A & A wedding in April!

The Aishwarya and Abhishek Bachan wedding is postponed now to April 18. The wedding is being planned as close-knit affair with family and friends at the Bachchan residence. Rumors say that exclusive rights of the wedding coverage have been sold to a foreign media house for an undisclosed sum of money!

This wedding is becoming a ‘Hollywoodish’ Bollywood affair!

AB sr, AB jr and now AB bahu….

Aishwarya and Abhishek's Big wedding on March 19,2007!

Abhishek Bachchan, bollywood’s most eligible bachelor and actor, son of legendary Amitabh Bachchan and former Miss World and actress Aishwarya are getting married on March 19, 2007. The venue for the wedding bash is a palace in Rajasthan, India.

After much rumor, gossip and buzz about their affair, mismatched horoscopes, ‘manglik’ or shadow of mars on Aishwaryas horoscope, havans and pujas , and Kumbh Vivah’s -Aishwarya’s marriage to banana trees etc, the real marriage is finally going to happen soon.

Abhiwarya is what they call the saga of Abhishek and Aishwarya in the media these days, on the lines of ‘Brangalina’ ( Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie) I don’t know why they didn’t think of 'Ashshek' like ‘Aashiq’which means 'lover'. Whatever the name, this story will be watched by India and Indians across the world. Speculations are already on the strength and length of the marriage and thier careers. Both Abhisheks and Aishwarya’s career prospects may go on a rise or slump affected by their wedding! Some say “they make a bad pair”; some say “they are made for each other”; some say “they don’t have chemistry”; some say “He was a fool and fell for her”; some say, “She hooked the biggest family in bollywood”; some say, "it was most practical and social relationship, to pair the popular Ash with eligible Abhishek" ;some await to see the jinxed Ash's and Abhisheks futurerama!; some say " they are a lethal pair!" Everyone these days has a say...... What is your say?

Amir Khan at British Academy of Film& Television Arts

Amir Khan an intelligent actor in an indepth conversation with Nasreen Munni Kabir about film making, scripts and acting.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5832618792525892669&hl=en

After the nomination of RANG DE BASANTI
at
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
www.bafta.org

“Eklavya- The Royal Guard” – Story of Rightful Reasoning!

Cast:
Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani, Raima Sen, & Jimmy Shergill.

Direction: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Genre: Drama,
Movie Overall Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5)
Length: 1 hr 45 mins

The aim and intention of my reviews is to critique and recommend while not revealing the whole story to enjoy the movie when seen. Minor details may have been divulged for proper review!

The philosophy of Eklavya is about ‘Dharma’ - What is Rightful and What you Believe is Rightful! "Dharam Wohi hai jo apna mann sachcha maaney.” an oft repeated dialog in the movie translates to “Dharma / Sacred Duty is what your heart and mind feel is right”!

Eklavya, the royal guard - Amitabh, is named after the legendry character Eklavya in Mahabharata who gave up his thumb as a Guru-Dakshina/ teacher payback to Dronacharya ; Eklavya, an incredible marksman, is duty bound and zealant in protecting the royal dynasty of Devigarh. Though the King Rana Harshvardhan (Boman Irani) is just a figure head in the modern democratic state of Rajasthan in India, the formality and splendor continues so does Eklavya’s duty and family loyalty to the dynasty which has been continuing for nine generations.

After the Queen’s (Sharmila Tagore) inconvenient death, Prince Harshvardhan (Saif Ali Khan) is called for from London. He is confronted with intriguing family secrets, conspiracies, deceptions, murder plots and confusion. This is followed with murders, deaths and bloodshed for money; revenge; or dharma/duty! Finally it’s the triumph of Dharma. You will have to check out yourself which facet of dharma!

Vinod Chopra excels in making a concise and succinct movie of 1 hr 45 minutes, yet building an action packed intriguing thriller with dramatic and spectacular action sequences, smooth screenplay with no loose ends, drama and melodrama, romance and comedy, all into one impressive movie.

