ABSTRACT
The song sequence – Chale Chalo – from the 2001 hit film Lagaan begins with a group of muscular male comrades silhouetted against the sky and then resolutely marching forward. After an initial musical introduction, the lyrics to the song begin when actor Aamir Khan’s muscular bare back, slick with sweat is framed in the film. The entire sequence celebrates athletic prowess and strength, while the words emphasize that “we” will win, while “they” will lose. Indeed, the words also highlight that the men have chosen the path of courage and resistance against social injustice. Amir Khan’s powerful and vigorous body expresses a message of steadfast resolution. In contrast, the song Yeh Jo Mohabat Hein sung by Rajesh Khanna in the 1971 hit, Kati Patang (director, Shakti Samanta) showcases a drunk, stumbling, slightly plump, not muscular hero singing about unrequited love. As Karen Gabriel (2010, p. xi) argues, Rajesh Khanna was the “charming, tragic, heroic idol of a fading upper middle class still haunted by its feudal past,” and indeed, “[h]e rewrote the rules of stardom by mobilising the entire cinematic apparatus to manufacture and sustain his stardom and his filmic image of vulnerable hero, in the tradition of the genteel feudal romance” (Gabriel, 2010, p. 182).
