Alcoholia: Hrithik Roshan promotes alcoholism with impossible dance steps

When Chikni Chameli wriggled into sight, pauva lagake (after a shot of alcohol) we smiled. She wasn’t really serious about drinking and dancing, was she? Who can be drunk and still dance like that?

Who, except maybe Hrithik Roshan who I am told, doesn’t touch a drop of alcohol in real life, as he doesn’t want to set the wrong example for his two growing sons. And yet, he has no qualms, no pricks of the conscience while dancing and celebrating the power of the booze in the song ‘Alcoholia’ from Vikram Vedha .

Double-faced hypocrisy or plain blindness?

Of course, I totally understand the desperation to slay the aisles, get the masses dancing in theatres. Times are bad. Anything is okay as long as it gets the bums in the seats wriggling. And moreover, Duggu Bhaiyya is not endorsing paan tobacco and alcohol like some of his A-lister bros, is he? He is just dancing under the influence with massive bottles of alcohol virtually encrypted into the dance steps.

No, my friend. This logic won’t work. Because when you get on that dancefloor and swing to that booze beat which goes, Aaj mausam alcoholia…Ho liya….Daru se duree humse na ban paye…pee pee ke Lucknow lage hai Mongolia (Mongolia? Seriously?), you are making a very serious pitch for peg-by-peg perverse paganism.

Firstly, my congratulations to the poet for these immortal lines. Shailendra, Gulzar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Anand Bakshi….they are all showering petals from heaven.

Secondly, Ganesh Hegde ’s choreography is a coalescence of gravity-defying conceits. It’s like the great music composers of yore who would compose impossible notes whenever Lataji sang; whenever Hrithik Roshan dances, choreographers come up with death-defying steps.

I would seriously advise kids not to try Hrithik Uncle’s gravity-belittling dance moves in ‘Alcoholia’ unsupervised. You may end up with a few broken bones, Bachcha Log. And then you can’t even sue the team behind the ‘Alcoholia’ song. They are doing what they have to. They don’t care if the audience gets influenced wrongly.

But here is the thing. Hrithik in ‘Alcoholia’ is not looking drunk. He is looking demented. Like Makarand Deshpande in one of his more aggravated dramatic situations. Hrithik’s facial expressions and bodily movements are distinctly frightening. They can scare infants into eternal nightmare. Babies can grow up psychologically disturbed if they watch ‘Alcoholia’ in a loop.

Why, Hrithik, why? Drunken songs went out of vogue with Motilal zigzagging to the sound Zindagi khwab hai in Jagte Raho.

My rant is against this brazen endorsement of not only alcohol but alcoholism. When you are Hrithik Roshan you need to be careful about what you sell.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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