Come Bollywood — Go Bollywood

It is a well-known fact that India is a major film-producing country. She produces almost 2,000 films yearly in nearly 20 different languages. Almost all states of India have their own film industry.

Inspired by Hollywood, each Indian film industry has branded itself with a nickname. I’ll quote a few. The most popular amongst them is Bollywood, mainly for Hindi and Urdu films. Others include:
Lollywood for Punjabi (and Pakistani) cinema.
Tollywood for West Bengali (and Telugu).
Dhollywood for Gujarati.
Jollywood for Assamese.
Mollywood for Malayalam.
Kollywood for Tamil.
This pattern is followed even in Africa. The Nigerian film industry is identified as Nollywood. This industry is almost overtaking Bollywood in the annual number of films produced.

Hindi, being a widely spoken national language, has made Bollywood number one in India. The second most widely spoken Indian language is Bengali. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema’s most critically acclaimed films. And why not? Bengal is extra rich in literature and has given birth to great writers and novelists like Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Humayun Azad, and many more.

Many innovative artists from different states of India migrated to Bombay (Mumbai) in search of success and fame. Many succeeded and made Bollywood what it is now. Bollywood started flourishing. If you ask a foreigner about their knowledge of India, his mind will visualize the Taj Mahal, and lips will murmur “Bollywood.”

Since motion pictures started “talking” some 93 years ago, the film industry became not only the most entertaining institution but also made its artists famous and rich. All roads led to Bombay.

While other states continued producing films, they did so in their own languages. Almost all states have contributed their talent to enriching this Bombay film industry. Statistically, I would not be wrong to say that the contribution of Bengal was the most significant.

Following are these Bengali film celebrities:
Satyajit Ray: Most influential and renowned film director in the history of World Cinema.
Himanshu Rai: Film producer, director, and studio owner. Founder of Bombay Talkies.
Sashadhar Mukherjee: Producer and studio owner of Filmistan.
Bimal Roy: Producer and Director. He has broken records decorating his shelf with 11 Filmfare awards (4 as Producer and 7 as Director).
Subodh Mukherjee: Film Producer and Director.
Amiya Chakravarty: Film Producer and Director.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee: All-rounder Producer and Director.
Guru Dutt: Classic Producer and Director.
Shyam Benegal: A master in popularizing art films.

And not forgetting popular film directors like: Basu Chatterjee, Basu Bhattacharya, Satyen Bose, Nitin Bose, Pramod Chakravarty, Shakti Samanta, Tapan Sinha, Asit Sen, Phani Majumdar, Tarun Majumdar, Sukumar Dasgupta, and Ram Mukherjee. These are just a few directors amongst others.

Let us have a look towards other artists who fulfilled different departments of films:
Among Actors: Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Anoop Kumar, Uttam Kumar, Victor Banerjee, Biswajit, Joy Mukherjee, Utpal Dutt, Mithun Chakraborty, Keshto Mukherjee, Abhi Bhatacharya, Devika Rani, Suchitra Sen, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bhaduri, Smriti Biswas, Mala Sinha, Aparna Sen, Moushumi Chatterjee, Raakhee, and others.

Let us also glance at another important department of film making—Notable Music Composers and Singers:
Pankaj Mullick, R.C. Boral, Anil Biswas, K.C. Dey, Manna Dey, Salil Chowdhury, S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman, Kanu Ghosh, Bappi Lahiri, Hemant Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Geeta Dutt (born Roy), Aarti Mukherjee, and Subir Sen.

Composers Ravi, Kalyanji, Laxmikant, Pyarelal, singer Talat Mahmood, actor Rajendra Kumar, and Producer-Director H.S. Rawail were not Bengalis, but all of them shifted from the then-Calcutta and made Mumbai their new home.

India has had no dearth of creative and innovative artists. As the film industry is now over 113 years old—dating back to before the Partition—many artists migrated from the North of the subcontinent (Peshawar, Lahore, Lucknow, Allahabad, Sialkot, Jaipur) and from the East (Dacca and Calcutta) to Bombay. These are the Kapoors, Khans, Alis, Chopras, Anands, Dutts, Khannas and others.
There were also the Bhatts, Joshis, Desais, Barots, and Sanjeev Kumar, Jeevan, Kiran Kumar, Nirupa Roy, Jaikishan, Kalyanji, Anandji, Vasant Desai, and a few others from Gujarat.

South India has a different story. There were relatively fewer artists from the South who migrated to Mumbai permanently, like Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini, Rekha, Sridevi, and couple of others.