Eklavya is amazing in the big screen experience with its beautiful palatial settings, picturesque deserts of Rajasthan and awesome cinematography. The action scenes in the movie need a special mention- the pigeon sequence which applauds Eklavya’s marksmanship is amazing; and another scene with a large herd of camels and a moving train in the desert has incredible choreography and cinematography. The music is good and doesn’t intrude, but accentuates the story. There is only one song – ‘chande re’, which makes us appreciate the director’s film making abilities of not intercepting the movie with a string of songs.

The movie boasts a magnificent star cast- Amitabh Bachchan has a brilliant performance as the ageing royal guard. The character, look, costume, and the bloody red eyes get enlivened with his dialogues and acting. Saif Ali Khan has been giving mature and amazing performances lately, and of course the Nawab Pataudi’s son carries his princely role with grace. Sanjay Dutt, as DSP Pannalal Chohar, adds wit and humor with his cheeky dialogs and delightful presence. The untouchable turned into a man of authority was depicted well. He is a classy actor and does well in every kind of performance. Sharmila Tagore, as the queen mom is graceful in the short role as Saif’s Mom! The enchanting Vidya Balan impresses in the role of Rajjo/Rajeshwari, the chauffeurs daughter, the prince’s romantic interest and the princess Nandini’s companion. Raima Sen acts well as princess Nandini, the mentally unstable twin sister of the Prince. Boman Irani plays a complex personality with a feminine side reasonably well. Jackie Shroff plays intensely the negative role of the Rana’s covetous brother Jyotivardan. Jimmy Shergill too pulls a good job in his small role of Jyotivardans son Udayvardhan.

Eklavya is not your typical 3 hr long masala movie. The movie is commendable for its uniqueness in today’s bollywood cinema with its ability to pack everything into a crisp movie. It’s surely worth a watch on big screen. But if you forget the hype about the movie, you will appreciate it much better!

Guru- Mani Ratnam, Abhishek Bachchan, Dhirubhai Ambani!

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakroborty, Madhavan,
Vidya Balan
Direction: Mani Ratnam
Genre: Drama, Biographical!
Movie Overall Rating: *** (3 stars out of 5)



‘Guru’ generally means a teacher. It gets applied to anyone who acquires followers and it is also referred to a person who has authority because of his or her perceived knowledge or skills in a domain of expertise.

Here “Guru” can be applied to Mani Ratnam, an intelligent director who excels in unique subjects for his films; Abhishek Bachchan, for his admirable acting in the complex role of a driven man, and the inspiration of this movie, the man who reached zenith from zilch, the business tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries - Dhirubhai Ambani.

Guru is a story of Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan), a villager, visionary and a winner. He is an ambitious dreamer who has vision, determination and a never ending spirit. Coming from humble origins, son of a school teacher in a village of Gujarat, he learns the worldly ways to succeed, working in Turkey. His ambition to start a business leads him to Bombay with minimal belongings, a wife (Aishwarya), brother-in-law and some money. He progresses very fast, by fair and not so fair ways. In spite of constant negative publicity from his truthful early mentor , a communist editor, Manik Das Gupta (Mithun Chakroborty) and his assistant journalist Shyam Saxena (Madhavan ) who use the power of pen and media against him. Guru still realizes many a dream in his relentless pursuit. Starting from being the first manufacturer of polyester in India to becoming the largest private sector enterprise in the country!

The life story of Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani popularly called Dhirubhai Ambani is very similar. Many focal incidents of Dhirubhai’s life become the story of Guru. The enterprising Indian entrepreneur has humble roots from Chorwad, Gujarat, who started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias/fritters" to pilgrims and travelers over the weekends. He worked for few years in oil company in Aden, Yemen. He returned to India and started a textile company which imported textile from Yemen. Sensing good opportunity in the business of textiles, Dhirubhai started his first textile mill and manufactured polyester fabric. Over time his business has diversified into petrochemicals, telecommunications, information technology, energy, power, retail, textiles, infrastructure services, capital markets, and logistics.


