The Ganji Wars: Bollywood's bicep-baring battle for underpants supremacy

New Indian Express

5 hours ago

My ear-to-ear knowing grin and slow mental clap threatened to topple me off my potty. In my hand was a local Guwahati newspaper in which a Bollywood actor, 15 years into his career, is smiling in his jeans and sleeveless vest like he's finally found the meaning of life.
Now this actor is really an actor, a chameleon on screen who has won almost every award in Bollywood's firmament. But in the glittering cosmos of Bollywood, this is the celestial event that marks his rise to true stardom. Forget Oscars, Filmfare or National Awards; nothing screams "I've made it!" louder than a sleeveless vest and a pair of elastic chaddis.
Let's rewind about a decade, to the Great Indian Bollywood Underwear Uprising. Gossip has it that once upon a Bandra balcony, a starlet – let's call him 'Mr. Salad' – fired his entire team. Their crime? Failing to secure him a baniyan endorsement. Priorities, right? He thought his dad-bod-free physique, sculpted via hours in the gym and flings with every Tina, Diksha and Harita, deserved better. Fast-forward: Captain underpants' abs now gleam on billboards, his grin plastered across traffic signals. Status achieved.
But why this obsession with endorsing what is essentially a cotton conspiracy? Is it to attract the female gaze? Unlikely.
Most women, bless their souls, aren't swooning over men vacuum-sealed into their underpants. Are moms and wives buying undies for sons and spouses who look grown only in their bodies, not minds, and still don't do their laundry? Maybe.
Or perhaps it's simpler: Bollywood's macho meter now runs on who can flex harder in a vest. Salman Khan? Dixcy Scott & Lux Venus. Shah Rukh? Lux Cozi. Ranveer Singh? Rupa Frontline. Ajay Devgn, Amul Comfy. Hrithik Roshan, Macroman 20 years ago, a mantle he passed to Ranbir Kapoor in the last decade.
Even the common man-hero Ayushmann Khurrana announced his jacked-up physique by appearing in Ranjit Smart ads. And the newest kid on the block who's grinning in hoardings and papers across the nation: Rajkumar Rao, bulked up fresh from his nearly Rs 1000 crore Stree 2 for TT Limited, because nothing says "superhit" like a pun about "FiTT".
The lone wolf to buck this trend: Mr Perfectionist Aamir Khan, who has, so far, dodged the underwear-industrial complex in his 52-year acting career. His closest brush? A Ghajini scene where Asin jokes about him modelling elastic chaddis .
"Zoro elastic chaddi. Ye ad aaya toh tumhari nikal padegi," she quips, imagining banners of him in briefs from Lokhandwala to Marine Drive. Aamir, ever the enigma, has chosen artistic integrity over bicep-baring glory despite bulking up for multiple roles in the last two decades. Meanwhile, every other Bollywood star's IMDb tacitly screams: "Actor. Dancer. Underwear Model."
The why of the matter doesn't need any serious dissection. For starters, it's a cheat code. Minimal dialogue, maximum cash. Why slog through a 3-hour epic when you can just… stand there? Shirtless. Smiling. Maybe holding a comb, or a woman's soft back.
It's egalitarian in a way. Female stars endure endless scrutiny over saris and bikinis; male stars "sacrifice" by maintaining six-packs for the greater good of… underwear sales. Plus, the paycheck? A cool ₹6-10 crore; enough to buy a private island – Kailasa Redux anyone?
But the real trigger? It's a status war. Landing a ganji ad is like receiving a golden ticket to the Bollywood Illuminati.
Take Rajkumar Rao. For years, his body was deemed lean and unfit for mass appeal. Then he bulked up in 2020 for Badhai Do, his well-toned muscles going viral, and voilà! The vest bet was on. His agency is now negotiating deals faster than you can say "TT ka FiTT".
And the ads themselves? A masterclass in absurdity. Salman Khan once chased a rogue vest across town, followed by a mob of inexplicably enthusiastic extras. Why? Because logic is overrated when you're selling underwear, and because, as Khansaab declared, "Sabko Mangta Hai."
Akshay Kumar does something similar, ripping through an office to get to his vest. While Saif Ali Khan castigated a chicken: 'Hindi nahi aati' when she laid only two eggs on his kitchen table when he had specifically demanded three in an Amul Macho ad that proved that muscles are optional, but confidence is mandatory.
But wait, what about the ladies? Logic dictates that female stars with their hot bods should dominate innerwear ads. Yet, the industry remains a boys' club. Exceptions exist, but mostly, it's men preening in vests while women… well, they're busy being judged for what they wear, or don't, in real life. This is equality, Bollywood-istyle .
So next time you spot a Bollywood hunk selling innerwear, remember: it's not just fabric. It's a flex. A declaration. A cosmic knock on the door of stardom. And if you ever meet Aamir Khan, ask him if he is ready to badlo his kismat via Zoro elastic chaddis with hoardings from Chandigarh to Calicut.
P.S.: In case you're wondering if the chicken understood Saif's Hindi, she did, and laid the third egg, which Saif baba in ganji promptly made an omelette of – poor cow belt chicken.