As DJ or soldier, Bobby Deol deserves a Bollywood comeback

Bobby Deol turns 50 today. It is hard to imagine the youngest of the Deols, son of the iconic Dharmendra and younger sibling of Sunny Deol, beyond the long locks and the dimpled smile and that swagger accompanied by tunes which made the '90s immortal in our collective conscious.

For an entire generation of women, Bobby Deol was it - he was the rare star who could walk onto the screen with the background score playing the odd "Gupt, gupt" or "Soldier soldier" and yet be seen as a sex icon.

Bobby Deol was, perhaps, single-handedly responsible for making long tresses not only acceptable, but also a much-coveted fashion accessory for men.

In spite of being the actor who had just three or four major hits across a decade-and-a-half before he slipped into oblivion, Bobby Deol was a bona fide star, who, for a limited time, had the rare ability to appeal to both men and women across different social strata - in both urban as well as rural India.

Today, Deol is a pale shadow of past self. His brand has taken a beating because some of the films he has done in the recent past haven't fared well.

This happens to most actors, more so when they happen to be stars. An image in Hindi films means a catch 22. Its presence or absence is as advantageous as it is harmful. But the image is one thing and the human being another.

Two things led to Bobby Deol's fall in Bollywood; unfortunately, he had no control on either.

He made some wrong choices and their failure also put an end to the kind of films that best suited him.

In the mid-2000s, when popular Hindi cinema was undergoing a transition post-Dil Chahta (2002), Bobby featured in films like Kismat (2004), Bardaasht (2004), Dosti: Friends Forever (2005) and Tango Charlie (2005). These were simply not the kind of films that the multiplex audiences lapped up.

Deol, in fact, was one of the last among the generation of actors who had one foot in the standard Hindi film formula, the masala variety, and another in the new chic Bollywood that looked local, but appeared global when it came to packaging.

It is not like other actors have not made wrong choices, but not too many of them have had the burden of a legacy to deal with like Bobby Deol.

Two of Deol’s contemporaries, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn, who have also been constant co-stars, were in a similar situation at the turn of the millennium. They, too, were the kind of actors who were, for the want of a better expression, more suited to the old Hindi cinema where the hero was larger than life and most things were beyond shades of grey.

But the perception that Deol junior was not interested in his career after a point and that his elder brother, Sunny, was vetting as well as vetoing the scripts that came his way sounded the death knell.

Worse things have happened to actors. Some get trapped into acting in B-grade films and at times find their shots from such projects inserted in pornographic films. Irrespective of how big or hard the fall, it does take a toll and Bobby found himself in a state of depression. He took to drinking and it was a while before he found the strength within to stop wallowing in self-pity.

But the biggest toll is the loss of the ability to listen to one’s instincts. It is this instinct that saw Bobby attempt to break the pattern with Shaad Ali’s Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007), a film whose failure impacted many careers.

It featured him as the second lead to yet another star son, Abhishek Bachchan, and gave him a great opportunity to try and reclaim the hall pass that comes with success. The film’s narrative intriguingly jumped between two scenarios where all the primary characters – Bachchan, Deol, Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta – had two distinctive personalities and saw Bobby come with an assured performance.

Had Jhoom Barabar Jhoom succeeded, Bobby, somewhere, would have gotten a second lease of life and could have been a part of the new order.

But what followed was a story that has been seen several times. Deol was helping Imtiaz Ali put Jab We Met (2007) together and had got him to meet a production house that eventually produced the film and even got Kareena Kapoor, the subsequent female lead of the film, to star in it.

The failure of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom apparently saw Imtiaz Ali drop Bobby for a better deal even though the filmmaker made his first film for the Deols’ home banner, Socha Na Tha (2005) - the debut of Bobby’s cousin, Abhay. In an interview to HuffPoIndia, Deol shares his anguish about the Jab We Met letdown and Highway (2014), another film that Imtiaz Ali had discussed with him.

In the recent past, the biggest news that Bobby Deol made was when he turned into a DJ. This was outdone with what happened at a much-focused public performance.

In the interview, Deol revealed how he got conned. He says someone asked him to be present at a club; when he showed up, Deol was surprised to see that he would be the DJ for the night. He was told that he really didn’t have to play, but he knew he had been swindled. It backfired and people ridiculed him.

In many ways, Bobby Deol perfectly fits Andy Warhol’s definition of an artist.

Warhol once described an artist to be somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but want to possess. Anyone who was around in the mid-1990s knows what an artist Deol junior was.

Add being an inspiration to that because even after being sidelined, derided and depressed, Bobby Deol chooses not to be bitter about it. What you get is a hero.

Also read: Bobby Deol is now a DJ: It's worse than his acting

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