Bollywood Rewind

In 1970's we ousted America as the largest producer of films and secured the name Bollywood and ever since we have been producing films to be a part of the rat race. Some of them churned money, some earned awards and a few spread awareness while most of them gave birth to a new culture. As the saying goes, Life is not a movie, they initially directed movies to show people what they always dreamt in their life and their little amusements. Then they kept producing, re-producing and finally de-producing such films. We are now at a stage where we appreciate movies that are much closer to real life, you don't think so? Why was "Page 3" acclaimed?

Since its inception, Bollywood has been through several transformations. I know when people say Change is Good, but is it really? In this case, I'm puzzled! Also, they say Old is Gold. But again, I don't completely agree. I was not present in the 70s nor did I watch all the movies that were ever produced. But I think I have watched enough movies, significantly more than the normalcy, to do the judgement. Lawrence, KS makes me search for all kinds of scummy movies to avoid dawdling and over the past few days I was wondering, is this how screwed up the industry is?

I remember my dad making me watch movies like Yarana and Sholay while I was growing up and we enjoyed it passionately. I wonder what the kids of next generation get to watch with their dads - Dostana? Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag? or some movie in which Akshay Kumar is still a hero doing stunts? Thanks to technology, we are atleast able to secure the prints of those Good Old movies.

And don't even get me started on the songs, which are the spices of our cuisine called Bollywood. Gone are the days of Ghazals, sweet lyrics and shayaris; All we are left with is 'Hard Kaur'ed music and dhin chak dhin chak beats. The other day, I was listening to this song, Char Bhaj gaye hein and was thinking to compose my own song. It is easy pals, grab some Homophones and put it at the end of each stanza. Make a khichdi by using some cool hippy words like rock, disco, party, chick as the fillers and boom, you are a rockstar right  there. I do, I really do enjoy that song and that is what baffled me - what the heck is happening? The other day, I was listening to radio online and Iheard this song Karma is a bitch and the song was stuck in my head for the whole day - not a good sign for Monday morning, is it? They also have this new strategy of bringing in non-Indian singers like Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga and Akon to compose Bollywood Music; don't you think it is something like Pizza Kolhapuri or Kashmiri Lasagna?

Much unlike the yester years, the beauties cannot do the acting and the "Actresses" are not considered beautiful, so we pretty much have to make a choice. Back then they had beauties like Helen perform the item songs. Now, lead heroines have to compete for those numbers. And they compensate their unmatchable dancing skills with skimpier clothes. However, some actors did take dance seriously and carried Mithun's dance steps to a completely different level. Thank God, we were not stuck with the Jumping Jack and several others of that era. But along with that, they bring their chiseled six packs which they ought to show in every song possible - yes you can call me jealous!

But whatever might be the season, somethings in bollywood never change:

• Salman Khan strips his shirt off atleast once in all his movies
• Actors still don't grow moustache until and unless the director insists and they get paid extra for that
• Akshay Kumar still does Slapstick comedy and always has stunts in his movie - irrespective of the genre 
• Kapoors and Khans still comprise a major part of the industry
• 90% of the movies are hero-oriented
• Sunny Deol can still kill 200 people in one take
• Rajeev Masand still doesn't know how to review films
• Every hero has a fan base - including Uday Chopra, Tushar kapoor, Zayed Khan and Fardeen Khan
• There'll be a fancy song in which the hero and his heroine would be on a mountain or a valley out of nowhere
• There will be a doctor or a police or a lawyer or all the three in most of the movies.

Cheers to Bollywood!