Mumbai, June 3 :    Mumbai, June 3:  He is a don with an inferiority complex. He is madly in love, too. Bollywood is taking a break from the hard-nosed, no-nonsense bhais who have taken over Hindi films of late. In the David Dhawan-directed Hum Kisise Kum Nahin, released last week, starring Amitabh Bachhan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai, Sanjay is a don who has got nothing to declare but his love for Aishwarya. Though he wears enough gold to pay off the country's national debts, his chances are slim because Aishwarya is in love with Ajay. In the recent Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, Johny Lever plays Aslambhai. He is properly set up with his 'Dubai ka chashma, Chin ki chaddhi aur Irani chai'. But the bhai turning funny may have more to it than only a director's whim. 'It may be because at the moment the threats from the underworld are fewer. Perhaps that's why films can take a look at the funny side of the underworld dons,' says Anurag Kashyap, who co-scripted Satya, a film that went on to establish the bhai firmly in the Bollywood pantheon. 'These are easier times,' he adds. Afzal Khan, producer of Hum Kisise Kum Nahin, denies that his film has anything to do with the underworld. 'It is a comedy,' he says as the last word, also denying that the film is an adaptation of the Hollywood hit Analyse This. But Kashyap says that the advent of the bhai and the many faces that he is acquiring, is a sign of the times. 'People draw inspiration from real life. That is why the bhai came to replace the older kind of villain,' says Taran Adarsh, a film trade analyst. 'The genre of serious underworld movies started when the underworld became more visible during the eighties and the nineties. Then people started to form an idea of what the bhais really looked like,' says Kashyap. 'Their arrival in films marked the transition from fairytale to reality. The genre flourished particularly after the bomb blasts here. But the first landmark film was Parinda (1989) by Vidhu Vinod Chopra,' he says. In Parinda, Nana Patekar played Anna, a psychotic bhai tormented by his past, but still ruthless. Then came Satya, Vaastav and now Company. In the new genre, an effort was made to show the bhais as 'real' human beings. They bore passing resemblance to Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel or Abu Salem, and did not look like poor imitations of James Bond villains, like the older villains did. The new dons were also shown to have families - something the older villains like the roles played by Ajit seemed not to have even heard of. The word 'bhai' also came into Bollywood repertoire. Previously they were referred to as 'don', as the Amitabh-starer of that name proves. But the audience may have had too much of grimness, too much blood and too much 'reality' as permitted within the underworld genre. So despite what the bhais continue to do in real life, on screen they are ready to develop a funny bone.