For 10 years, the nation has been fed on a regular diet of Madhuri starrers-and try as everybody might, it's not going to be easy to break the habit. In the last decade she has had a hit for almost every year: 1988:Tezaab, 1989:Ram Lakhan, 1990:Dil, 1991:Saajan, 1992:Beta, 1993:Khalnayak, 1994:Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!, 1995:Raja, 1997:Dil To Pagal Hai.
If you're sharp, you'll have noticed that she had no hit in 1996. If the Queen of England found the year where Diana squealed the Press about her crumbling marriage to be her "annus horriblus", 1995 was the "horrible year" for the erst-while Queen of Bollywood, Madhuri. The turning point, I guess, was Prem Granth which was her biggest catastrophe in a period that offered multiple choices (Raajkumar, Yaarana). Madhuri's stock plummeted dizzily while newer girls like Manisha and Karisma shot way up trailing a blaze of hits. Worse, Madhuri's dry spell extended into early '97 with furthur dissapointments like Koyla and Mohabbat.
It wasn't particularly Madhuri's fault, they said. It was an inevitable, irrevocable law of the youth-worshipping industry that after a heroine hovers around 30, she hits the skids. Moreover, the plumpre Madhuri grew, the slimmer her dances got. At this stage, Madhuri herself seemed to be pragmatic enough to recognise the sign of the times. She gave quotes like "Marriage seems to be the best alternative" and admitted to being open to the idea of settling down to marital domesticity.
But just when it seemed that she was about to be put to pasture, Madhuri proved that once a star has connected with the public, it's always possible to renew the links. Madhuri's Mrityudand may not have made big box office bucks but it won her a certain cachet of respectability and when the universally successful Dil To Pagal Hai followed on its heels, it marked Madhuri's total reemergence from the shadows. In two shakes of a goat's tail Madhuri was back in-demand as ehr career wagged to life once again.
She swept all the major awards for the year, including winning the MOVIE Opinion Poll category for The Best Female Performance (Mrityudand).
But where, the question goes abegging, does Madhuri go from here?
An industry maven remarks cynically, "Madhuri's current perceived success is actually a state of delayed failure." Shaking his head, he opines, "Sure, she still looks young and beautiful. Sure, she is probably the best actress we have today but for how long can she continue? However much she may try to conceal it by wearing pig tails and prancing with Akshaye Khanna, you can't override the age factor. There's little interest value in seeing Madhuri do typical heroine roles which she's already done so many of, so filmmakers seek novelty in other, younger heroines."
Almost as if to endorse what the industry maven says, Sooaj Barajatya's next film after his Madhuri blockbuster Hum Apke Hai Koun doesn't star Madhuri. It sounds like a throwback to the multi-starrer era, it has Karisma, Tabu and Sonali Bendre in the leads. Considering the multiple cast, perhaps it's not such a loss to Madhuri but it must pinch when even Godfather Subhash Ghai opts for the younger Aishwarya Rai for his next, Taal, in a role that Aishwarya herself says "could have been done very well by Madhuri." Even Indra Kumar who has made three hits with Madhuri (Dil, Beta, Raja) has apparently approached Ash for his next film with Amir. (But now Manisha is in the movie.)
What is inescapable is the fact that largely chauvinistic filmmakers are going to opt for younger breeds like Karisma and Aishwarya, never midn if it reflects a catalogue of biases.
As Chimpu Kapoor, her Prem Granth director analyses, "She's an actress ofv very high calibre but after a certain age ou should do roles that suit your character like Dilip Kumar, Shabana Azmi, and Rekha have successfully managed. So Madhuri must choose more mature roles today. Now she can't do roles that Karisma Kapoor does."
So the need of the hour today is a new Madhuri, one who can rise above this situation. We have already seen the genesis of a new Madhuri in ehr recent statements to the press from public podiums. The Madhuri of the old used to shroud her thoughts in silky layers of euphemism, but now she shoots straight from her lipsticked lip. Recently, when she went on stage to collect her award as Best Actress, she bitterly thrust the award into the cameras and smiled sarcastically: "This is for all the critics who had written me off."
What is needed is this new Madhuri who can push the aggressive stand even further, who can harness her anger and her hurt and use it to push the envelpe for the cause of women in films in general and for her own career in particular.
She is the only one who has the power to do so. The younger bimbettes simply do not have the mental make-up nor experience to do so. After DTPH, surely Madhuri has the power to get projects started-projects that will push her onto the next plane as an actress. If Hollywood heroines like Jodie Foster, Demi Moore, Sally Field can launch their own products in companies, why can't a Madhuri exhibit the gumption to do the same?
Especially because she has to race the clock. The next two-three years are going to be crucial to her and she will have to do her career's best work in them. As she had herself conceded to MOVIE, "Just when an actress has finally honed her skills to their optimum capacity, the film industry starts feeling you're too old for most roles." Even teh very Subhash Ghai who spotted the latent spark in the skinny, second-runger Madhuri of the B-films of the mid-'80s and who launched her to stardom today concedes, "I giver her time tillt he year 2000."
Luckily for Madhuri the year 1998 will, in all probability be a good year at the box office. Come up next, she has Boney Kapoor produced, Rajkumar Santoshi directed Pukaar opposite Anil. And while Rajkumar Santoshi's five film old career-Ghayal, Damini, Andaaz Apna Apna, Barsaat and Ghatak-may not have constituted only of blockbusters, no film has gone totally off the mark. Madhuri is also teaming up with Tezaab director, N Chandra, after 10 years for Wajood, a film which hero Nana Patekar ventures bold to predict "will run for a year in a theater in Mumai." Also on the floors is Bokadia's film with Shah Rukh, Arzoo with Akshay and Saif and the mega-budgeted multilingual Engineer (strangely the only film Madhuri has signed in the six months post DTPH).
Madhuri will have to use the resultant box office clout effectively. After all, as Shah Rukh siad, "She is in most probability going to be a legend." But for that accolade to ring true, a lot will hinge on the films she does now-and the attitude she opts now.
Remember it's a Pakeezah, Mother India or Mughal-e-Azam that made Meena KUmari, Nargis, and Mudhubala into legends. Madhuri is still waiting for such roles.
Perhaps what is needed is an attitude akin to Shabana Azmi's, who had no qualms about calling up directors of note expressing a desire to work with them. It's not through sitting on her hands that Shabana had cornered the market for author backed heroine-centered roels in the '80s. Surely it can't do any harm for the new Madhuri to drop her "If I'm good, offers will come my way" stance and behave like a '90s arrivist whose mantra is network, network, network. Madhuri should get on the phone right now to filmmakers like Shekhar Kapur, Mahesh Bhatt (strangely they've never worked togther), JP Dutta, and perhaps even oddball choices like Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair.
And while it would be definite boost to sign a purely commercial film with a Yash Chopra or an Indra Kumar (who besides the Amir film also rumouredly launching one with Anil), now's the time for Madhuri to venture into experimental cinema. Yes, fimmaking is a business but acting is an art. Yes, it is important that an actress remains saleable but it is through tapping her talent(which is at full surge now) that Madhuri has her best chance for remaining relevant into the next millenium.
After all she is an Indian original-Husin painted her, Govinda spoke of meeting her raaste mein in a song while Kundan Shah named an entire TV serial after her-she has become part of our culture. Adn unlike a Sridevi who opted for marriage, Madhuri has no attractions that can prove to be distractions. She's still totally 'into' her career, wear insiders. She still has her killer instict intact.
Madhuri can pust up the glass ceiling for women in Hindi cinema (right now it's hanging inches above the floor). she has it in her.
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