He made millionaires out of ordinary men and first time investors, simply because they had faith in his vision and invested in the Ambani dream. - The Reliance textile IPO.

He was deterred at one point in time by his old friend Ramanath Goenka of Indian Express. The Indian Express, published articles daily against Reliance Industries and Dhirubhai which claimed that Dhirubhai was using unfair trade practices to maximize profits. The tussle ended in his stroke which paralyzed his right hand.


The man with an iron will kept going. - The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Group's annual revenues are in excess of USD 22 billion. The flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500 company and is the largest private sector company in India.

In spite of so many similarities, Guru was not publicized as a biography of Ambani, I guess to avoid getting sued from the largest Indian conglomerate for any kind of defamation!

Guru also seems inspired from Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Aviator’ starring Leonardo Di Caprio.

The Movie ‘Guru’ is Abhishek- centric all the way. His performance through out from youth to the older successful tycoon was enacted with maturity and depth. At times he clones Kamal Hassan’s ‘Nayakan’ image and even his father Amitabh. The driven roles are getting to be his forte. Lately many of his roles in other movies too have been ambitious, goal oriented, single- minded characters.


Aishwarya doesn’t play much of a role. Mithun is carving good roles in his comeback. Madhavan and Vidhya Balan had good performances in their minor roles and weak characterization. Their roles seemed heavily edited but surprisingly not the smooch! Mallika Sherawat makes a scintillating presence in a Mediterranean dance number.


The A R Rehman’s music with Gulzar’s Lyrics together made some good songs. The movie though could have done without one or two songs. Though the intention of alternating the events with songs may have been to avoid a chronicled documentary like film, but eventually it prolonged the length and slowed the pace of the movie.

It also comes with a few editing glitches. Though guru’s favorite dialogue is “I came to Bombay with 2 shirts, a wife, a brother-in-law and Rs25,000 to start a business”. The bro-in-law disappears from the story after a small tiff! Madhavan’s and Vidya Balan’s characters after getting the editing axe, lack depth and detail.

Though the movie is a cinematic excellence, it’s not a high entertainer. While most Mani Ratnam movies are commended for his balance of artistic and cinematic excellence with commercial entertainment. This movie may fall short on the entertainment factor.

The timing of the movie seems perfect and pertinent when the Indian economy is in accelerate mode due to rapid corporate growth of manufacturing and business services, and domestic and multi-national companies. Guru may inspire many an entrepreneur or even instigate questions about the reality of corporate world!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai. - Awesome bole toh Awesome!

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Dia Mirza, Jimmy Shergill, Kulbushan Karbanda, Abhishek Bachchan (guest appearance)
Director: Raj Kumar Hirani
Producer: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Screenplay: Abhijat Joshi

Genre: Comedy
Movie Overall Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5)

Not many sequels have been made in history, where the sequel outshines the first one in the series. Nor have there been movies which are amazingly entertaining while carrying a moral message. Lage Raho Munna Bhai is one such excellent movie.

Sanjay Dutt - Munna Bhai/ Murli Prasad Sharma is at his best with his permanent sidekick Circuit/ Sarkeshwar- Arshand Warsi in this awesome sequel. Though it’s a sequel of Munna Bhai MBBBS, both stories are independent and comprehensive, with no connection or continuation from the previous movie. The only links are Munna Bhai and Circuit characters. The villain again is Boman Irani, but in a new character. Hence a new concept of sequel movies, at least in bollywood! Apparently there will be one more sequel in this series and I bet that too would be worth watching! Lage Raho Munna Bhai is an amusing comedy with vibrant and colorful dialogues, spectacular performances and fresh and exuberant story.

