Irony can go no further. Varun Dhawan, the illustrious son of the great David Dhawan won’t be wearing the coolie’s outfit in the Dhawans’ second collaborative venture Coolie No 1. A source very close to the project told this writer, “I don’t think Varun would look cool in that red outfit which Govinda wore as a coolie in the original Coolie No 1 or Bachchan Saab (Amitabh Bachchan) wore in Coolie. Those times were different. Nowadays if you go to any railway station in Mumbai the ‘coolies’ don’t dress up like that. In fact they are no longer called coolies”
But then why is the new avatar of the David Dharan – Govinda starrer featuring Dhawan’s ‘cool’ son called Coolie No.1? The question here is not one of cultural changes that the dress code has undergone in this country since Coolie No 1 and Coolie were originally made in the 1990s. The question is of our current stars looking ‘cool’ no matter what they do. And credibility be damned.
A filmmaker who is currently working on an ambitious project with Salman Khan says, “Cultural identity is not a desirable thing any more. You show your Muslim hero in a traditional pathani suit or with a beard and you are accused of stereotyping. I wanted Salman to be dressed according to his character’s cultural background. But I was told it won’t be ‘cool’ to do so.”
The question is, who defines what is cool or not? The fashion police, the moral police, the clothes designers or the hero who will wear what he wants to wear?
