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Portrayal of disability in
Literature and Cinema
Everyone has a right to dream, whether abled
or differently abled. Iqbal (2005) of Nagesh Kukunoor asserts the victory of such
undying spirit. The dumb boy, Iqbal aspires to be a bowler in the Indian
Cricket Team. He suffers discrimination but triumphs over all odds
Disability
is a major concern of our society. The Governmental and Non-Governmental sectors
have been making efforts to
fight it but it still remains a big challenge.
We often hear about the pervasive presence of disability among people through
the media which is an important source to cultivate right attitude
towards disability and create awareness about it among people. Film is surely a
very important medium towards this end. It would be interesting and pertinent
to know as to how disability gets portrayed in cinema. This becomes all the more
important because of the at large wide ranging impact of cinema on the society
and public.
Our
mythology and puranas also do contain examples of differently-abled individuals
like Dhritrashtra, Manthara, Ashtaavakra etc. Disability
can be either inborn or a consequence of some unfortunate incident in life such
as disease or accident. Films too have given space to representation of disability
in various artistic forms.
Only
recently a film by Anurag Basu
Barfi was
released. It also became
the official entry of India for
Oscars. The protagonist Ranbeer Kapur playing a deaf and dumb man is
simultaneously attracted to two girls, one of them being a physically
challenged girl. The boy,
Barfi, prefers the physically challenged
girl over the other one. But, why ? It’s indeed a thought provoking question.
Priyanka Chopra was much admired for her role as a mentally challenged girl,
world apart from the glitter and
glamour. It is significant that when
a star of Bollywood plays such a character he is thought of displaying an
exemplary courage for an artist. For instance, Sanjeev Kumar was much
appreciated for playing the disabled in the legendary film Sholay although as we do know that his disability
was incidental rather than being from birth. Likewise in the film Koi Mil
Gaya (2003) Hrithik Roshan played
a mentally challenged whose mental age was that of a eight year child although
his biological age was twenty years. This movie was meant for the children and
carried little social message yet, it proved that skilful use of creativity can
make for a commercial hit as well.
