Be it the Mehmood’s lungi clad Master Pillai in Padosan, Omi Vaidya’s bookish Chatur Ramalingam in 3 Idiots, Shah Rukh Khan’s Shekhar Subramanium in Ra. One, who dips noodles in curd or Deepika Padukone’s heavily accented Meenamma Lochini Azhagusundaram, Bollywood, has no dearth of stereotypical South Indian characters thrown in for some comic relief.
The word Madrasi stemmed from the days of the British Rule when the Madras Province stretched over present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. So, anyone from South India was a Madrasi. It’s just that Bollywood’s consciousness has not registered the fact that the Madras Presidency is no more.
In 1956, the State Reorganisation Act, which drew State boundaries along linguistic lines, was enacted. Yet, to this day, to Tinsel town, everything south of Nagpur, is Madras.
“Any South Indian,” writes the film historian Mohan Raman “will find Mehmood’s characterisation insulting.” To the people of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam diasporas, the word Madrasi has grown to be an obnoxious label; stereotypical associations over the ages has given it a negative tint.
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