new delhi in the composition of bollywood heroes names matter salman khan is generally prem shah rukh khan is almost synonymous with rajrahul and in his prime amitabh bachchan was always vijay but a look at the fresh filmscape indicates that names in hindi films are getting more geographically democratized now the rajs rahuls and prems have the tashis and phonstoks for companyin delhi belly imran khan plays a tibetan named tashi dorjee lhatoo earlier in 3 idiots aamir khan played a ladakhi phonstok wangdueven vishal bhardwajs kaminey had a villain named tashi interestingly none of these characters have any kind of political identitydelhi belly writer akshat verma says the character he had in mind was of a tibetan settled in delhi the core team even auditioned tibetan actors for the role but eventually settled on imran when they couldnt find anyone who fitted the bill the population composition of cities like delhi is mixed i wanted the film to reflect the new reality that india has embraced in all its shades says verma his next script has a tibetan protagonistcall it a sign of our increasingly cosmopolitan cities or a belated acknowledgement by the formuladriven hindi film industry the representation of the racial diversity in popular films even when played by conventionallooking heroes is something to take note of i suppose the writers of today are more inclusive in their approach i support their inclusiveness says delhi bellys coproducer aamir khanlhakpa tsering a tibetan ngo worker settled in delhi follows hindi films with a keen eye he even remembers blinkandmiss tibetan references in bollywood he talks about the promotional stills of ranbir kapoors forthcoming rockstar that show him singing against a backdrop of the tibetan flag tsering also points out that the actor strumming a guitar in the number shaam bhi koi jaise hai nadi aisha has a tibetan flag sticker on it the dancers who gyrate with kareena kapoor in the song yeh ishq hai jab we met are from dharamsalas tibetan institute of performing arts he saysactor tenzing nima who played tashi in kaminey welcomes inclusion of tibetan names in hindi films he believes it helps raise awareness of the regionnames like tashi and tenzing are pretty popular in northeast india besides tibet its good to see these names in hindi films says nima who comes from uttarakhandmissing cultural cues and a depoliticised identity could well be the reasons why these new names seem misplaced to some but verma says i feel in todays time a character need not look like he belongs to a particular placenot everyone reacts positively to the development delhibased tenzin lobsang is befuddled bollywood is probably bored of old names but i thought it was kind of strange that imran khan should play a tashi or aamir khan a phunsukh he saystsering too admits that theres hardly any tibetan identity to these characters i feel tashi or his parents in delhi belly werent really projected as tibetan characters im not sure why