Grandfather in the making: Most Bollywood celebrities just attend the program when they go for an event. But when Boman Irani recently came to Delhi for The Everlasting Thread Programme of the Parsi-Zoroastrian community, he went a step ahead, getting on stage with a guitar and belting out some popular numbers. As the crowd comprised a lot of people who were on the other side of 50, including LK Advani, Boman cracked jokes about ‘feeling young’. He took the opportunity to share the news that he’ll be a grandfather in July, saying, “Do I look like a grandfather? I hope not!”
There is no refinement in stereotype – if a character is Russian or German, then he will speak in a certain way. In Bollywood, if the character is South Indian, he will say ‘aiyyo’, and Parsis are shown as takla, topiwallah, with six children and an old car
Boman the musician: “I was dyslexic and had a speech defect till I was 7. I corrected it when I was in Class VII, and have not shut up since. Frank Sinatra’s My Way is for all those who have worked hard and achieved things the way they wanted to,” he said, before breaking into his first song. This was followed by his rendition of ‘Give Me Some Sunshine’ from ‘3 Idiots’. He said, “In the film it sounded like a sad song, but it’s not sad when I sing it.” He ended his performance singing ‘We Are The World’.
Stereotypes in B-Town: Boman told the audience that he was not happy with the ending of the film ‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’, in which he played the role of a Parsi grandfather. He said, “The family should have gone to the police, admitted their mistake, gone to Sachin’s house and returned the car. That would have been the Parsi thing to do. It was there in the screenplay earlier, but we later opted for glory and instead sent the boy to England.” Talking about stereotypes in Bollywood, he said, “There is no refinement in stereotype – if a character is Russian or German, then he will speak in a certain way. In Bollywood, if the character is South Indian, he will say ‘aiyyo’, and Parsis are shown as takla, topiwallah, with six children and an old car. But we must not feel offended. It’s only a character, and at the end of the day, it’s all about entertainment in Bollywood.”