The Hindi film hero club has too many police officers in its ranks these days. But ever so often, an undercover agent saunters out of the shadows to join them, the latest being the thunderously named Rajveer Nanda from Bang Bang!
The secrecy that swathes the workings of the Research and Analysis Wing has not prevented filmmakers from weaving yarns what our spooks look like and how they go about saving their nation’s honour. Rajveer does not have Bond’s access to gadgetry and women (he is a boring monogamist), nor are his missions as earth-shaking as those of CIA operatives. In fact, it’s personal for Rajveer. He isn’t just on a mission to save India’s pride, by restoring the stolen Kohinoor diamond to the Tower of London (instead of then bringing it home as he should), but also to avenge his brother’s death.
Since he is played by Hrithik Roshan, he is better looking and more sharply dressed than the average IB agent and possesses skills that are surely not part of the training manual Apart from skipping along roofs and single-handedly slaying armies of gun-toting opponents, he can pluck songs out of the air and burn up the dance floor.
The Hindi film secret agent took proper shape in the sixties and seventies, decades of colour films, glamourous people, glossy production values, improved shooting budgets, and a heightened interest in foreign locations. The films Prem Pujari and Aankhen took such big-name actors as Dev Anand and Dharmendra to tourist-friendly shores where arch-villains with strange names plotted the end of India. The enemy changed over the years – Chinese mischief-makers, smugglers and despots of mountainous kingdoms north of the country ran riot in the seventies and eighties, while Pakistan or something resembling it and delirious looking Afghan terrorists grabbed the headlines from the nineties onwards.
Spies versus war hero
Hero – Love Story of a Spy recruited Sunny Deol to save the neighbourhood from a nuclear attack; Saif Ali Khan commandeering a helicopter carrying a blinking device before it erased India from the map in Agent Vinod. Salman Khan’s Research and Analysis Wing employee scored one of the biggest victories for the subcontinent in Ek Tha Tiger: he persuaded Katrina Kaif’s Pakistani spy to drop her mission.
Sometimes, just for the sake of variety but also to affect seriousness and current affairs awareness, the spy can be a grim and purposeful army Intelligence officer who races against the clock to prevent enemies from planting bombs. John Abraham in Madras Cafe stumbles onto a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam plot to kill a leader resembling Rajiv Gandhi; Sanjay Dutt’s unkempt undercover operative wanders into the thicket of Kashmiri insurgency politics in Lamhaa. The most fanciful bunch of espionage practitioners is from Nikhil Advani’s D-Day, in which a team of Indians infiltrate Pakistanand abduct a gangster clearly modelled on Dawood Ibrahim to face justice back home.
Espionage films are not as contentious as the other favourite action-hero sub-category – the war film. The Indian army and Air Force have been venerated on the screen with chest-thumping enthusiasm for several years, with the Kargil war providing the perfect excuse to re-examine older battles (the Indo-Pak war of 1971 in Border) and pick fresher wounds (the 1999 battle itself in Dutta’s LOC Kargil, Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya and Mani Shankar’s Tango Charlie). Despite fuelling jingoism providing simplistic depictions of the messiness of war, the Hindi film industry has, in big and small ways, also considered other aspects of army life.
Fewer minefields
Govind Nihalani’s Vijeta explores the conflict raging within a young Air Force pilot’s heart; Samar Khan’s Shaurya, which is lifted from the Hollywood film A Few Good Men, examines the controversial issue of army atrocities against civilians. Yet, any movie that deviates from the belief that the army is above criticism invariably prompts demands for a ban – Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider is the most recent example.
The spy movie genre, on the other hand, navigates far fewer minefields. When bored with pelting blows on hapless local crooks, the broad-chested Hindi film hero can instead beat up people of other races. He can conduct his affairs in Prague and London instead of an over-exposed Indian city and at the end of it earn the gratitude of the entire country, rather than a mere chief minister or a police commissioner. The Bond movies created an irresistible cocktail of patriotic purpose, international glamour, technological wizardry, and a heterogeneous sex life.
Perhaps keepingIndia’s overall scientific achievements in mind, the Indian spy hasn’t advanced very much in terms of gadgetry. Nor, given the general moral climate, does he dare to swing from one bedpost to the next. But his commitment to the flag is unwavering, as is his dedication to his wardrobe. For a little over two hours, he sustains the fantasy of the Indian intelligence agent as a benevolent, handsome, healthy, fashionable, romantic and uncomplicated patriot who safeguards our borders by leaping over them.
