More Indian movies are now portraying lead actors as commoners rather than demi-god figures of the past.

In 1983, Bollywood director Subhash Ghai launched the career of a non-actor, Jackie Shroff, casting him in the role of a hardened criminal who undergoes a change of heart when he meets the love of his life in a cop’s daughter he kidnaps. The role of the cop’s daughter was played by an equally untried Meenakshi Seshadri. The convoluted revenge drama-cum-love story, appropriately titled Hero , went on to be a huge box office hit, pitch-forking the dashing and debonair Shroff to instant stardom.

A lot has changed since then in Bollywood. We have a new set of superstars today. Shroff is nowhere to be seen. Nor is Seshadri. Ghai is not the ‘king maker’ he used to be 25 years ago. The rules of the game are also different now. The dynamics of filmmaking, the people who call the shots, style of storytelling, techniques employed—everything has changed. In all this, one change that has escaped public scrutiny is the image of the Bollywood hero. As a permanent fixture in every film, his adapting to the times has been taken for granted.

When Hero was made, the leading man in Indian films had to still conform to what were understood as the classical attributes of maryada purushottam—the perfect male. He had to be incredibly handsome, good-looking, physically strong, virile, righteous and brave. Hindu god Rama was clearly the role model for this embodiment of raw machismo and virtue. Accordingly, films were fashioned around the epic Ramayana’s myth with heroines playing the virtuous, self-sacrificing Sita, wife of Rama.

The villain used to be cast as Ravana, demon-king of Lanka and the principal antagonist of Lord Rama, and Hanuman and Laksman appeared as the comedian and hero’s best friend respectively. The hero, of course, was Rama personified. And just as Rama vanquished Ravana, the hero had to triumph over the villain in the dying moments of the film.

This has been the broad template for all Hindi potboilers with happy endings, where good prevails over evil. From P Jairaj and Prithviraj Kapoor to Dev Anand and Dharmendra, down to latest heartthrobs Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar , all our handsome hunks have tried to live up the male ideal through the years. Somewhere along the way, they also served as vehicles for wish fulfillment, just as Rajesh Khanna represented the aspirations of the ordinary man capable of romancing some very glamourous women or say, Amitabh Bachchan taking the law in his own hands as the ‘angry young man’. It was the stuff that heroes in Hindi cinema were made of.

Today, a talented actor like Ranvir Shorey gets slapped 99 times while playing the hero of Ugly Aur Pagli. Anupam Kher, the leading man of Khosla Ka Ghosla comes across as a spineless wimp. Rajiv Khandelwal, the newest sensation in Bollywood, was an utterly confused and a vulnerable protagonist in Aamir. Another talented actor, Kunal Khemu has not been able to rise above being another face in the crowd, despite playing key roles in films like Kalyug, Dhol and Traffic Signal. Most of the others like Irrfan Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Arjun Rampal are more into boy bonding than being leading men. Even newer entrants like Imran Khan and Shreyas Talpade seem content basking in the reflected glory of co-stars.

It is only among the top-ranking stars that a certain effort at being the man-in-charge is evident. Conventional acts of heroism are still on display with the seniors. But then, even a Shah Rukh Khan has appeared in unconventional non-heroic roles like that of a ghost (Paheli) or a commoner (Swades). The other three Khans—Saif, Salman and Aamir—have shared the leads with the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Govinda, even Akshaye Khanna. It would seem as though producers are fast losing their faith in the ability of a single actor carrying a film on his shoulders by himself.

This is, however, only partly true. The hero getting marginalised can also be attributed to the changing complexion of Bollywood cinema. Fewer love stories are made now. Dancing around trees has become pass?. Nobody talks of lost and found brothers. Heroines do not need to be dunked in water. In fact, many filmmakers do not even need heroines. Effectively, what is working with audiences is believability—the ordinariness of situations with ordinary people they can relate to. A lavishly mounted spectacle like Love 2050 or Drona , with superheroes, does not guarantee box-office success any longer.

This is very much in line with the filmmaking trends in the West. (Is it any surprise that every second Indian film is inspired by a Hollywood hit?) So while the motive is to reach a wider global audience, the Bollywood hero has perforce to get off his high horse. He must remain down-to-earth, forget about the maryada purushottam ideal and show himself in shades of grey, warts and all. When Shah Rukh Khan played the disgraced hockey coach in Chak De! India, he looked far more convincing than the dead-and-reborn actor in Om Shanti Om

Amitabh Bachchan was much more endearing in Black, or say, Cheeni Kum than the larger-than-life characters he has played in Eklavya, Aag and Sarkar Raj. Likewise, the biggest hits of Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt have come after they stopped indulging in heroics and began to underplay themselves, especially with multi-starrers.

To a student of the cinema, this transition from a demi-god to aam admi (commoner) would seem a natural progression of what heroes have been inviting upon themselves since the eighties.

One good thing to emerge from all this is the demolition of the star system. Today, every actor, big or small, knows that on a level playing field nobody can pretend to be boss.