The odd case of the Akhtars

Born to Javed Akhtar, one of the few celebrity writers of Bollywood, Farhan and Zoya Akhtar became rarities by choosing careers behind the camera. Their films — notably Zoya’s latest Gully Boy and Farhan’s 2001 directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai — have been hailed as milestones in new-age commercial Bollywood. However, since they have always tried to move away from the formulaic, their films have also been at odds with their Bollywood upbringing.

Gully Boy reiterates the fact that the Akhtars constantly seek to redefine the mainstream through stories that would otherwise find place in parallel cinema. Ironically, they do so casting big stars and within a commercial set-up.

The era of Zoya and Farhan Akhtar is different from the time Javed Akhtar wrote Deewaar with Salim Khan in 1975. That was an era of willing suspension of disbelief. Despite the film’s gritty authenticity, one accepted a poor rustic family that uses chaste Urdu words in speech. Or, the fact that a dockyard worker becomes a gangster overnight and his brother is the cop assigned to arrest him. Deewaar clicked because of the conviction with which Salim-Javed imagined the filmi drama.

The approach, however, would seem unsuitable when Zoya directed Dil Dhadakne Do four decades later in 2015. The film deals with problems of Delhi’s elite, and the Hindi dialogue seemed like a mismatch, and the fact was obvious that writer-director Zoya, brought up in posh Mumbai, has a superficial understanding of Delhi’s elite. The song-dance sequences left a cartoonish impact, too.

Still, Zoya Akhtar is a far more accomplished storyteller than brother Farhan, whose films have looked progressively less imaginative. Lakshya, his second directorial feature of 2004, was superficial in its portrayal of the Indian Army and the Kargil War. Less said about the Don films, the better.

Craft is clearly compromised every time the Akhtar siblings make a film, because of their inner clash between creativity and an urge to conform to industry pattern. Zoya’s Luck By Chance, a peek into Bollywood’s inner workings, falls short for this. Being an insider, her lens avoids talk of nepotism. The film makes nepotism seem incidental, rather than Bollywood casteism that rewards lineage over merit.

The Akhtars bank on dialogue, cast, and their treatment of songs. Javed or Farhan Akhtar normally pen the Hindi/Urdu dialogue. To the protagonists of Dil Chahta Hai or Dil Dhadakne Do, the language is inorganic. Given the fact that these films target the urban multiplex crowds, their commercial appeal wouldn’t be reduced if the dialogue were in English. Casting mediocre, English medium-educated star kids makes matters worse.

Maybe, it’s because the Akhtar siblings never saw real struggle. Unlike Murad in Gully Boy, they never cried “apna time aayega”.