Tighten your seatbelts for a nostalgia trip.
Ah the 70s! The decade your grandparents rave about and the era your mom and dad claim to be the pinnacle of the Hindi Film Industry. And honestly, why shouldn’t they? While Amitabh Bachchan was delivering spine chilling lines like, “Jab tak baithne ko na kaha jaaye, sharafat se khade raho…yeh police station hai…tumhare baap ka ghar nahi” and earning the moniker of Bollywood’s very own ‘Angry Young Man‘, Rishi Kapoor was out there charming his way into hearts, old and young alike, with his incandescent smile and the compassionate roles he played, very soon becoming THE ‘Chocolate Boy‘. And with this sparkling gem of the illustrious Kapoor family, came the ‘Chocolate Boy’ revolution of Bollywood.
What started out as an experiment in the 50s and the 60s by letting Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna bust a move out here and there or occasionally shed the cloak of rigid masculinity; snowballed into a full fledged trope with the debut of Rishi Kapoor as Raja in Bobby (1973) . Once this flame was lit, it was all anyone could talk about, and soon enough, the romance scene of Bollywood had officially shifted from the ‘knights in shining armor’ to the ‘chocolate boys’.
The 80s brought with it a new wave of fresh faces in Bollywood, starting with a starry eyed Aamir Khan harmonizing to ‘Papa kehte hain‘ in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) that set hearts aflutter nationwide to a dashing Salman Khan starring in Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) which went on to become one of the highest grossing movies of that time. However, the real impetus to this trope came in the 90s in the form of a young boy from Delhi, eager to prove himself and who would later go on to become not only the ‘Baadshah‘ of Bollywood, but also of the hearts of millions of people across the globe – the one and only, Shah Rukh Khan.
Although Shah Rukh Khan started his career by acting in villainous roles, his role as Raj in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) kick started his reputation as the ‘King of Romance‘ in Bollywood, and today, more than 25 years later, the movie continues to enjoy its cult status as one of the greatest romantic movies ever made. The next few years saw King Khan deliver banger after banger, right from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) (“Kuch kuch hota hai Anjali, tum nehi samjhogi” *sobs in a corner*) to Om Shanti Om (“Itni shiddat se maine tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai…ki har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai” *seriously, someone hand me the tissues*) and slowly, the definition of Bollywood heartthrob changed from a violent action hero to the sentimental and tender hearted boy-next-door.
However, Shah Rukh was not the only one making the nation fall in love with him. With the 2000s came Shahid Kapoor’s Aditya Kashyap in Jab We Met (2007) Hrithik Roshan’s Raj Chopra in Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai (2000) and Vivek Oberoi’s Aditya in Saathiya (2002) to name a few, and their characters played an equally essential hand in propagating the concept of ’emotive male leads’ and making that the norm. While Aamir, Saif, Shahid and the other male actors of that time were doing a pretty remarkable job of keeping up the heritage of ‘chocolate boy’ in the romance industry; the true successors of this genre – this legacy of melting hearts at the very first instance that SRK had started – came in the years 2007 and 2008 in the form of two debutantes, namely, Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan.
Like his father Rishi Kapoor in Bobby, Ranbir may have dropped the towel in his debut Saawariya (2007), but he surely managed to catch our attention and our hearts with his charming boyish looks. Once he followed that up with the multi starrer Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008) and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), Ranbir had officially secured his post as the new chocolate boy of the industry. But Ranbir Kapoor wasn’t the only new entrant in the contest for becoming the next teen heartthrob.
When Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na(2008) hit the theatres, Meow and Rats’ #CoupleGoals love story struck a chord with all of us. Imran Khan’s instantly likeable and endearing characters in I Hate Luv Storys (2010) and Break Ke Baad(2010) made him a crowd favourite and honestly, between Ranbir and him, it felt like Bollywood had found its next big thing. It was also at this time that Ranveer Singh had stepped into the scene as Bittoo Sharma in Band Baaja Baaraat(2010) and as history would stand testimony, he did not fail to leave his mark.
Sadly though, despite of all the bubbling potential Bollywood seemed to be harboring, things didn’t go exactly according to plan. After delivering a few more romcoms in the following years, Imran Khan left the silver screen for good in 2015. Ranbir Kapoor did give us some of our treasured characters like Barfi from Barfi! and Bunny from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, but over the years after experimenting with different roles and delivering some not so stellar performances at the box office, it had become clear that he had clearly moved on from that era of his. As Ranveer Singh too drifted towards the more thematic movies, there was a new surge of romance heroes such as Varun Dhawan, Siddharth Malhotra, Kartik Aaryan and Rajkumar Rao, and while they gave us quite a few binge-worthy romantic films, none of them could exactly conform to that trope wholly.
As the 2010s progressed and more new faces like Vicky Kaushal, Sushant Singh Rajput, Tiger Shroff and Ayushmann Khurrana got added to the roster, the focus of Bollywood shifted to more socio-political and entertainment filled movies in place of feel good dramas. And just like that, somewhere between Masaan and Street Dancer 3D, the Bollywood trope and era of ‘Chocolate Boy‘ was lost and gone.
While the movies that the Bollywood factory is churning out these days are nowhere short of phenomenal and quality content, my old school Bollywood soul desperately aches to see movies like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Vivah being made again. The Chocolate Boy trope of Bollywood was something that shaped my childhood and I wouldn’t change it for anything. Perhaps a new wave of romanticism will wash over Bollywood in the next few years, who knows? But till then, the Baadshah of Bollywood will continue to reign my heart and soul.