Munna Bhai/Murli Prasad Sharma is floored every morning with the melodious voice of radio jockey Jhanvi- Vidya Balan. His desire to meet this voice makes him tread into books of history and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi! Adopting a totally new technique called ‘Gadhigiri’ as against his regular ‘dadagiri’, he philosophizes and preaches and practices the non violent style in making things work in his favor.


In this unconventionally hilarious yet sentimental comedy Sanjay Dutt has a multifaceted broad persona. His ‘talk shows’ (Dr. Laura Schlessinger style) and reality radio are very poignant and moving, and so are the tender moments with the second innings team. The vibes of Dutt with Boman Irani –the unscrupulous antagonist and his banter with his sidekick and counselor, Circuit, and lastly his rapport with ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ are interesting and hilarious to watch. Though Warsi is technically a side kick, he has a chunky role and his performance is outstanding. Boman Irani again an excellent actor on the rise performs his character of unprincipled man but still a doting father, well. The chemistry between the beautiful and talented Vidya Balan and handsomely ageing Sanjay Dutt is wonderful. Vidya Balan’s voice and sparkling eyes do add an aura to her Good Morning Mumbai!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai scores for also handling the subject of Psychiatry well. Not all movies do a good research of subjects and facts accurately. Here the psychiatric analysis with demonstration is detailed out for clear understanding of audiences. Of course this is paralleled with the notion that you will see what you believe!

All the Songs ,"Lage Raho Munnabhai", "Samjho Ho Hi Gaya", "Aane Char Aane"," Pal Pal...Har Pal", and " Bande Mein Tha Dum Vande Mataram " are energetic and lively, and as I have known from a recent long car trip very much humable even by toddlers. The favorites replayed and re-sung being "lage raho munna bhai", "pal pal har pal", and "Aane Char Aane"(Go Hyderabadi Karunya-Indian idol singer) !

The movie gets four stars for its excellent performance by ever cast member; catchy and vibrant dialogues; energetic songs; and finally for the amazing script perfectly balancing the emotions with humor. Don’t miss it.

Babul- Extremely Sentimental

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan Hema Malini, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee , John Abraham, Om Puri, Aman Verma, Parmeet Sethi, Rajpal Yadav, Smita Jaykar, Avtar Gill, Gargi Patel

Director: Ravi chopra Producer: B.R.Chopra
Primary Audience: Older Audience
Genre: Family Drama
Movie Overall Rating: ** (2 star out of 5)

Sentimentality needs to be balanced either by good story content with depth or by hilarious comedy. Neither happens here. Hence the sentimentality goes overboard. Babul looks like an ineffective joint sequel of Baghban and Viruddh, both well handled sentimental movies. Babul in spite of having a noble subject like widow remarriage, top of the line stars and great acting as always from Amitabh, it lacks the ability to touch hearts because of a superficiality and cliché kind of dialogs, settings and cast; very predictable story and not to mention the image branding of many products.


The movie revolves around Amitabh Bachan, ( Balraj Kapoor)- the Babul.The story in brief is about the buddy son Salman Khan( Avinash/Avi) and daughter-in-law Rani Mukerjee( malavika/Mili) who have a typical romance, marriage and child. When Avi exits, Amitabh wants to reintroduce her to her old friend John Abraham( Rajat) to get color and happiness back in her life!


The first half of the movie was much longer to create a highly sophisticated, progressive and sporty image of the characters of the movie, having modern outlook and traditions. All this to help in the image branding for Audi! Hence there were prolonged car racing with the Audi in focus; golf games, American education, Hi flying parties and kabhi khusi kabhi gham like settings.


Well that was not enough, we had chai time with Taj Mahal Tea in coffee shops, painting kid’s room with Nerolac paints, and even a life insurance was advertised. Not only did the movie gain money for advertising for many products like Audi, Taj Mahal Tea, Nerolac Paints and Kotak Life Insurance; it even got a tax break for the subject of widow remarriage. Hence I guess producers were not worried for audience response and viewers money!


