The Abhishek Monster!

Abhishek is (and to get a bit theoretical here) the clearest example of the ‘monstrous real’ in contemporary Bollywood and when one thinks about central actors perhaps the only one. Because Abhishek is indeed the ‘monster’ in contemporary Bollywood. But not ‘ugly’ at a literal level. Actually his very (Bachchanesque) and ‘imposing’ persona is precisely not ‘ugly’ because it is otherwise ‘attractive’. The ‘ugliness’ is a function of something else. And this is the ‘authenticity’ he conveys in the midst of the greatest ‘plasticity’. In other words what he represents is ‘monstrous’ within a Bollywood that in just about every way is a ‘fake’ production of superficial movies, superficial actors, superficial audiences. He cannot be assimilated or consumed. His very presence disturbs, causes a bit of a tremor each time. Even those who like him are often a bit uncertain as to how to engage with him. This is why incidentally even proper Bachchan fans sometimes have an ambivalence towards him. Because in an interesting way he even reveals the ‘real’ of the Bachchan signature before the latter was normalized into the ‘one man industry’ consumer God and

certainly since the metamorphosis of the same into the transcendental consumption item of the new India. It is not that Abhishek is not like his father. He is too much like his father. Except that Bollywood and Bollywood audiences have spent the better part of two decades repressing the Kaala Pathar character (this is precisely what ‘Bollywood’ means!). He needs to be shut up in the coal mines! Most bourgeois audiences reacted rather badly to Lawaaris, the only such ’searing’ character post-Kaala Pathar. But here the ‘drag’ moment allowed these very audiences to sublimate their annoyance — that the more cosmetically appropriate Bachchan had dared to return to his roots was not ‘wished’ for, however that he dressed up as a woman was worse and this is what ‘apparently’ caused offense. Later still there was of course Agneepath where again Bachchan is at his most ‘monstrous’. A Deewar re-written with Vijay as Frankenstein. This is what the ’system’ produced. Or this hellish character is what the dominant social apparatus made of Vijay’s romantic rebellion (Lallan then follows in this line of Bachchan ‘monsters’). Abhishek keeps returning the audience to this site of ‘repression’. Hence every Sarkar almost requires a Bluffmaster for the ’star’ to survive! Dostana allows the audiences to repress Sarkar. At the same time such a move (Dostana) presents a kind of Abhishek impostor and even as some of the audiences long for this they are unable to ‘recognize’ him in these parts (this is precisely why BM was so clever, Rohan managed to thread the needle). This is also why Abhishek was greeted with such anger by his young male audience in Dhoom 2. The idea of Hrithik dominating that film, though literally true, was otherwise absurd. The male audiences homoerotically consumed Hrithik’s body and were able to express their ‘pleasure’ and simultaneous lack of ‘complete pleasure’ (Hrithik represents ‘perpetual excitation coupled with orgasmic lack’, Abhishek represents ‘orgasmic intensity without excitation’; in one instance the pathway never ‘gets you there’, in the other you’re always there but you’re not sure how you got there!) at one and the same time by ‘loving’ Hrithik and ‘hating’ Abhishek. If this were simply one star upending another there wouldn’t be such intense emotion connected with this. Abhishek had to disappoint or ‘authorize’ this absurd D2 machine for both emotions to take hold. In this sense most women who ‘enjoyed’ both male stars did not feel this tension while the few male fans who also did this were a little like the women. In both cases smart enough to know that the perfect ‘pleasure’ can only be derived by ‘completing’ the picture in a ‘fantasy’ scenario and thereby gaining ‘total’ pleasure (you need the performance and satisfaction, just one half of it doesn’t do, neither the specter of the ‘dildo’ nor that of the premature ’spill’). With the earlier set of viewers Hrithik/Abhishek is an opposition. With the second set they’re complementary halves. But of course the second is already a ‘fantasy’ that represses the dichotomy. You cannot get both! Which is why true fans of both Hrithik and Abhishek are most nonchalant about criticism directed at one or the other because they are automatically able to shift positions and go over to the Hrithik side or the Abhishek side. Abhishek, at any rate, is a presence and persona that the audience is still coming to terms with in important ways. Because this same star also keeps pushing the envelope in terms of his film choices, refusing to subscribe to any established code of audience reception (including the ones he’s partaken of in the past) on a consistent basis, also because his calibration of the Bachchan signature is itself so problematic (for reasons enabling and disabling), the complete absorption of the ‘effects’ he produces on screen becomes that much harder. This is why his off screen appearance, not least when it is part of a couple (with Bachchan or with Ash, not to mention the ‘trio’) is so much more ‘popular’ in some ways. Here the ‘monstrous’ can always be mediated by the presence of that other in each couple (or the other two in the trio). Bachchan or Ash can safely, which to say ‘unproblematically’, be received by the ‘spectator’.