Irrfan Khan's Son Babil On Bollywood: 'My Father Gave His Life Trying To Elevate The Art Of Acting, Was Defeated By Hunks'

Bollywood, for a long time, had stuck to entertaining the audiences with cheap thrills. There would be item songs, masala, and other crowd pulling tactics, but the content would take a backseat. In the last few years, the scenario in the Hindi film industry has been changing. Many actors have been blurring the lines between indie and commercial films with not just the performance but also their choice of scripts. Irrfan Khan had been one such actor. Not just did he gift the Hindi film industry some gem of films, but also made India proud in the West. Now, his son, Babil, has taken to his social media to talk about how his father had always tried to elevate the art of acting, but used to be defeated at the box-office by 'hunks with six pack abs delivering theatrical one-liners and defying the laws of physics and reality, photoshopped item songs, just blatant sexism and same-old conventional representations of patriarchy'.

In his post, he shared some good old pictures of Irrfan and revealed how he had warned him about the position of Bollywood in World cinema before he left for his film studies course. He also talked about how a change has come. He wrote, "You know one of the most important things my father taught me as a student of cinema? Before I went to film school, he warned me that I’ll have to prove my self as Bollywood is seldom respected in world cinema and at these moments I must inform about the Indian cinema that’s beyond our controlled Bollywood. Unfortunately, it did happen. Bollywood was not respected, no awareness of 60’s - 90’s Indian cinema or credibility of opinion. There was literally one single lecture in the world cinema segment about Indian cinema called ‘Bollywood and Beyond’, that too gone through in a class full of chuckles. it was tough to even get a sensible conversation about the real Indian cinema of Satyajit Ray and K.Asif going. You know why that is? Because we, as the Indian audience, refused to evolve. My father gave his life trying to elevate the art of acting in the adverse conditions of noughties Bollywood and alas, for almost all of his journey, was defeated in the box office by hunks with six pack abs delivering theatrical one-liners and defying the laws of physics and reality, photoshopped item songs, just blatant sexism and same-old conventional representations of patriarchy (and you must understand, to be defeated at the box office means that majority of the investment in Bollywood would be going to the winners, engulfing us in a vicious circle). Because we as an audience wanted that, we enjoyed it, all we sought was entertainment and safety of thought, so afraid to have our delicate illusion of reality shattered, so unaccepting of any shift in perception. All effort to explore the potential of cinema and its implications on humanity and existentialism was at best kept by the sidelines. Now there is a change, a new fragrance in the wind. A new youth, searching for a new meaning. We must stand our ground, not let this thirst for a deeper meaning be repressed again. A strange feeling beset when Kalki was trolled for looking like a boy when she cut her hair short, that is pure abolishment of potential.

(Although I resent that Sushant’s demise has now become a fluster of political debates, but if a positive change is manifesting, in the way of the Taoist, we embrace it.)" See his post here:

His words are true indeed, isn't it?