Vijay

Bollywood is full of underdogs, on-screen or otherwise. In fact, they are quite mixed up.

The most famous of them? Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay. When Bachchan came into the Hindi film industry in the 1970s, filmdom was dominated by mighty heroes like Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra. Then came a man often called Vijay — Bachchan’s larger-than-life screen persona.

It all began with the hot-headed, devil-may-care cop Vijay Khanna in Zanjeer, Vijay no. 1. This was the film that famously earned Bachchan the epithet of The Angry Young Man — downtrodden and oppressed, most often burdened with a dark childhood, full of rage against an apathetic society. A reflection of the political and socio-economic condition of the country in the 70s, Bachchan’s characters — whether the labourer Vijay Verma who moves from underdog to underworld kingpin in Deewar, the illegitimate son shunned by society in Trishul and Lawaaris or the vengeful Vijay Dinanath Chauhan of Agneepath — were all underdogs battling odds, crying for dignity. “The Angry Young Man characters that Bachchan essayed were drawn from real-life characters that one could find in the society of the time. Characters like his spoke to the large industrial working class of the 70s and 80s, where an underdog takes up cudgels for himself and on behalf of others who are oppressed like him,” says Mainak Biswas, head of the department, film studies, Jadavpur University.

David

One of the oldest stories of the world, the David and Goliath tale from The Bible is one of courage and confidence triumphing over might and power. David, born and brought up in trying conditions in the kingdom of Israel, takes on the powerful 10-foot tall Philistine Goliath. None expects the young David to come out of the battle alive, but armed with just a sling and five stones, and the right belief, he fells his mighty opponent. Since then, whenever a small man triumphs over a mighty opponent, the names of David and Goliath pop up. “The David and Goliath saga is proof that no matter how small or unimportant you may seem to the world, it just takes will-power and self-confidence to overturn it,” says schoolteacher Jyotsna Mukherjee.

The two together provide hours of entertainment battling each other in various videogames. Who wins? David, of course!

The tortoise

The Aesop fable of a tortoise who is constantly ridiculed by a hare for being slow, but manages to defeat him in a race, gave us the adage that “slow and steady wins the race”. It also afforded us our earliest brush with the underdog. Some have a different opinion. “The idea that the inferior competitor will win as long as he doesn’t stop and the stronger competitor does, is not what the underdog story is about. An underdog shapes his own destiny, his fate is in his own hands and is not at the mercy of an error or a moment of weakness displayed by the stronger opponent,” says sociologist Prerna Anand Puri. Nadal when he first vanquished Federer?

Eklavya

Eklavya in The Mahabharata, the son of a Sudra, is unable to take battle lessons from Guru Dronacharya, in spite of being a master marksman. Years later when Dronacharya witnesses Eklavya’s skill with the bow and arrow, he demands the thumb of Eklavya’s right hand as his guru-dakshina, for that would make Arjun — and not Eklavya — the best marksman in the kingdom. Without a moment’s hesitation, a smiling Eklavya cuts off his thumb and places it at his guru’s feet.

The towering Drona, astraguru, is humbled.

New Bollywood

The Angry Young Man is no more. “Today, the story of that underdog has been drowned in the cacophony of the Karan Johar brand of cinema, although Bangla films like Tulkalam and the Fatakesto movies still talk about him,” says Biswas.

But in Bollywood, the new generation of filmmakers, including a star daughter, has gone self-referential and is making films about films and a different underdog — the struggling actor. If Farah Khan celebrated him in all his glory in Om Shanti Om, then Zoya Akhtar has taken him up again in Luck By Chance.

Underdog the origins

The term originates from the way ships were built. Planks of wood for the construction of a ship were placed over a pit on another set of planks called “dogs”. To saw the planks, a senior “sawsman” stood on top of the platform and a junior “sawsman” was assigned to go into the pit to saw from below, where he would be covered with sawdust. The man on top was called the “overdog” and the one at the bottom — our underdog!

Lagaan XI

The underdog often reveals himself through a sport, where victory can be defined easier than in real life. Aamir Khan’s rag-tag team of XI in Lagaan taught the British a thing or two about cricket. “It is Lagaan that brought the underdog story into focus in Bollywood. Iqbal (the story of a speech and hearing impaired village boy who makes it to the national cricket team) further celebrated it,” says second-year film studies student Sriparna Ray.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Victor Hugo’s novel set in the Paris of 1482 is the story of Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame, ridiculed by the world for his ugliness and crowned the Pope of Fools. He loves his beautiful childhood companion Esmeralda, but his physical deformity and humble background are great obstacles. When Esmeralda is killed under tragic circumstances, Quasimodo wreaks revenge and ultimately starves himself to death beside Esmeralda’s body. “The Hunchback is powered by the love he feels for this woman to rise above his pathetic state. The humiliation he suffers at the hands of society is vital in his metamorphosis from one who is considered a failure to someone who avenges the death of the one he loves. The hunchback dies a pathetic death, but a glorious one,” says Jyotsna Mukherjee, a schoolteacher.

Saturday Night Fever

Who can forget the down-onhis- luck Tony Manero battling all odds to graduate from waster to king of the dance floor in this 1977 superhit musical? Saturday Night Fever made a superstar out of John Travolta — in the film and in real life. And when Travolta arched his back, put up his right hand in the air and lip synced to the Bee Gees hit Stayin’ Alive, he was singing for everyone. (Only Queen singing I Want To Break Free… or Gloria Gaynor with I Will Survive is competition. )

Rocky

It is touted as “The Greatest Underdog Story of all Time”. Sylvester Stallone played Rocky Balboa, a small-time club boxer who takes on a mightier opponent at the World Heavyweight Boxing Championships. No one expects him to get past the first round and even Rocky aims to simply “go the distance” with his opponent. But the underdog surprises the world — and himself — and outclasses his rival. Inspired by the famous fight between champion Muhammad Ali and underdog Chuck Wepner, Rocky was a runaway hit bagging three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The 1976 film has since spawned five successful sequels. “The underdog theme being universal, Rocky captured the imagination of the common man. It inspired a me-too feeling and gave out a message of hope,” says The Telegraph columnist Bharathi S. Pradhan. When Rocky says he wants to last out the match because he doesn’t want to be just “another bum from the neighbourhood”, you know you are looking at a winner.

Women

Underdogs, alas, are largely male. Strong woman protagonists are still rare and very few of them are sportstars. But talking of underdogs, who better than Erin Brockovich? The real life story of a single mother who fights the world to come up trumps was made into the 2000 film starring Julia Roberts. Brockovich was spunky, courageous and under pressure. “I loved the way she made her cleavage her attitude. She used her adversities to empower herself,” says film studies student Mrinalini Chatterjee.

Then Hilary Swank blazed as the never-say-die boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby and Shah Rukh Khan’s feisty group of women hockey players went from underdogs to world champions in Chak De! India.

What Bollywood did a few years ago, the Bangla film industry achieved long back. Koni, based on Moti Nandi’s novel, the story of a less-privileged girl pursuing her dream of becoming a champion swimmer in the face of all odds, was made into the 1986 film with Soumitra Chatterjee as the coach. “Fight, Koni, fight!” he cried. And how she fought!