Dive into the world of make-believe!

Dive into the world of make-believe!

Former US First Lady Michelle Obama dances Bollywood steps

Slide your plans to do anything tomorrow aside, plug in the laptop/tablet/phone to charge. If you are the boss of the house or believe so, find a way to have monopoly over the TV and air conditioner remotes. Stock up on chips, popcorn, sugary drinks, fluff up the cushions. 

Tomorrow, Sunday, the 24^th of September, happens to be World Bollywood Day. 

In spite of the flux of OTT platforms and streaming services, Bollywood is still able to draw viewers to watch stories enacted by mega-sized stars. The two-hours plus hotpot allows one to plunge into a picnic for senses, with romance, action, violence, crime, and a liberal mixing of melodrama, shameless display of emotions.

Watching a film is always exciting. Selecting the film, time and company to watch it with, play an important part. Whether you sit in the bone-chilling temperature in a cinema hall with sound surround systems, or the comfort of your home without the effort of dressing up and going out, both work fine for different people at different times.

But Bollywood films?

You might meet somebody who proudly claims that he/she has watched old classics Pyasa, Sholay, Deewar, Chak De, Golmaal etc. several times and yet, can watch again. In fact, in Bollywood history, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ) is the longest running film and is still being screened in Maratha Mandir Hall, Mumbai since it was released in 1995.

We may like them or not, criticize some and praise others, Bollywood films occupy a corner of every Indian heart.

Even though very few films are based on facts or focus on social issues, diehard Bollywood fans get emotional justifying the (mostly) unreal stories. Do we ever disapprove of the parenting skills of mothers in films whose twins separated at Kumbh melas?

You may argue that the characters are bigger than the story, the twists and turns in the plot to keep you glued to the seat for that long, do not happen in real life. Enjoy the time in la la land!

Take tips in interior decoration from the houses. With their double staircases, furniture, and decor, they look like palaces and hotel lobbies.

Several Hindi and Urdu poets e.g., Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Gulzaar, Javed Akhtar, known for enriching our literature with their literary creations, have penned lyrics for Bollywood films. Why, Hindi period film Padmaavat is based on a poem by Malik Muhammad Jayasi (16^th century)!

Nowadays, lyricists are getting more open-minded about language and you might choose to pretend I-do-not-know when your five-year-old asks the meaning of an item song. The music is so deeply ingrained in our system that our auto-rickshaws, trucks, and some cars too, do not move an inch unless they have a film song playing at ear-piercing decibel level.

Bollywood dance has picked up pace with time. Watch the hero and heroine break into a high-energy sequence to the beat of catchy music. No need for a ticket or visa to enjoy exotic locations and architecture which keep changing during the three-minute song. And such costumes!

Top : Madhubala (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960) 
Bottom: Shah Rukh Khan & Deepika Padukone (Pathaan, 2023)

It is no wonder then that Bollywood dance, a fusion of Indian classical, western, Arabic, bhangra and what not, is popular all over the world and classes are held in Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, and Melbourne. In India, no school function, party or wedding is complete without these songs or dances. Everyone lip-syncs the words and tries to copy the exact choreography from the film.

And the clothes, make-up, hair, jewellery? Hairdressers have their job spelt out when people want the dead crop on their scalp to look like some hero or heroine’s. Even decades ago, hairstyles were known by the names of stars like Rajesh Khanna and Sadhna who sported them.

The dressing styles in films are the reference points for family and social functions, and big events. The shopkeeper selling jewellery tells you names of films - Jodha Akbar (Aishwarya Rao Bachchan’s jadau or inlay/engraved work jewellery), 2 States (Aliya Bhatt’s jhumkas); not to mention Ram Leela where Tanishq is said to have created the whole Padmaavat series in gold for Deepika Padukone. No wonder brides take notes from what a film star wore for her real or reel wedding.

Top L: Madhuri Dixit Nene (Devdas) R: Deepika Padukone (Padmaavat)
Bottom L: Alia Bhatt (2 States) R: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Jodha Akbar)

Then there is the latest trend- stars’ airport and red carpet looks. One can only be awestruck at their stylists/make-up artists, who are contented merely with the few hour long exhibition of their art.

Remember how in old Bollywood films the whole screen would fill up with two flowers moving towards each other and the stems intertwining, and parents dreaded the question ready to pop out of their innocent offspring’s mouth?

Rejecting that dull pace, we now see aggressive courting. Sometimes the hero keeps harassing/pestering his love interest till something deathly happens or she gives in. 

Don’t you recall someone among your acquaintances who talks or walks like a character in a film?

Bollywood preserves our culture, and popular or outdated beliefs. Such elaborate celebrations! Who, outside a small part of India knew about Karva Chauth, the day wives fast to pray for the long life of their husbands, before Hum Apke Hain Kaun reminded them? Although Bahu Beti (1965) showed the festival being celebrated, it was the glitz it came repacked in thirty years later, that opened the eyes of entrepreneurs to its commercial possibilities.

Hardcore action film fans are another class of viewers. Their faith in our police remains unshakeable as they see long-haired cops with chiselled bodies and the top buttons on their uniforms undone, fly in air to beat the pulp out of not one, not two, several goondas at the same time, who were perhaps paid to receive only this treatment.

Hats off to shooting coaches that the hero’s aim is bang on target and the villain collapses, writhing for a couple of seconds before disappearing from the screen.

No wonder, our police and lawyers, impressed with the strongly positive image thus created, do not think it wise to protest how they are depicted in these films.

Top L: John Abraham (Satyameva Jayate) R: Tiger Shroff (Baaghi 2)
Bottom L: Ajay Devgn (Himmatwala) R: Salman Khan (Dabangg 3)

How can I not mention some of the best Bollywood comedy movies e.g., Angoor, Malamaal Weekly, Chupke Chupke?

Our very own home-grown multi-billion industry, made from the words Bombay and Hollywood, has been a major influencer on our social and cultural environment since Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra (1913).

By watching a Bollywood movie, aren’t you helping the nation? Not to talk of the transport, tickets, snacks you spend on, consider it adding to the paychecks of sound mixers, dubbing artists, background dancers, photo and visual effects editors, dolly grip, location/property/catering/transport staff and hundreds more names which quietly roll into oblivion after the credits go off the screen as the film ends.

Come, let us do our bit for the economy. Let each of us, wherever we are, watch a Bollywood movie, any genre, any name, out of the hundreds made. Real life is tedious, why not escape to a world of make-believe?

Left: Angoor based on Comedy of Errors R:Golmaal (old laugh riot)

                                                                                              -Anupama S Mani