900765” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Dhanush. AFP.[/caption] It is understandable, because we are as a nation obsessed with looks. Just ask any of your aunts at a family function, and they’ll be happy to point out that you’ve gained weight, your dark circles are more pronounced, your haircut’s funny, your nose is crooked like the man your sister’s marrying… on and on it will go until your self esteem is roughly the size of Sanjay Dutt’s “good decisions” list. So I get it. Our aunts want our movie stars to be hot like that Tom Cruise yaar. But what about us, the so-called new generation of movie watchers? We have harped on and on about how, looks don’t matter, and how we need to encourage actors who are on top of their game, rather than those who are there because they eat weights for breakfast/ are blessed with half-human and half-elf genes. We worship Vidya Balan, we applaud Nawazuddin Siddiqui, we scorn Katrina Kaif even though she does a damned good job of blending into the wallpaper (provided it’s cream-coloured and has a pronounced phoren accent), which is what she is paid to do anyway. And yet, when someone like Dhanush (dhin chik dhin chik dhin chik) comes along, we’re quick to dismiss him as a “chaiwalla” until reviews of his movie pronounce him the new,er, dark horse of the acting world. We’ve always had these double standards when it comes to our Bollywood beliefs. On one hand, we make loud disapproving sounds on the unhealthiness of size zero. On the other hand, we make fat Aishwarya jokes. We complain of our heroes being the same age as their co-stars’ great-grandfather and with the next breath, we start writing career obituaries for actresses who get married. Granted, a few like Kalki Koechlin slip through the cracks, but by and large, we are a hypocritical and hypercritical audience. It’s time we cleaned up our act and gave actors a chance simply because they act well. Looks may matter, but honestly, why all this kolaveri di over something that comes with an expiry date?