In 1948, S.S. Vasan, a producer from the South, produced a Tamil film casting South Indian artists, “Chandralekha”. It was dubbed in Hindi and released all over India with great success. This was followed by two other films, namely “Mangala” and “Nishan” all with Tamil casts.
Another producer, known by his initials AVM, followed suit. Production houses of South India started producing Hindi films in their own States with Bollywood casts who used to travel to Madras (Chennai) for their shoots. Even Superstar Dilip Kumar was no exception; no less than six of his blockbuster movies were produced in the South. In one of his interviews, he mentioned that he was more comfortable shooting films in Chennai than in Mumbai. Almost all films produced there were drawing crowds and, needless to say, Bollywood got the credit at the expense of the South.

Though Bengal made the lion’s share of contribution to Bollywood. But without the support of other experts — particularly Punjabi and Urdu speaking scholars, Bollywood would not have achieved such high standard and stature. It was truly a collective effort in blowing up Bollywood.
Think of the memorable dialogues and lovely lyrics of past movies like Mughal e Azam, Pakeeza, Waqt, Deewar, Sholey, Naya Daur and countless other movies. Cinema fans used to memorise dialogues.

Let us divide Bollywood into phases.

It has been more than 100 years now since the Mumbai Film Industry was born.

Phase One: In its “young years,” it reached its pinnacle, which is called the Golden Years of Bollywood (1945–1980). I consider this Bollywood’s most successful phase. Most of the artists mentioned above have passed away, and the remaining ones have retired as their age did not support them.

The vacuum created was filled by new young blood, and this was the beginning of the next era.

Phase Two: This started from the mid-eighties. Audiences welcomed many new faces.

Among Actors: Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgan, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Abhishek Bachchan, Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Kareena Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Meenakshi Seshadri, Urmila Matondkar, Aishwaria Rai, Shushmita Sen, Prianka Chopra, Rani Mukerjee, Bhagyshree, Zareen Khan.
and taking also under consideration, Aalia Bhatt, Deepika Paducone, and Anuksha Sharma.

Among Notable Producers and Directors: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani, Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bansari, Ashukosh Gowarikar. Anurag Kashyap. and Mansoor Khan.
(Here allow me to say something important about Mansoor Khan. He made only 4 films. After winning Filmfare and National awards, he retired from the industry and became a farmer. His 4 successful movies are Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Jo Jeeta Woh Sikandar, Akele Hum Akele Tum, and Josh. It was a great loss to Bollywood.)

Among Music Directors and Singers: Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik, Shanker, Ehsaan,Loy, Ismail Darbar, Jatin-Lalit, Bappi Lahiri, Pritam. Kumar Sanu, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Anuradha Paudwal, Alka Yagnik, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sonu Nigam, Arjit Singh, and not forgetting A.R. Rahman and a few others.

This phase lasted almost 40 years now. Though their popularity is still intact, these artists are racing against their age. Replacements do not show strong fan following.

There was a time when movies used to celebrate Silver, Golden, and Platinum Jubilees in cinema halls with a large capacity of 500+ seats. This was the time when the film industry was shifting from reality to non-reality. Technology in films was gaining speed.

Today’s scenario is totally different. Movies are projected in small multiplex halls, and within a couple of weeks, they disappear to appear on Netflix.
The shift to multiplexes and Netflix has indeed killed the “communal” experience of Cinema. A movie is no longer a “festival” that last 25+ weeks. It is a product that is consumed and forgotten in few hours.

If we compare the ratio of successful films between Phase One and Phase Two, we find the former is leading.

Phase Three: This started from the year 2020. In these last five years, most of the films released and liked by audiences were technological films—fast and full of action. Many of them are fantasy,
impractical, and far from reality.

On a sad note, several “propaganda” films are being produced, creating friction not only among Bollywood artists but also among the masses by portraying fake information. Very recently, the released film “Dhurandhar” was banned in all Gulf Countries. Despite being controversial, the film is doing record-breaking collections in India.
Prior to this few more films like “Fighter” “Article 370” “The Kerala File” experienced the same fate.
It looks as if Bollywood is losing its credibility. Cinema is a medium where information—real or fake—gets easy entrance into the cinegoer’s mind. Unrealistic films are gaining ground in Bollywood. The question is: what will be the popularity of Bollywood in the coming future? Nature’s rule is that every beginning has an end. Is the end near or far?
That only time will tell.
It could also be so that Kollywood may surpass Bollywood. Films like “Bahubali 2”, “Pushpa 2”, “RRR” are clearer examples of dominance as these movies have began to achieve tremendous commercial success all over India.

On a lighter side, let’s fast forward our imagination. AI is one more step forward in technology. It should come as no surprise if a full-motion movie is made by the name “Amar Akbar Anthony 2” casting the late Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Dev Anand, and Suraiya.
Will that be a blockbuster? Maybe, maybe not. Gen Z has control over all
sorts of social media, and the bottom line is: “Reality is vanishing.”

A K BAGHA.