The Chachis and Mausis of Popular Culture
In the early days of satellite television in India, we were exposed to the joys of a serial called Hum Paanch (which later became famous for being the launch vehicle of Vidya Balan). The serial essentially followed the adventures of a harried father and his five daughters but one of the frequent guest artistes was the middle-aged lady neighbour. She hadn’t come to terms with her middle-agedness and protested against all attempts to call her an ‘aunty’. “Aunty mat kaho na” was her shrill signature line and it became hugely popular ( I am talking about ‘popularity’ before Facebook and Twitter started taking things ‘viral’).
In our popular culture, aunties are either shrewish, and therefore, subjects of ridicule, or comical, and therefore — sigh, yes — subjects of ridicule. Aunties are never serious and almost never with clearly defined characteristics. For example, India’s most famous uncle, Chacha Chaudhary, had a wife who was seldom part of the Chacha’s adventures. Her role seemed to be restricted to cooking gigantic portions of food for Sabu, and being the propeller behind the occasional gags about Chacha being a harried-married man.
Bonus Maushi: Jackie Shroff did a TV spot for a polio vaccination drive in 1998 and its behind-the-scenes video surfaced a couple of years back where he was seen muffing up lines and referring to various anatomical parts of aunts, sisters and mothers. What the social media really loved was the maushi chi **** and one could credit Jackie-dada for bringing this Marathi aunty into national parlance.
The most common chachi in Bollywood was the one in the family socials that were hugely popular till the 1980s. In these joint family dramas, the fulcrum was a long-suffering elder brother and bhabhi who sacrificed their own happiness to bring up the younger sons of the family. The second brother was typically the academically brilliant wimp who married rich and abandoned the family, thanks to the machinations of his evil wife. The youngest brother (played by a box-office draw like Mithun or Govinda) did the cool fighting-dancing things and had a real heroine, one who just dressed well and danced, not required to hold together or tear apart the family. The elder brother’s children had two aunties to choose from — one evil and one absent — to take his snotty nose to be wiped, though this chachi relationship was never the focus of this genre of films.The most glamourous chachi in this genre (or not) could well be Kimi Katkar of Hum, who was chachi to Rajinikanth’s daughter but hardly got to meet her in the film.
However, the chachi did become the focus of a family social — the biggest one ever.
In Sooraj Barjatya’s mega-family blockbuster Hum Saath Saath Hain, the family, critics have said, was bigger than many mid-sized companies. Not only did Alok Nath and Reema Lagoo’s sons crowd the screen, even their married daughter, Neelam, dropped in for every family event. With her husband in tow. And also her husband’s brother’s children, for good measure. One second — All the time? Well yes, apparently these kids were totally devoted to their chachi. Till her husband’s brother gypped the husband of the family property and threw them out of the house.
This crisis meant Neelam’s good-natured husband was shepherded by Neelam’s good-natured brothers till they found him a job. But eventually, it was the chachi relationship which resolved this crisis. The husband’s brother realised his kids were refusing to behave till their beloved chachi came back. So the guy figured it was better to part with half the property than to raise these snotty kids without Babysitter Chachi Neelam.
Talking about chachis, we need to go to the definitive uncle-nephew film, Chacha Bhatija, where Dharmendra and Randhir Kapoor played the title roles and Hema Malini, as always, was Dharmendra’s love interest, thus becoming Randhir’s chachi — making her part of that long list of heroines who played senior roles older to heroes who were older in real life.
Apart from this slew of chachis who weren’t really the centres of attention, we had one famous aunt, who was immortalised in a title role, Chachi 420, and was, ironically, played by a chacha!
Arguably Indian cinema’s most versatile actor, Kamal Haasan, reprised Robin Williams’ role from Mrs Doubtfire and became Lakshmi Godbole, a Chitpavan Brahmin who could simultaneously manage kids and send oldies’ hearts aflutter. Kamal wooed Tabu, who plays his wife, intentionally, and Amrish Puri, his father-in-law, unintentionally, with consummate ease. The transformation to chachi-ness was brought around by Johnny Walker (playing a drunk makeup artist) in the film and by Hollywood technicians in reality. It does say a lot about the lot of the chachis in Bollywood where only chachas were involved in creating the most famous chachi.
Unquestionably, the most famous aunty of Bollywood is the nameless icon — Basanti’s mausi in Sholay.
Leela Mishra sunk her teeth into the role that seemed written for her as she played the exasperated guardian of the talkative village belle with aplomb. Each scene she did was suffused with a mix of her trademark irritation and incredulity, a performance whose memorability extended far beyond the length of the role. She was cute (“Hai Raam”). She was bossy (“Din bhar hawa hawai ghumti ho…”). She was concerned (“Ghar mein jawaan beti seene par patthar ki seel ki tarah hoti hai.”) She was angry (“Kachche aam laane ko nahin kaha tha?”). She was sarcastic (“Toh yeh bhi batate jao ki tumhare yeh gunvaan dost kis khandaan ke hain?”). She was scared (“Main toh kabhi court kachehri nahin gayi.”) And she was the poster girl of the rigorous imprisonment (“In jail, budhiya chakki peesing and peesing and peesing…”)
While the nameless Bollywood aunties were rather serious, the most famous ones were on the anti-serious side of the fence providing comic relief decades after they actually appeared on screen. May their tribe increase!
Bonus Aunty: Sholay’s gigantic cast meant there were two more aunts hidden in the woodworks. Thakur Baldev Singh had a daughter Nirmala who was a bua to her elder brother’s son (played by Master Alankar). The family’s younger daughter-in-law (Jaya Bhaduri) was, of course, the boy’s chachi though Gabbar Singh cut short both relationships with a massacre. But not before Nirmala was requested to bring out her nephew’s clothes.
Diptakriti Chaudhuri’s latest book, Bollybook: The Big Book of Hindi Film Trivia is now in stores.