A few years ago, when a creative team was discussing who should be cast opposite Shah Rukh Khan, people close to him were dismissive of Vidya Balan. “He’s so slim and boyish but she’s like an amma.”

Maybe after films like Laal Singh Chadha and Dunki, where Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh had to use technology to look youthful, the 58-year-old actors will finally revisit their “the-younger-the-better” rule before a heroine is finalised opposite them. Both films didn’t work, incidentally, and casting Taapsee, who’s 21 years younger than SRK, didn’t quite whip up the youthful chemistry the makers of Dunki had hoped for. While it is acknowledged that Deepika Padukone (at 37, she’s only one year older than Taapsee) did turn on the heat in Pathaan and Jawan, SRK himself has been fighting shy of doing the intensely romantic scenes he once carried off with style.

VFX cannot generate youthful chemistry.

Salman’s screen romances too have been lately antiseptic, perhaps aware that this is not the age to sigh and heave with a heroine.

The overdose of SRK and Salman will not see a repeat in 2024 since Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman don’t have films lined up for the coming year. There will be a welcome break from Ranbir Kapoor too, who had Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar and Animal this year. The new year will see more of brooding actors like Ajay Devgn, hyper ones like Ranveer Singh, handsome guys like Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar, who of course is seen year after year.

While Aamir, Salman and SRK take time off to contemplate their next moves, maybe mature roles commensurate with their age will see them agreeing to do movies with heroines closer to them in chronological age. The 43-year-old Kareena Kapoor is an actress they have all comfortably romanced on screen, Vidya is 44, Kajol (with whom all three have worked) is 49 and Tabu at 52 is still going strong. If age and body shape of the heroine are not restricting factors, then moving to substantial themes with women who can stand up to them and look credible, will work
for the Khans.

Surprisingly, one is told that OTT platforms are no longer excited over 56-year-old Madhuri Dixit after she pushed herself out of the heroine market with Fame Game, Bucket List and Maja Ma. Maybe, she too should be reassessing what she signs up for.

There is a question mark over Kajol’s saleability, after the miserable performance of Salaam Venky and her OTT outing The Trial. Kajol, it is said, was excited at reprising The Good Wife in Hindi, a choice that wasn’t quite wise, topped with the actress overcoming her inhibition of kissing for the camera. Knowing her acidic tongue, her own friends haven’t asked but it is a question that hovers: when she didn’t do a kissing scene in her younger days, where was the need to smooch Jisshu Sengupta and Alyy Khan at this stage? It didn’t work for Kajol’s husband too when Ajay broke his “no kissing” rule for Shivaay.

Or for SRK when he lifted his self-imposed res- triction and puckered up for Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Jab Harry Met Sejal, not his most successful films. A kiss is not a big deal but doesn’t work if the compromise is made only to stay relevant.

Ranbir Kapoor got away with much more this year, even nudity. But Animal was not the first film wherein he dropped all his clothes. He’d dropped his towel for just a split second to bare it all in his debut film Saawariya (2007). His father Rishi Kapoor too had done a nude scene in Bobby (1973), his debut film as hero, in a scene with Aroona Irani. But what’s kosher for the gander would be unimaginable for the goose if say, Ranbir’s wife or any of today’s actresses was offered a film that required her to shed her clothes.

Whichever year it may be, this is where gender equality will continue to be defenestrated.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author