WOMEN ON TOP
You don’t have to google the fact that Hindi films have always been male centric. Heroines, till very recently, were considered interchangeable. The leading man was the king of all he surveyed. He was the ‘sun’, who made sure everything revolved around him. Especially, the film’s story. Mothers made his favourite gajar ka halwa even when carrots weren’t in season, sisters wept with joy when they tied a rakhi on him, the wife was a charnon ki dasi of sorts, ready for any kind of sacrifice. Bullets missed him by miles, he survived every kind of disaster. And if, God forbid, he died, it was for a heroic cause. And he always cared more for his best friend than for his beloved.
That kind of onscreen power sometimes went to a male star’s head. From turning up at evening for a morning shoot, to cutting a co-star’s lines, recommending his favourite heroine… we have heard of many such horror stories. Pay parity too was a sore point, what with the heroines getting