In spite of Amitabh Bachchan’s good acting and even singing his songs, it wasn’t enough to make the movie worth watching. Hema Malini miraculously still looks her beautiful self, but alas still carries the south Indian Hindi accent after so many movies! Salman Khan is aging but caries himself well. Rani Mukherjee does well in the complex role. The handsome John Abraham shows least enthusiasm to be part of this movie, except when he is in a song! Sarika is also in this movie, but don’t know why she came back in an insignificant role.


Music of ‘Babul’ was average. ‘Kehta Hai Babul’ and the theme song sung by Amitabh Bachchan were touching. The songs of the movie were not something you remember and hum later. Some of them are slow too. The bhangra number ‘come on, come on’ looked like the K3G ‘Shava Shava’, with pink dress dancing blondes replaced by blue! A number (Bawri Piya’) showing intimacy is getting common these days in many movies.


Babul would have been a better movie if it had not just taken the existing productized formula and just added the subject of widow remarriage to it. I hope the producers learn to realize that audiences have a limitation to digest formula masalas movies, and make movies with intelligent and exclusive style.

Dhoom 2 – It’s ‘like’ exciting but not exhilarating!

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Uday Chopra, Bipasha Basu,
Rimi Sen


Directed by: Sanjay Gadhvi
Produced by: Aditya Chopra

Primary Audience: Young and old
Genre: Thriller
Movie Overall Rating: *** (3 star out of 5)


“Dhoom 2: Back in Action” is an exciting and entertaining sequel to Dhoom, with handsome studs with biceps, bikini babes, beautiful locales, high- flying stunts, hi-tech robberies, masterful disguises, little romance and comedy, great dance moves, but inferior songs, and finally an unrealistic plot!

This thriller is about daring heists and almost impossible thefts of rare artifacts, crown jewels, diamonds, unique coinage, carried out from Namibia to Mumbai and Rajasthan to Rio de Janeiro, by the international criminal, Mr. A, and the subsequent police chase to nab this criminal by Mumbai police ACP’s Jai Dixit, Shonali Bose and sub-inspector Ali. I guess it’s irrelevant that Mumbai police seems to have an international jurisdiction!

The movie also has the romance between the police pawn, the sexy criminal Sunheri with the brainy brawny mastermind criminal Mr. A. It has an elongated game of Russian roulette with the gun and one bullet between Ash and Hrithik and of course, not to forget the infamous kiss between them!

The movie portrays a lot of style, sophistication, good editing, but also steals from many action or crime thriller movies like Mission Impossible, Entrapment, After the Sunset & …… The first Dhoom was ‘inspired’ by Fast and Furious 1 and 2 and Ocean’s 11 which were very obvious, at least this time they made it less obvious by getting material from many sources. So, we can say it is an art to copy and put together in a different setting, and here the movie scores good points for a job done well.

Hrithik Roshan as smart, cool, athletic, sand boarding, scuba diving, parachuting, rock climbing, bungee jumping, racing, master of disguise, technically savvy thief -Mr. A steals the show. Aishwarya with her bronze tan, skimpy clothes in size 0 and American teenage act and drawl with over used ‘like’ ( “Are you like checking me out”), hip-hop- rap hairstyles & dressing ( specially in Crazy Kiya Re) as Ms Sunheri is eye-candy to guys but otherwise didn’t come out as the sharp burglar she claims to be! Abhishek Bachchan’s role gets diminished in this sequel. Except for his neat one-liners, and sometimes macho image he doesn’t do much. He should have made little more effort to avoid getting overshadowed. Bipasha Basu in double role was of course only added to this movie to add some sexy spice which she does well. Uday Chopra is fun and funny, especially with the dream sequences with imaginary wife and kids.

The music in Dhoom 2 may have rhythm and energy but the songs are bleak and weak. Except for the title number Dhoom Again, the other songs- Crazy Kiya Re, Touch Me, My Name is Ali, Dil Laga Na etc were sorry and inferior.

