Bollywood. The one word gives rise to a myriad of pictures. To some, Bollywood is simply a region or location where movies are made. To some, Bollywood is the dreamland where all hopes are realized. To some, Bollywood is like a casino; once you get in, with the right amount of luck, you can make or break.
For years & years Bollywood has transfixed us, bewitched us, and blinded us with its undisputed glamour. To the ordinary Indian, Bollywood is like a Utopia. It's that zenith where the 'stars' meet their destiny. It's a Shangri-la, the Promised Land for glitz, fame and fortune.
For once, let’s put aside those views and try to unearth the answer to the canonical question: what is Bollywood?
The answer is ludicrously simple; Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai. It’s thereby evident that Bollywood is just another industry. It’s a commercial enterprise where thousands of people are engaged to produce goods & services for sale. The goods in this case: movies.
Does this not imply that Bollywood is extremely overrated? It’s an industry where the people putting in the least bit of effort are sadly the most glorified.
In the last 50 years, India has seen a substantial change in all aspects of life. What has remained constant is the desi commoner's will to make it big in Bollywood. Everyday, planes trains & automobiles disgorge thousands of such aspirants onto the streets of Mumbai. Nurturing the belief that they have the potential to become a ‘star’, these aspirants go to unimaginable lengths to prove their worth, to find the one pinhole that will grant them an entry to this dream world. But the ultimate result of this struggle? Rejection, ridicule, failure. Some go back to their harsh realities. Some find respite in alcohol or self-annihilation. Some resolve to crime. Others stay put, struggling to maintain the basic necessities of life, hoping against hope that one day they might just stumble upon their El Dorado. The gates of the city studios stand silent witness to the sound of breaking dreams.
Yet Bollywood remains unhinged. & why not? It's a gazillion dollar industry where fate is rewritten by the hands which hold power - both financial & positional.
What’s so lucrative about Bollywood that so many people are attracted to it like a moth to a flame? Elementary, my dear reader! It’s the magnetic pull of everything that is associated with ‘stardom’. Everybody wants to "live life king size".
Movies like Guddi and Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon! bear testimony to Bollywood’s conversancy with the above stated facts. But the industry has conveniently adjusted to the system of zero accountability. They choose to ignore the smut and focus on projecting a larger than life image.
Bollywood has numerous such follies. But all could perhaps be empathized with, had the end product been topnotch. Unfortunately, the films are the worst thing about Bollywood. The words that immediately come to mind while watching a Hindi movie are unrealistic, loud, over the top, plagiarized, vulgar, unfunny, illogical, pretentious, grotesque so on & so forth. Bollywood turns a blind eye when it comes to depicting reality. They’re happy with the time tested formulae and their single-dimensional characters. To hell with authenticity & reality, Bollywood is proud that it can still make movies without sex-scenes. Prude much?
They say art imitates life. This principle is graciously overlooked by Bollywood. Karan Johar prefers to highlight Indian families who supposedly spend billions of rupees on chandeliers and velvet drapery. The Chopras believe in the magic of love, which quintessentially involves the lovers running through crop fields; mustard, sunflower, tulips, paddy – you just name it. Ram Gopal Verma’s reality is perhaps filled with apparitions, phantom animals, fetishes, hypnotized children and something else Agyat.
Yes I hate Bollywood. In fact, hate is a trivial word to describe my extreme antipathy. From the tiring clichés to the bland scripts, I hate Bollywood. The shameless actors, their lack of talent, their moronic statements, their disproportional incomes, their incivility, their ceaseless exhibitionism, their extravagant lifestyles…I hate it all. I feel mortified at the quality of films being made in India & the royal reception these films get from the Indian viewers. The fact that the name Bollywood itself is so shamelessly borrowed makes me nauseous.
I am promptly told off by a legion of righteous fans who say that my hatred is misdirected; that I’m a misanthropic who feels a strange pride in demeaning Hindi movies. Well, not quite. My hatred is not nitwitted. I prefer to know my enemies before passing a judgment. So I can safely claim that my knowledge about Hindi cinema is profound enough to help me prove my apathy.
The dictionary defines hatred as a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action. The pen being mightier than the sword, this blog is my battleground.
