Everybody loves a good family feud. And there’s a nice, juicy one to sink your teeth into right now.
I am referring of course to the mother of all family feuds playing out in Uttar Pradesh, where Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is locked in a very public muscle-flexing match with father, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, and uncle, Shivpal Yadav. Each day brings a fresh twist to the ongoing turf war. Nephew sacks uncle; dad supports said uncle against son; son reinstates uncle, only to sack him right back; and in the midst of all the high drama and poltikal and emosanal atyachaar, sundry camp followers on either side are axed.
Add to this the stepmother trope (there are whispers that Mulayam’s second wife Sadhna has been poisoning “Netaji” ears against his son and heir) and the alleged machinations of SP leader Amar Singh, who has been newly rehabilitated in Mulayam’s court. Clearly, whether or not you care about the political fallout of Yadav versus Yadav in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, it’s impossible to take your eyes off this internecine tit-for-tat frothing away like a TV soap opera.
That’s the thing about family feuds — they’re such irresistible stories usually. Any conflict generates interest, but the spectacle of family members gunning for each other – brother against brother, son against father and so on – feels bloodier, more visceral. It upends the natural order of things, because the dramatis personae dispense with familial niceties and go for each others’ jugular. That is why it’s so riveting. Perhaps it also appeals to our baser instincts. Face it, haven’t we all at some point wished to take a hatchet to a relative?
Writers and film makers understand the draw of family feuds. Journalists do too. Which is why gazillions of column inches and air time are spent on reporting clan wars. Whether it is the clash between Mukesh and Anil Ambani in 2004 or the bitter rivalry between cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray that split Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in 2005, family members battling each other for power and pelf is always, dare we say it, delightful to watch. Or read about.
The latest surgical strike in corporate India, which is being breathlessly followed by the media and the public, also has a family dimension to it. Cyrus Mistry, the sacked chairman of Tata Sons, has a sister who is married to Ratan Tata’s half brother. Who knows, his sacking could well be the turning point in the intertwined history of the Tatas and the Mistrys, pitching the two families into a mortal combat that could last years.
Indeed, part of the abiding appeal of our epics is that they are built on some cracking good family fights. The Mahabharata revolves around the murderous grudge match between cousins Pandavas and Kauravas. The Ramayana, which is sadly bereft of any such fratricidal fireworks, has the evil Kaikeyi — the stepmother who plots against Ram and persuades the old king Dasarath to send him off on a 14-year exile.
World literature is no exception. The best of them crackle with family members turning upon each other with hatred and vengefulness. The Greek tragedies of Aeschylus (some deadly husband-butchering and matricide here), Shakespearean tragedies such as King Lear and Hamlet, Emily Brönte’s Wuthering Heights (a haunting love story stretched on the rack of primal grievances that destroy two families), Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (where father and son battle over property and a woman)… The list goes on.
Sagas of inter-family clashes are equally gripping. Before the feuding Starks and the Lannisters ensnared us with their horrific bloodletting in Game of Thrones, there were hit TV shows such as Dallas, which was centred on the enmity between two wealthy Texan families. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the prototype of the young-love-killed-by-warring-families story, has spawned numerous spin-offs in pop culture. The Hollywood musical, West Side Story (1961), and Bollywood’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) – massive hits both – are examples of that.
In fact, Hindi movies fall upon the family feud theme with as much alacrity as they christen their heroes Raj or Vijay. Amitabh Bachchan fights a brother in Deewar (1975), and in Shakti (1982) nurses a grievance against his father. (Yes, he is “Vijay” in both films.) In Dabangg (2010), another super hit, Salman Khan has to deal with the hostility of a step-dad and a half-brother. And though the only thing you may remember from the blockbuster Karan Arjun (1995) is a dishevelled, tearful Rakhee prophesying “Mere bete aayenge” at every chance, that movie too has a villainous relative who kills the aforementioned Karan-Arjun, and their father and grandfather to boot.
Evidently, this family feud stuff checks all the right boxes. It has “emotion”, “drama”, “tragedy” (with apologies to Veeru in Sholay). Real life or reel, literature or theatre — it keeps us hooked.
That said, maybe it’s time for Mulayam, Akhilesh and Co to cease fire? Surely the Yadavs haven’t forgotten what happened to Krishna’s Yadu Vansh in the Mahabharata?
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
