Urf

Lookalikes are as much part of Indian popular cinema’s romance with stardom as the super celebrities they – sometimes more and sometimes less – resemble. The Juniors, as they’re popularly referred to, live a paradoxical existence all of their own: if one meets Kishore Bhanushali on the streets, it＇s like time is out of joint, for he looks like Golden Age-icon Dev Anand – in the 1960s! It’s fitting that Bhanushali is also a stand-up comedian, as the Juniors are in equal parts paeans to and parodies of the original stars. The Juniors even have their own films, which are often satirical revisions of beloved classics.

Geetika Narang Abbasi took the making of one such a lookalike extravaganza – Iqbal Suleman’s 2017 Amir Salman Shahrukh – as a starting point from which to describe the lives of several Juniors, and to wonder: how original can a human being ever be? Or, put another way: discover the true meaning of popular for popular cinema!