Devapriya Sanyal’s Salman Khan The Man The Actor The Legend review: Decoding Salman Khan

A latest bout of sickness and feeling all spherical wretched had me turning to my favorite consolation meals — Hindi films (I refuse to name them Bollywood films) from the Nineties. That I used to be concurrently studying Devapriya Sanyal’s Salman Khan The Man The Actor The Legend, a deconstruction of bhai’s celeb, proved an ample highway map to my movie decisions…

Quite than begin with Salman Khan’s large, fats blockbuster, Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989), I selected Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), additionally directed by Sooraj Barjatya (who had made his directorial debut with Maine Pyaar Kiya). The movie, which cemented Khan as a bonafide star, really gave his co-star, Madhuri Dixit, larger billing, a truth which Sanyal’s guide mentions.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! in contrast to that different game-changer of the ‘90s, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), has not aged effectively, Dixit’s phulkari-inspired jacket however. The movie performs out like a loosely strung collectively sequence of incidents, songs and comedian interludes. How is a canine taking part in an umpire at a cricket match alleged to be humorous is a kind of unsolved mysteries. And whereas we’re on the subject, hope Tuffy, the canine, was handled proper on set.

Defence of toxicity

Sanyal’s guide largely steers away from all of the scandals and controversies that adopted Khan like trustworthy shadows. Whereas there’s point out of the 2002 hit-and-run case, his tumultuous relationship with Aishwarya Rai and its fallout, and the blackbuck looking and Arms Act violations circumstances, the guide focuses on decoding Khan and India’s notion of stardom and celeb via his profession.

What little we glimpse of Khan is thru his good pal Kailash Surendranath’s reminiscences. Surendranath, who knew Khan from his days as an keen 15-year-old getting his first break in modelling for Campa Cola (keep in mind?) to his decade-spanning superstardom, remembers Khan dropping by for late evening paratha-bhurji (scrambled eggs) and his motto for engaged on his physique — “When you don’t have any work, work on your self.”

An introduction units out what Sanyal intends to do via the guide in nice element. The shortest chapter is the one known as ‘With Human Failings’, which lists Khan’s headline-grabbing misbehaviour. His public brawls and brushes with the regulation are defined away as the price of celeb, which doesn’t lower a lot ice as one can’t sweep dangerous and outright felony behaviour below the carpet of “boys will probably be boys”. The guide is at its weakest when attempting to defend Khan’s toxicity.

An interesting journey

However, Sanyal’s guide is its most partaking when deconstructing Khan via his roles particularly within the chapter, ‘The Journey from Prem to Chulbul Pandey’. The chapter introduces the idea of the Emploi, “a theoretical framework as developed by Erving Goffman in his guide, Body Evaluation.” The emploi, Sanyal posits “is a class that accounts for the shut interplay between efficiency and reception.”

Simply as Amitabh Bachchan’s indignant younger man was invariably known as Vijay (is his Jai in Sholay a diminutive for Vijay?) and Shah Rukh Khan’s many variations of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’s Raj went in direction of constructing an on-screen persona, so too does Salman’s Prem emploi create a movie model of Salman Khan.

Sanyal traces Khan’s improvement via his 15 completely different portrayals of Prem. From the slender, doe-eyed Prem of Maine Pyar Kiya, the naughty ‘devar’ Prem in Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, the Prem who units issues proper in Hum Saath-Saath Hain (1999) and the marginally dim-witted Prem of Andaz Apna Apna (1994), who however will get the woman to the tongue-in-cheek narrator Prem of Prepared (2011), the cheating-on-his spouse Prem of No Entry (2005), the relationship guru Prem of Accomplice (2007) and the travelling theatre artiste Prem of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), in his fourth collaboration with Barjatya.

Because the chapter particulars Khan’s journey from Prem to Chulbul Pandey, there’s an evaluation of the characters he performed who will not be named Prem, together with Akash in that barely cringy however melodious triangle Saajan (1991), Sameer in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s exotically vibrant Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), the obsessed lover, Radhe Mohan in Tere Naam (2003), the tapori Radhe in Wished (2009), Satan in Kick (2014), Bajrangi in Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) and Tiger in Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), Laxman in Tubelight (2017) Sultan in and as Sultan (2021), and naturally the corrupt however loveable cop Chulbul Pandey within the Dabangg films.

Sanyal, who teaches English literature on the College of Delhi, has written a thesis on the anatomy of fame with tutorial rigour— proper right down to how Khan’s excellent physique additionally contributes to his iconography. Want the guide was higher proofed as there are foolish errors that grate approaching the again of such a well-researched guide.

All on the lookout for salacious particulars of Khan’s life will probably be disenchanted whereas these looking for the magic within the bottle of stardom won’t. And I’m going again to watching Khan combat off the evil Crime Grasp Gogo within the pleasant Andaz Apna Apna.

Salman Khan The Man The Actor The Legend; Devapriya Sanyal, Bloomsbury, ₹699.

mini.chhibber@thehindu.co.in