Up, up and a new way: Deepanjana Pal writes on a new kind of hero

Hindustan Times

19-07-2025

No one is watching James Gunn's Superman for its romantic subplot, which is why few viewers likely clocked the 11 seconds snipped from Clark Kent (David Corenswet) and Lois Lane's (Rachel Brosnahan) first kiss. There is a similar cut in the second kiss, before Superman and Lois levitate.
While all the bits with dialogue have been left in, there is still damage being done with these deletions, because these scenes are part of Gunn effort to spotlight the 'man' rather than the 'super'. Yes, his Superman can shoot laser beams from his eyes, but he is also someone who fights to save puppies and yearns for time with the woman he loves.
Now, in mainstream Indian cinema, the hero with a softer side is a staple. Our blockbuster star may win every fistfight, but he first loses his heart, sings a song and perhaps even sheds a few tears for his beloved. The dividing line between action star and romantic lead is typically blurry too, with one needing love to humanise him and the other indulging in displays of conventional machismo to ensure the patriarchal cage isn't rattled.
Recently, though, a new variant of the hero has emerged here too: a man whose strength lies in his capacity to embrace vulnerability. He was most recently spotted in Netflix's new release, Aap Jaisa Koi, directed by Vivek Soni.
The 55-year-old star of this film, R Madhavan, said he signed up for it because he figured it may be his last chance to play a romantic lead. This is a romance told largely from the point of view of the hero, Shrirenu Tripathi. The heroine Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a French teacher in Kolkata, is less a person and more a hologram in floaty saris.
If this setup seems to work, it is because Madhavan is an experienced hand at the romance genre and is able to even out the many awkward edges (and lines of dialogue) with the smoothness of his performance. His Shrirenu is a man of tradition; a Sanskrit teacher, no less. Yet he is also a man of hesitations, anxieties and heartbreaks.
A 42-year-old virgin from Jamshedpur, he feels real. Most of us know someone like him, and Madhavan's performance emphasises how normal the character is, even though everyone in the film treats him as an oddity.
This protagonist continues Dharma Productions' mission of salvaging heroes from toxic masculinity. Like Rocky of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023), he is a well-meaning man-child forced to question the conservative values he was raised with when he falls in love with a Bengali woman who lives in a grand old house full of song, dance and art.
Unlike Rocky, though, this hero has no youthful swagger and doesn't bother with facades. Madhavan plays him as a bumbling fool who is unpretentious and unabashedly tender. Shrirenu chooses to course-correct partly because he realises the error of patriarchy's ways, but also because he is desperately lonely.
In popular culture, the loner is invariably portrayed as a deviant of some sort, but not here. This character emerges, instead, as someone valiantly struggling to navigate the world anew. 'I've been a teacher for most of my life, but now I'll be a student,' he promises Madhu. 'I'll make mistakes, but I'll also apologise… Whatever and however I may be, I will love you as my equal.'
Shrirenu's admission of his imperfections makes him perfect for the woman he loves, in Aap Jaisa Koi, just as Superman's weaknesses, rather than his extraordinary strength, makes him heroic. There may not be much superficial similarity between the two men, but look past their facades and both are more softie than man-of-steel. Let's hope these new, tenderer ideals of manliness can hold their own against the age-old clichés of masculinity.
(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)