MUMBAI, December 4: Hindi films, in general, have shown an irregular excess of creative retardation in terms of story ideas. And this `formula plot' phenomenon has kept Bollywood detractors so busy that other instances of complete lack of originality have been spat upon a lot less than they merit.

For instance, the inane dialogues which have survived generations of film-makers. For decades we have been hearing the same blood-drinking threats from assorted thakurs and dons with the same toad faced sternness.

The plots, duller as they come armed with inane scripts, only make the films more and more predictable. But we don't seem to tire -- may be it is the comfortable shoe situation where each time we enjoy saying the lines before the actors do or may be we identify with the common place.

Women and motherhood are perhaps the greatest examples of creative blocks among script writers in Hindi movies. As far as they and the audience is concerned, only five kinds of women exist in the world -- mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, babes and belly dancers. In any event, the rest do not matter.

The mother

Usually, the mother's existence is relevant only in context to her violent sons or lewd husband. Like Nirupa Roy, Leela Chitnis and lately Reema Lagoo, she runs around the angana chasing after her nut-khut son, reassuring the audience with her fat matron face that mothers never had sex.

Or she wails out bhajans in front of a stone idol for her misled/wronged husband refusing to let go of pati parmeshwar even when kicked in the stomachs and thrown out without ceremony and money.

As a rule, she has just two sets of clothes -- one is the suhaag ka joda worn for her first scene and then the spotless white widow robe worn for the rest of the film as the husband is usually shot immediately after the consummation of marriage (like Rakhee in Ram Lakhan and Karan Arjun).

And her helplessness and sympathetic expression seldom impresses villains who invariably tie her to a tree and shoot her, much to the delight of the audience.

The main mother lines are:

"Hey bhagwan, mere suhaag ki raksha karna!

""Kya maine tujhe isi din ke liye paida kiya tha?"

"Beta tu aa gaya, maine tere liye aalu ke parathe aur gaajar ka halwa banaya hai."

"Ab main bahu ka muh dekhke hi chain ki saans loongi."

The unwed mother

Motherhood has long been one of Bollywood's favourite topics. While the immaculately innocent-looking, loving sister / daughter looks completely incapable of a deed as shameful as having an illegitimate baby, the father never loves his daughter enough not to stick a grenade in her mouth for this indiscretion.

From the rehearsed -- "Badhai ho bhaisaab!" upon her unceremonious birth, to the earth-shattering, "Yeh baraat ab wapas jayegi", upon the exposure of her sins in front of the to be father-in-law, right through to the inevitable "Tu paida hote hee mar kyo nahin gayee, kalmuhi" -- a woman's life is nostril deep in cliche.

Main woman-about-to-be-impregnated and pregnancy declaration lines:"Mujhe kuch kuch ho raha hai."

"Main aapke liyen badaam ka doodh le aati hoon."

"Huttiye jee, log kya kahenge."

"Main tumhare bachche ki maa bannewali hoon."

"Ab ham kissi ko muh dikhane layak nahin rahey."

Birth & background

Being of honourable birth is of paramount importance in Hindi films. In most flicks, at least one character is of questionable procreation and will be told somewhere down the film, "Tum kissi ki naajayaz aulaad ho!" to tuneful background music. And Amitabh Bachchan gave so much charisma to being a born-out-of- wedlock protagonist in Lawaris and Trishul, that even today you have heros falling over themselves to play sons of single unwed mothers.

A regular in this series is the ever popular, "Marne ke pehle main tumhe bata dena chahta hoon ke tumari maa ek kothe ki vaishya thi aur is saaree jameen jaydaad ki ek phooti kaudi bhi tumhe nahin milege" or a popular line just before some stuttering old man dies "Beti, marne se phele main thume yeh batana chahata hoon, ki mein thumara baap nahi hoon aur Badri thumara bandar nahi hai."

Some other regulars are:

"Badhai ho, tum baap banne wale ho" (seldom appreciated by the important parent).

"Agar toone apni maa ka doodh piya hai to..." (A regular in every Amitabh Bachchan film after Deewar).

"Waise to aapki patni ne bahut hi first class beta paida kiya tha, par paida hote hi, dono mar gaye.(Naah!)

Besides the flow of dialogues from mothers and mothers-to-be, there are standard cliches for each prototype in Hindi movies -- be it the spastic villain asking, "Bata heere kahan chhupaye hai?" or the faithful servant crying out, "Saheb humne aapka namak khaya hai." And the way the going is, you can expect that Hindi films will continue to live in a creativity freezer, offering us the same rehash of blubber that our grandmothers have been subjected to.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.