Dhoom2 brings together some extremely well crafted sequences -specially the first few robberies, last was shoddy; awesome stunts- all of Hrithik’s and Abhisheks; amazing disguises (statue was spectacular); excellent use of technology (in robberies and chase); breathtaking locales with exotic settings (first Hindi movie in Rio!) But alas! Content of story is shallow. A lot of whys, ifs and buts are sparked while watching the movie. Bollywood movies are getting better and better, perfection is not yet reached.

Hindi Movie- A Shortcut Recipe!

“Some Hindi Movies are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested.”- This quote is a slight variation from Francis Bacons quote about books, but very apt to Hindi movies too. Bollywood churns out tons of movies every year, and our desi population sees it, swallows it and digests it all. Of course some are very tasteful, while some cause an upset stomach, other few are placed on the connoisseurs banquet.

Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world in terms of the number of movies it makes. About 800 to 900 movies are made in India per year; almost twice the number Hollywood produces annually. By the way, after Bombay to Mumbai, shouldn’t ‘Bollywood’ be called as ‘Mollywood’or whatever! In order to retain their world record, the Bollywood industry has made an easy formula, or a short cut recipe for movie making.

Bollywood has ‘Productized’ the Movies - Technically ‘‘productized’’ and ‘patternized’ is nothing but films built further from a pre-made product. Here almost every thing is pre-made and ready; the directors just has to shake it and bake it! Of course he adds some songs for seasoning, a pinch of melodrama and a dash of heroism! Movies keep repeating the theme and style of a successful movie hoping for another success! But same chicken recipe with a different garnishing doesn’t make it different and old wine in new bottles doesn’t necessarily sell. Since the success of ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ and ‘Hum Apke Hain Koan’ there have been many movies with the large joint families in their movies. Yes, some were successful like ‘Dilwale Dulhani Le Jainge’ but some others like Hum Saath Saath Hain were pathetic flops. Alokh Naath and Reema Lagoo are typecast as parents, while Anupam Kher is the stereotyped uncle who is always a friend to the hero or heroine. Johny Lever has perpetual presence to add comic. The wedding setting and mehndi song is one more essential part of the total pre- packaged product of the film. For your record, if you list all the movies you saw recently, arguably you will have plenty with the same ‘formula’.

Another shortcut recipe used by our Bollywood guys is aping the Hollywood movie. Sometimes the length of the Hindi movie even covers scripts of two English movies. Of course to this is added the pre-packed ‘Movie Masala’ just like the ‘Shaan Tandoori Masala’ or ‘MTR Chaat Masala’, ready to be added to almost every movie! Next time you see an English movie, think if you can fit in our Bollywood actors in the respective roles of the movie, for example Preity Zinta as Drew Barrymore, Aishwarya as Julia Roberts, Kareena Kapoor as Alicia Silverstone, Govinda as Jim Carrey, Hrithik Roshan as Brad Pitt, Sharukh Khan as Tom Cruise, Amitabh Bachan as Sean Connery or various other possibilities and ‘Indianize’ it a little and imagine and play it in your mind. If you succeeded, you have predicted the next movie in the making in Bollywood!

But there are some exceptions to this industries output. Recently some excellent movies were made which have individuality and character- Lagaan, an Oscar nominated movie, which also has become a case study in Indian Institute of Management for leadership and team building skills; Dil Chahtha Hai, a new generation movie for the educated audiences; Zubaida, a classic story with excellent performances; Astitva, a woman’s struggle to make an identity of herself; Aks, a lift from ‘Face off’, but handled surprisingly well for Indian audiences; Ajnabee, a Hollywood remake of ‘Consenting Adults’ without the typical masala and ABCD, an American Born Confused Desi’s impasse lifestyle; to state a few, which have carved an identity of its own.

The Hindi movies seem to be gradually evolving from this masala business into more individualist entities, with deeper content and closer to life themes. Lets just hope our desi audience grows out of savoring the ‘ghisipiti’ recipe and we get to see more beautiful and tasteful movies ahead.

