Appreciating Positive Masculinity in Bollywood with Rohan from “Udaan”
I watched this one a long time back, right after it was released, and don’t remember most of the details. But certain things about the film stuck with me, and that’s what I’m going to talk about.
Rohan is a 17-year-old boy with an abusive, arguably sadistic father. He has been expelled from his boarding school when caught watching porn, and sent back to live with his father Bhairav Singh, and his half-brother Arjun. Bhairav is verbally and physically abusive, and as hinted by a dialogue or two, perhaps sexually abusive as well.
Bhairav upholds an extremely toxic model of masculinity and has little to no redeeming qualities. He does not seem to have an ounce of empathy. Rather one dimensional as a character. Perhaps something had happened to make him this way, or perhaps he’s just a sick bastard who gets off on the abuse he inflicts. We don’t really know. The only reason we are even discussing him is because of the impact he has on the lives of his sons, since he imposes the same model of toxic masculinity on them as well.
He challenges Rohan to a race every morning and humiliates him for losing; forces him to work with him at his factory, and take engineering courses at the local university, even though Rohan is a brilliant poet who wishes to pursue the art. After losing a contract, he beats up his younger son Arjun so badly that the child ends up in a hospital.
Any child living in a household like that, be that Arjun at his very impressionable age, or Rohan who is also struggling through the nightmare that is puberty, is bound to suffer emotional trauma along with the physical torment. While a lot of Bollywood protagonists are seen being extremely toxic after having suffered way less, we see Rohan constantly trying to make the best of his situation.
Despite all his suffering, Rohan doesn’t stop acknowledging his emotions. He doesn’t stop pursuing poetry. He doesn’t stop being kind and nurturing. He tries shield his half brother from going through the same emotional trauma that he is suffering. And by the end of the film, he does something grown-ups rarely have the courage to do. He shows more responsibility than his father ever did.
So many of us live through trauma. But not all of us choose to or are able to heal ourselves for those who need us. Rohan did.
P.S. How Rohan interacts with women was either not covered in the film, or those details are simply missing from my memory
