The soul of a story is in its characters. Think about it. Harry Potter, Arya Stark, Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet,Ram Shankar Nikumbh, Coach Kabir Khan. Good characters make good story. The opposite is true too. I wanted to write about a really bad character I came across. Thankfully, it was not a book. It was a movie. It wasn’t even a good movie. It had bad actors. Why did I watch it, is a post that I will never write. Have you heard of Apne? It starred the whole Deol family and Shilpa Shetty.
I am sure many of you must have not seen the movie. For your benefit, I will narrate the story here. I will try to make it as less painful as possible but bear with me here.
Dharmendra is a boxer who is charged with doping charges, insulted and kicked out of some world boxing tournament. This hurts his pride and he swears to come back with a vengeance. Back home he has 2 boys. One day in anger, the elder one who is Sunny Deol, throws something huge on a man, because they are a debt ridden family and the guy insults his mother. However the throw hits his younger brother-Bobby Deol. His right arm gets affected and he suffers a handicap much like Mohnish Behl did in Hum saath saath hain. His hand is always in his pocket.
Anyway, So Dharmendra comes back and trains Sunny Deol to become the next world champion. Sunny Deol is good at it (Obviously – He is Sunny Deol) but since Boxing is not a popular sport like cricket, he does not see any financial growth from it and starts his own business. Dharmendra gets really pissed at him for quitting in between, disowns him and stops talking to him.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the world’s most selfish on screen father and the most idiotic character, besides being badly portrayed by an always seemed drunk Dharmendra.
This father is so hell bent on taking his revenge against the angrez, he forgets that his family is already under debt. The son establishes his own business, builds a house, gets the sister married but Dharmandra is still angry because his son did not do what he asked him to do. In return, when Sunny Deol tries to wave the white flag and calls for truce, Dharmendra tells him, “A house, sister’s marriage could have waited.” *Facepalm*
Enter a student, Aryan Vaid (I am surprised I remember the actor) Dharmandra sees immense potential in him and starts training him for the world championship. Dharmendra is extremely happy by the development. He starts treating Aryan as his own son. Just when you think things are fine, Aryan goes to Mumbai and finds himself another coach. This makes our old boxer mad with rage. He throws things, shouts “you ditched me, you ditched me”, cries and basically acts worse than a 17 year old obsessed teenager after a break up.
Now I understand he was not loyal to him. But the problem here is, our boxer guy had not taken his new student under his tutelage because he saw a talented young man. He took him because he saw a chance to redeem himself. Sports people change their coaches all the time. Obviously he will look for his development. But no, because Dharmendra did not see his benefit, he becomes mad and Aryan Vaid becomes the villain of the movie. This is like taking selfishness to a completely another level.
But there is more. In the scene where Dharam ji is throwing a fit in anger, his younger son Bobby deol comes to control him. In the heat of the moment, he holds his dad with both the hands – his one hand was handicapped..remember? Because Bollywood. So now Bobby deol wants to fulfill his Daddy’s dream by becoming a boxer. They take him to a doctor and start exercises to strengthen his arm. In one scene, Bobby Deol’s hand is super weak and he is sitting with Katrina Kaif (Who is a doctor by the way). Here are the almost dialogues:
Kat: Your hand has just healed. Don’t put them under so much pressure.
Bob: No, that’s fine. I want to fulfill my dad’s dream.
Dharmendra (who is slyly listening to this conversation) to Victor Banerjee: See! This is my son. He is ready to do anything for me.
Disclaimer: These are not the exact dialogues.
Thoughts in my head while I was watching this ridiculous scene – Your son has just recovered from a handicap that he was suffering from since his childhood. You started to push him the very moment his hand came out of that pocket. He is suffering because of you, he is not showing it to you and you are proud of it? Are you the worst dad or are you the worst dad ever!
The movie is bad but Dharmendra’s character makes it even worse (Not taking in account the bad acting by everyone)
So ya, don’t watch Apne. I watched it but as I said, I had my reasons. I am out of that phase. But I am in a new phase. The phase where I write something on this blog almost everyday –even when I don’t know what to write.
Tomorrow, I will come back again. Hopefully.
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