Also on http://www.sawf.org/bollywood/opinions/hindimrecipes.asp?pn=Bollywood&cn=7

Hindi Movie- A Life Style!

-Zindagi, Ek Safar, Hai Suhana… - Zindagi Ka Safar, Hai Yeh Kaisa Safar… - Zindagi, kaisee hai paheli haye… - Ai Zindagi, Gale Laga Le…- Zindagi, Zindagi, Zindagi, Jab Tumko Dekha Hai… -…Meri Zindagi Mein Ajnabee Ka Intezaar Hai…-… Zindagi, Bangaye Ho Tum.

The melodrama of Hindi movies has eternally been part of our life. Almost every one of us have been crooning the lyrics in various stages and emotions of life –“Zindagi Ka Safar”. The songs, the movies and the filmy crap, have been a strong influence on us desis. An essential part of our psyche and the way we think and act revolves to some extent on Hindi movies. Television with many cable networks, Star Plus, Sony, Zee TV, playing soap operas and serials all through the day may come close, but Hindi movie is unbeatable in its reach!

The glamour and glitz of Bollywood movies has dazzled and influenced Indian audiences since time immemorial. People copy fashions and fads from the movies- hairstyles, clothes, and accessories. They even talk the talk and walk the walk. But the extent of influence goes beyond the obvious. The affect of Hindi movies on desi minds is such that, they faithfully believe and follow many of the exaggerated ‘filmi’ concepts. The flirting patterns to gain the love of their life; the filmy concept of beautiful; the image of the hero as the perfect paragon; are some notions, which get impressed and engraved on people’s minds. Of course there are many more concepts advertised and marketed through Hindi films, which trickle down to all the audiences.


In the US, most Indians and Pakistanis find the Bollywood entertainment as the best weekend past time. It binds people together as a social get-away to the movie theatre or as a dinner and movie get-together. The women check latest fashions in the movie; guys check the hourglass figures; the young ones love the songs and dances. Of course for all of them it’s a 3-hour recap to homeland, traditions, culture and even the roads and life back home. Parents too encourage ABCD kids to watch Hindi movies since this is the one Indian link that they can easily ‘impose’ on their kids.

There are a few exceptions to this generalization of undaunted love for Hindi movies. There are some Indian ‘elites’ (read as ‘snobs’ by many people) who cannot stand the Indian movies. Their major problems with the Indian movies seem to be about the song and dance sequences and the concept of love.

Songs and music are great anchors to a Hindi movie. People forget the stories, but the songs become eternal in peoples minds and their audio collections. The songs repeated on TV, radio, CD players, car stereos and even people’s lips while playing a game of antakshari jogs in memories for a long time. Besides popular love and wedding songs, which form the background music to desi wedding cassettes, are carved for life in people’s hearts.

The songs came into movies from stage plays. Hollywood also has a category called musicals. Musicals are far and few now, but they still exist. Indian movies though have not been able to evolve out of this and may never will. The major reason being, songs are a great anchor to the Hindi movies, and are an Industry on its own. The songs in Hindi movies also provide a flamboyant way of expressing emotions, be it love between the hero and heroine, or anger at the villain, dismay at the gods, self pompousness of the hero or just having fun.

Now coming to the concept of love in the Hindi movie- The hypothesis of Love in Hindi movies revolves around boy sees girl and falls in love; sings and dances around the tree; saves her from the goons or uses emotional blackmail to win her love. Some day love may be portrayed in a more beautiful and realistic way, but this product has been sold and will keep selling to ‘desis’ for a long time till there are fantasizers, believers and even emulators to this concept of love. Till then, for the rest of us there is always the fast forward key on our remotes.

Hindi movies have always been larger than life, in spite of it being an element of our lives. Lets just keep it that way and not live life ‘Filmi’ style.



Also on : http://www.sawf.org/bollywood/opinions/hindimovies.asp?pn=Bollywood&cn=6