I have heard this all of my life, “Follow your dreams, never give up on your passion.” Honestly, I have had no idea what my passion is. Sure, I love Hindi cinema and I devour cakes with a vengeance but I never wanted to be a filmmaker and am an average baker. I enjoy baking but never considered it as a career either. Two years ago, I decided to combine my two passions. I started a Tumblr blog where I took screen shots of cakes that have appeared in Bollywood films. Soon, contributions started pouring in and slowly a pattern began to emerge. However random my idea for blog might have been, Bollywood’s cakes on the other hand are not.
While a large number of films choose the regular chocolate or pineapple cakes, a lot of them make far from regular statements. It’s an exercise to get noticed. Frequently they serve a definite purpose in the narrative. They underline the crucial moments, add nuance to the storytelling and, in some cases, become characters themselves.
Cake for your money
Very often Bollywood cakes symbolise affluence. It is not uncommon to depict wealth using these multi-layered sweet treats for celebrations. For example, in Ghayal Once Again (2016) , the villain’s child’s birthday cake is taller than the kid at her Snow White-themed party. It’s a gigantic, swathed with frosted mushrooms and the seven dwarves. The grandeur of the cake is directly linked to the antagonist’s financial condition. Both Bobby (1973) and Judaai (1997) have huge, expensive birthday cakes pitted against modest creations made by poorer relatives. The lesser-off characters express their love through baking but are too ashamed to display their wares in front of the grand ones.
Another important occasion to flaunt cakes is during a girl’s coming-of-age party, which is very similar to a debutante ball. In Waqt (1965), Sadhna’s colourful cake is interestingly (perhaps unconsciously) colour coordinated with her outfit. These debutante cakes make for the flashiest of them all. Babita’s birthday cake in Farz (1967) looks like an elaborate maze with staircases; in Mohabbat Zindagi Hai (1966) , Rajshree Shantaram’s cake displays so many strange features, including a black tower, that she has difficulty figuring out how to cut it.
Cake before the storm
An odd but significant function of Bollywood cakes has been to announce impending doom. Children’s birthdays are often occasions where the father is either killed or arrested by the police. The most interesting example in this category is Shashi Kapoor’s poisoned birthday cake in Namak Halal (1982). The cake is accidentally eaten by Tun Tun’s dog, who dies instantly. The cake becomes a medium for creating misunderstanding between the mother and son, which is the main theme of the film.
Still fromQayamat (1983)
In Lashkar (1989), Dev Anand’s birthday cake is symbolic of his happy domestic life. There is a green lawn with a cottage on it. His family records a birthday message and waits to surprise him. Instead, the villains come and kill his entire family and destroy the cake. A very similar incident happens in Lahoo Ke Do Rang (1997) when Naseeruddin Shah’s family — waiting to surprise him on his birthday — is murdered. The cake is the lone survivor; it has a red candle and ‘Happy Birthday to You’ written on it.
The most macabre representation of destructive cake is in Prem Geet (1981), where Anita Raj dies before her birthday and Raj Babbar places her dead body right next to it, on the table. Bollywood cakes have definitely seen as many unhappy days as happy occasions.
Odd cake out
My personal favourite in this category is from Dial 100 (1982), where Ranjeet decides to surprise Bindiya Goswami and Vinod Mehra on their engagement with a gigantic corpse cake. He even brings the dessert on a stretcher. The film is a murder mystery, therefore, the cake certainly had a connection with the main plot.
Some cakes make a political point. In Qayamat (1983), the evil army Major from Pakistan has a cake that’s in the shape of the Indian map; he cuts out Kashmir and eats it. In April Fool (1964) , Saira Banu’s birthday cake is the head of a Chinese soldier that she happily cuts up.
Sometimes, the cakes may not be outlandish but the birthday celebrations have odd rituals. In Takkar (1980), Sanjeev Kumar’s birthday is on Janmashtami, and he shares his cake with the statue of Krishna. In Aag ke Sholay (1988), the cake never gets cut; instead, the child and her pet dog dance on the table in front of it.
Still from Disco Dancer (1982)
Then there are fake cakes that conceal a person inside. Films like Mard (1985) , Waah! Tera Kya Kehna (2002) , Singh is Kinng (2008), Saazish (1975) all have cakes that perform the same function as the Trojan horse. In some films, cakes have also been used as murder weapons, though they fail to do their job every time. In Inteqam (1988), the cake is filled with a poison bulb that will burst and kill the person cutting it.
Hall of cake fame
Naturally, there exists a hall of fame for cakes that cannot be categorised. In Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (1983), the cake becomes an instrument of satire. Naseeruddin Shah uses it to define America as a land where you waste more than you eat. He eats a bit of the dessert and then throws some outside the window saying “ thoda khao thoda phenko ” (eat a little, throw a little).
In Anjaam (1994), the cake is used as a vehicle to establish Shah Rukh Khan’s character. He is a brat who has no respect for anyone. He snatches someone else’s birthday cake and starts eating it with his fingers. His handling of the food item sets the tone for his character in the rest of the film.
Still from Ghayal Once Again
In Sindoor (1987), Shashi Kapoor and Jaya Prada’s wedding anniversary cake is a house that gets cut from the middle, a sign of marital discord, the main theme of the film. In Zameer (1975), cakes are used during the opening credits and signify the passage of time.
The film that has the maximum number of cakes is Action Replayy (2010). The actor whose films almost always have cakes is none other than Shah Rukh Khan. And the queen of cakes is Juhi Chawla.
Finally then, there are cakes connected to the movie titles themselves. In Aag Ka Gola (1990), Sunny Deol’s son has a cake with a canon. Director B. Subhash definitely gave a lot of thought to his cakes. In Disco Dancer (1982) and Commando (1985), he has cakes that have ornaments in the shapes of a guitar player and a commando respectively.
Check tooreluctantacademic.tumblr.com for more Bollywood cakes
