Being Salman Bhai: The superstar completes 30 years in Bollywood, or three decades of being Bhai
Bhai doesn’t need to come of age. Bhai is ageless.
This year’s Forbes’ list of the 10 highest paid actors in the world has two Indian names — Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. Co-incidentally, the list was released on August 22, the day the Big Bhai of Bollywood completed 30 years in the movie industry.
On August 22, 1988 was released Biwi Ho To Aisi, in which the second lead was played by a certain Salman Khan.
The year after would see the release of Maine Pyar Kiya, and Bollywood would discover its prem for a brawny child-like boy with shy brown eyes.
Three decades later, Khan has done more than a hundred movies, essayed various roles, but has managed a feat none of his contemporaries have — playing himself, over and over again, to ever-increasing applause.
Khan’s characters essentially have two ingredients — mush and muscle, the sanskari lover and the macho fighter — mixed in different quantities. And this combination has stood him well not just in movies, but in his own life too — his real and reel-life personas overlapping to the extent that to his fans, Salman Khan, the person, is almost indistinguishable from the characters he plays.
Bhai dil mein aate hain, samajh mein nahin.
In the 30 years that Salman has spent in the industry, Indian society has changed in transformative ways — but Bhai’s charm is timeless, because it has been built on traits the Indian middle class is unwilling to, or unable to, give up — the appeal of a golden heart beneath a hot head, of a man who lives with his (large) family, who can beat bad guys to pulp but is scared of his father [meri unke saamne phat jaati hai (I am terrified of him), he had once said], is uncomfortable in dealing with women, does not kiss on-screen, is known to be a generous friend and brother, and has so many beautiful women chasing him, he can't help but surrender in unhappy affairs.
Bhai is Everyman, with a gilded, golden edge. Bhai has the flaws and the insecurities that ordinary mortals have, but Bhai is still undeniably a hero. And the everymen love and celebrate him as such, across multiplexes and single-screen theatres.
However, if Salman’s popularity was built on virtues we love, it has been sustained by the vices we are willing to forgive.
Bhai has stool trial for allegedly running over and killing homeless people while driving drunk, and for shooting dead protected animals. He has been accused of violent and abusive behaviour by none other than Aishwarya Rai, among the most visible and audible women in the world. But the response of his fans has been staunch — to err is Being Human.
While all his contemporaries — Aamir Khan to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn to Akshay Kumar — have made and remade their images various times, Salman has been content to sell nothing but his own screen presence.
If you think of the Salman Khan movies you have enjoyed, chances are you won’t remember the story or the character as much as a signature step, a dialogue, a flick of his eyebrows, a thrust of his abs, and of course, the rippling muscles seen shirtless. Prem, Radhe, Chulbul Pandey, Tiger et al have all been reflections of the sheer star power that is Salman Khan.
Of course, his popularity is problematic.
For years, a section of the Indian audience has idolised a man who occasionally “makes mistakes” that also happen to be cognisable crimes. That his claims of “still being a virgin” and the string of allegations about abusive behaviour towards his girlfriends add to his charm speaks of a society yet to grow up about sex and seeing people.
Salman’s popularity was perhaps best explained by the star himself in an interview to India Today: “I believe the entertainment industry is for children or for the child in everyone. Somebody wants to grow up like you, somebody wants to be you, somebody wants to remember their youth by you.”
And this is why Bhai, and Bhai ka fandom, will never grow up.
Bhai does not need to come of age. Bhai is ageless.