Taariq in Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin!!!

This is my second effort at Mad-About-Moviez as an author, and I must thank all concerned, especially Sethu, to bring out a new revolution. I feel like a child again, that too, who has just been left on his own in a candy-store…
This topic of Flopiya Stars had started long time back during one of our discussions on another platform in another world, but somehow the concept just remained germinated, never materialising. Anyway, on this platform, I have decided to give words to something that started as a joke but kept me hooked and interested to write about.

OK, first things first. This article talks at length about certain actors (of both sexes; being politically correct here) who managed to become a part of our entertainment not because of their acting skills and histrionics, but mostly due to their shock-value in deceiving us moviegoers with their special skill of being the perpetrators to many flop movies of Hindi film industry. And most of these actors have been a sibling / relative of a more famous / successful film personality.

Not that all the movies they acted in were flops; far from it, some of them were commercially very successful. But that was more due to the big banner and the support extended by their backers. However, these actors were exposed the moment they were flung outside their comfort areas, and were required to duplicate their initial success on their own merit. This article will have a closer look at those who floated for a brief period on such otherwise decent movies and showed us some ultimate painful acting histrionics. The names are not in any specific order of ‘merit’, and the choices are entirely personal, no offence meant.

Every decade has thrown us some FLOPIYA actors, and it kept increasing with the commercialisation of the film-industry. So, our list starts with 70’s , and the first name that comes to mind is that of Parikshit Sahni (son of one of the best actors of Indian Cinema – Balraj Sahni). He acted in several movies, and then faded into oblivion, and later on, surfaced in blink-and-you-miss roles in petty movies. He was initially given chances in the expectation of the legacy that he was carrying with his surname, but once he was exposed of his acting abilities, he was left out in the cold.

When Taariq, some relative of Aamir Khan, appeared in Hum Kisise Kum Nahin & Yaadon Ki Baraat, both awesome movies, though he sailed on their success and people tolerated him, the fact is, he was a weak, can’t-act-for-nuts actor. One look at Taariq holding the guitar, and pretending to be playing it as well, in that cult song-competition scene with Rishi Kapoor in HKKN will make you squirm in your seat. He was never to be seen in any other mainstream cinema, far less as a leading hero, and in due course, set out an example of being one of the foremost FLOPIYA actors of our generation.

80’s saw a slew of actors trying to make a foothold for themselves, getting lucky in some, hitting it big time in certain cases (and in the process, raising our initial expectations), and then proving us wrong the very next moment. They were, what we affectionately call, One-Film-Wonders. Kumar Gaurav is the leader of such pack, who took the nation by storm with his Love Story, and showed some potential in Naam as well, and much later, in Kaante, but not much beyond that.

Suniel Anand (Dev Anand’s son) was launched amid much fanfare in Anand Aur Anand by his illustrious father, the movie tanked very badly at the BO, and that was the end of a DEV D. (D for Dream). Similar was the fate of Rohan Kapoor (son of singer Mahendra Kapoor), who was launched with Govinda in Love 86. The movie did quite well, but the actor was not to be seen again in a leading role ever after.

‘Tarzan’ Hemant Birje was launched as the next he-man, but the movie itself was a B-grade production, and the hero ended up playing some forgettable roles in Ramsay-brothers horror flicks of that era and then was lost into oblivion. Similarly, Rajeev Kapoor and Mandakini were launched by none other than the showman Raj Kapoor in the magnum opus Ram Teri Ganga Maili. The movie went on to become a cult hit for more reasons than one, but the fate of the two lead actors never justified that initial euphoria.

The 80’s saw many more such names which just flattered to deceive, and in some cases, didn’t flatter at all… Kimi Katkar, Chunkey Pandey, Mohnish Behl, Salma Agha, Sangeeta Bijlani, Anita Raaj, Kunal Goswami are some of the names that immediately come to mind whenever we think of that period, where Indian film industry was heading towards its nadir as far as the creativity was concerned. It was the time of KC Bokadia and TLV Prasad, where the movies were as quickly forgotten as they would hit the screens with assembly-line-production accuracy and monotony.

If 80’s was bad, 90’s and early 2000’s was the worst phase of the century, what with actors like the ones mentioned above got a chance to impress us with their style of acting. Take a sample…
Sanjay Kapoor,
Kamal Sadanah,
Atul Agnihotri,
Zayed Khan,
Dino Morea,
Sunil Shetty (I have reservations on this one, but then, his recent flicks have been a torture, to say the least, an so he deserves a mention here),
Amrita Arora,
Rahul Dev,
Ashish Choudhary,
Rahul Roy,
Fardeen Khan,
Celina Jaitley,
Riya Sen,
Aftab Shivdasani,
Gracy Singh,
Bobby Deol,
Karan Nath,
Sohail Khan,
Arbaaz Khan,
Diana Hayden,
Yukhta Mookhey,
Faizal Khan,
Sumeet Saigal,
Taariq Shah,
Moon Moon Sen,
Rupa Ganguly,
Pooja Bedi,
Dia Mirza,
Amisha Patel,
Mamta Kulkarni,
Apurva Agnihotri,
Avinash Wadhwan,
Ritu Shivpuri,
Anjali Jathar,
Somy Ali,
Sonica Gill,
Zeba Bakhtiyar,
Pritivi,
Ronit Roy,
Krishna (Govinda’a nephew),
Ravi Behl,
Jugal Hansraj,
Uday Chopra,
Sheeba,
Varsha Usgaonkar,
Shika Swarup,
Siddharth (Vansh-fame),
Sudesh Berry,
Sanober Kabir,
Nisha Kothari,
Antara Mali,
Monica Bedi

Then there were certain wannabe stars, who were a name to reckon with in a different field, but who were bitten by the acting bug. I think this write-up would not be complete without their names:
Sandep Patil (Kabhi Ajnabi Thhey)
Syed Kirmani (Kabhi Ajnabi Thhey)
Mohsin Khan (Batwara, Saathi, Fateh, Pratikaar)
Vinod Kambli (Anarth)
Ajay Jadeja (Khel)

The list is endless, and fascinating for some of the names contained, which showed a tremendous potential, but could not sustain. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, and others are welcome to contribute. Comments, as always, give rise to more creative discussion, so bring them on…

satyendrajha

More Posts