The secrecy that swathes the workings of the Research and Analysis Wing has not prevented filmmakers from weaving yarns what our spooks look like and how they go about saving their nation’s honour. Rajveer does not have Bond’s access to gadgetry and women (he is a boring monogamist), nor are his missions as earth-shaking as those of CIA operatives. In fact, it’s personal for Rajveer. He isn’t just on a mission to save India’s pride, by restoring the stolen Kohinoor diamond to the Tower of London (instead of then bringing it home as he should), but also to avenge his brother’s death.
Since he is played by Hrithik Roshan, he is better looking and more sharply dressed than the average IB agent and possesses skills that are surely not part of the training manual Apart from skipping along roofs and single-handedly slaying armies of gun-toting opponents, he can pluck songs out of the air and burn up the dance floor.
The Hindi film secret agent took proper shape in the sixties and seventies, decades of colour films, glamourous people, glossy production values, improved shooting budgets, and a heightened interest in foreign locations. The films Prem Pujari and Aankhen took such big-name actors as Dev Anand and Dharmendra to tourist-friendly shores where arch-villains with strange names plotted the end of India. The enemy changed over the years – Chinese mischief-makers, smugglers and despots of mountainous kingdoms north of the country ran riot in the seventies and eighties, while Pakistan or something resembling it and delirious looking Afghan terrorists grabbed the headlines from the nineties onwards.
Spies versus war hero
Hero – Love Story of a Spy recruited Sunny Deol to save the neighbourhood from a nuclear attack; Saif Ali Khan commandeering a helicopter carrying a blinking device before it erased India from the map in Agent Vinod. Salman Khan’s Research and Analysis Wing employee scored one of the biggest victories for the subcontinent in Ek Tha Tiger: he persuaded Katrina Kaif’s Pakistani spy to drop her mission.
Sometimes, just for the sake of variety but also to affect seriousness and current affairs awareness, the spy can be a grim and purposeful army Intelligence officer who races against the clock to prevent enemies from planting bombs. John Abraham in Madras Cafe stumbles onto a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam plot to kill a leader resembling Rajiv Gandhi; Sanjay Dutt’s unkempt undercover operative wanders into the thicket of Kashmiri insurgency politics in Lamhaa. The most fanciful bunch of espionage practitioners is from Nikhil Advani’s D-Day, in which a team of Indians infiltrate Pakistanand abduct a gangster clearly modelled on Dawood Ibrahim to face justice back home.
Espionage films are not as contentious as the other favourite action-hero sub-category – the war film. The Indian army and Air Force have been venerated on the screen with chest-thumping enthusiasm for several years, with the Kargil war providing the perfect excuse to re-examine older battles (the Indo-Pak war of 1971 in Border) and pick fresher wounds (the 1999 battle itself in Dutta’s LOC Kargil, Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya and Mani Shankar’s Tango Charlie). Despite fuelling jingoism providing simplistic depictions of the messiness of war, the Hindi film industry has, in big and small ways, also considered other aspects of army life.
Fewer minefields
Govind Nihalani’s Vijeta explores the conflict raging within a young Air Force pilot’s heart; Samar Khan’s Shaurya, which is lifted from the Hollywood film A Few Good Men, examines the controversial issue of army atrocities against civilians. Yet, any movie that deviates from the belief that the army is above criticism invariably prompts demands for a ban – Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider is the most recent example.
The spy movie genre, on the other hand, navigates far fewer minefields. When bored with pelting blows on hapless local crooks, the broad-chested Hindi film hero can instead beat up people of other races. He can conduct his affairs in Prague and London instead of an over-exposed Indian city and at the end of it earn the gratitude of the entire country, rather than a mere chief minister or a police commissioner. The Bond movies created an irresistible cocktail of patriotic purpose, international glamour, technological wizardry, and a heterogeneous sex life.
Perhaps keepingIndia’s overall scientific achievements in mind, the Indian spy hasn’t advanced very much in terms of gadgetry. Nor, given the general moral climate, does he dare to swing from one bedpost to the next. But his commitment to the flag is unwavering, as is his dedication to his wardrobe. For a little over two hours, he sustains the fantasy of the Indian intelligence agent as a benevolent, handsome, healthy, fashionable, romantic and uncomplicated patriot who safeguards our borders by leaping over them.
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