Have you seen pictures of the bulked-up Hrithik Roshan from the upcoming sequel to Krrish? His arm looks less a useful appendage to the torso than a helium-inflated balloon animal that will spit and hiss and rise in the air with a pop if you stuck a pin in it. We speak of curves on heroines, but the upper part of this arm (which has a name, I'm sure, that gym regulars will recall in a heartbeat) is as contoured as an hourglass.
It's as if every single muscle trapped beneath the skin (and some whose existence mankind was hitherto unaware of) was submitted to an array of exercise equipment until it assumed its rightful position in this exhibition of prime-cut beef. This transformation was surely implemented under a regimen of activity and abstinence that is beyond most mere mortals, and for this (if only this), Roshan deserves some sort of medal.
But why drag poor Madhavan into this preening gymnasium whose walls are made of mirrors? You'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen the recent Jodi Breakers, or even if you've only read the reviews. Almost everyone seems to have arrived at the consensus that Madhavan, who looks like the typical Indian male (with a certain kind of metabolism, as drawn to barfis as he is repelled by barbells), needs to take care of his weight, especially because his costar is Bipasha Basu, who, like Hrithik Roshan, is a walking advertisement for the local gym and personal trainer.
This, despite the fact that Madhavan plays a divorced man (as opposed to a superhero like Krrish), and is shown as being fond of ice creams (Basu, stoically and to nobody's surprise, refuses even a bite). If you cast an eye at the world around you, she'd be the one who's not normal. (He, on the other hand, would be your next-door neighbour, your colleague two cubicles away, the man ahead of you in the line at the supermarket).
The amazement arises, apparently, from the fact that a girl like that could fall for a guy like this. Consumers of Hindi cinema a few decades ago did not share these views. The ever-popular Pati Patni aur Woh not only featured an out-of-shape Sanjeev Kumar, it reveled in his shapelessness (though he would argue, rightly, that round is a shape) by positioning him in a bathroom in just his undewear through the entire duration of a song sequence.
And after this celebration of his flabbiness, the film posits that a girl like Ranjeeta Kaur could fall for him. No one batted an eyelid because the character Sanjeev Kumar played was a married man, and if pretty young things only lost their hearts to appropriately handsome men, then this great nation of ours would see about twenty marriages a year.
The point is that attraction cannot be explained away in solely physical terms. Jodi Breakers, a plodding romantic comedy with all the life of a limp noodle, has a lot that's wrong about it, but the appearance of the hero isn't one of them. If anything, this debate about his weight makes you wonder if we, in this multiplex age, have lost the ability to recognise what's normal and what isn't, and if the only thing we expect our stars to be is perfect in the moulded-plastic sense.
Perhaps what Bollywood needs, right now, is a remake of Marty, the story of an unattractive but fundamentally decent man falling for a woman who's as plain, as unglamorous as he is. The problem with Jodi Breakers isn't Madhavan but Bipasha Basu, whose time would be better spent with an acting coach instead of a personal trainer. Of course, she looks sensational, but why, with a body like that, is she stuck in this story about extremely ordinary people? Rather than remarking that Madhavan needs to drop a few kilos, maybe we should begin to discuss if Bipasha's wardrobe needs to be equipped with love handles.
