Bollygood?

By: Vikram Dhindaw

The sails go down, bearded men swinging from ropes attached to the ship, the sea is in a vortex, pirates are sinking as cannons fire to destroy the enemy, it is then that Shah Rukh Khan jumps from wooden poles, takes out his sword as Rani Mukherjee tries to save what remains of the crew… Don’t know why this sounds so familiar, yet I see something different?
Do we really see this happening? But then we still ask ourselves; why can’t Bollywood movies be as good as Hollywood movies? Well the answer is simple, its because Govinda has to dance in yellow shorts, Salman has to beat the crap out of baddies with loud laughs, Akshay has to jump three stories and land on his feet, while Rajnikanth has to be one step below God! It’s the fuel that keeps our industry growing and asking for more, what would Bollywood be if there were no masala in songs? We already have Hollywood for that! So why are we aiming to change something unique to our own? We should be proud… but that’s certainly not the case with generation-next, they feel that this industry might need a few changes, so we caught up with a few people outside cinema halls all over Delhi, and they have had quite a few nasty things to say about our industry.
While some feel that our stories lack originality to the extent that we even copy songs (this is of no reference to Anu Mallik whatsoever), some say that the budget is too low, while others just feel that our actors aren’t sexy enough! (I guess they haven’t heard of Mallika Sherawat as yet!).
Long songs, too much ‘rona dhona’, impossible stunts, editing problems and lack of boldness; the replies were a mixed bag of opinions, although there were a few people who thought that there is scope for improvement.
On the other hand some actually think that we are not competing with any Hollywood movie, ‘we have a solid industry of fine actors, we have our own viewers and they are going to see Shah Rukh Khan on the screen rather than some Antonio Banderas.’ says Gaurav Sharma a student of Delhi University.
Although we do admit that there is scope for improvement; taking the case of action films for instance, the action might be there, but an element of reality is missing sometimes. Dodging bullets might have already been seen in a Hollywood film, but our Indian directors are forgetting that those flicks were sci-fi and that the same sequence might look very weird if done in a romantic movie.
‘Akshay Kumar can never be Jackie Chan’ says Tripti Kumar, according to her; Bollywood needs to go a long way before it could match the standards of a Hollywood movie, she thinks that Indian films have a lot of ‘overacting’, but its not because our actors are bad, but sometimes the audience demands it that way, be it the ‘K…K…Kiran’ or the ‘Rishte me toh hum…’ fans love it! And it is for that reason that a large population prefers Hollywood, because a larger part worships actors and films like Gods.
Another valid point has been contributed by Sanjeev Verma, an employee at a local cyber café, according to him there is a major role being contributed by the Censor Board, this is because it fails to understand that if the country has to be more open minded about the whole issue of sex, stopping it is not the solution.
Rather a check must be kept against ‘obscenity’ (looking at its true dictionary meaning and not mix it with concepts such as Sanskaar), despite keeping in mind the whole society and not harming it in any way.
But there too we see a loophole… on one side they can worship a 62 year old who recently locked lips with a seventeen year old (no offence, we love you Big B!) and on the other hand we burn the effigy of a celebrity who got kissed on the cheek while performing a dance move.
‘Its not the industry, but the people who make it work that way’ says Ankit, a student outside PVR Spice Cinema.
Well, be it the length of the movie or too much Jhatak Matak by our heroines, our industry is still the biggest profit making movie industry in the world, and the fact that big Hollywood stars like Will Smith, Richard Gere and Brad Pitt to name a few, want to come to work here, speaks loud enough!
Who knows we might just catch George Clooney and Cameron Diaz dancing on the tunes of Himesh in a short while. Lets just wait and see!