Why I love BolyWood Movies ?

  I love Hindi movies coming out of Mumbai.  Yes, in recent times they are being termed with a catch all phrase of Bolywood movies. I grew up in lower middle class Kolkata but with a very strict upbringing. In my childhood I hardly saw any movies except the occasional ones that I went with my mother.  My first movie was Rajesh Khanna’s ‘Hati Mere Sathi’ . I was a child then and till this day I remember the giant screen, the big elephants , the songs  and Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini running around trees and gardens.  Later after almost 8 to 9 years I saw another Hindi movie, Amitabh Bachhan starrer  ‘Shakti’ . I was in my early teens then, my hormones raging, life’s spirit storming through my mind and body. I loved the action, loved Amitabh’s style and glamour and I remember spending hours with my friends discussing and contemplating the various aspects of the movie.  I loved it.  Once again I stopped watching movies as other priorities like studies, sports captured all my time.  The next movie I saw was in my first year at Engineering School,  a different kind of a movie ,it  was called ‘Jukti Takko Gappo’ by Ritwik Ghatak. I was adult by then , and have learnt to think analytically. This movie shook me, I realized that movies has a lot into it, not just a glossy book cover but it is an art form . My interest in cinema grew, I became a film buff watching art house movies from all over the world.  In my intellectual pride and what today I call arrogance and foolishness I completely ignored Bolywood movies.  I used to dismiss them as low brow devoid of any purposeful content.

It was not until I was in Hyderabad that I chanced upon a the epic film ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jainge’ . This movie with its fantastic cinematography , Kajal’s innocence, Shah Rukh Khan expert ‘Nautanki’ stirred  me out of my prejudice. I walked out of the movie hall realizing that all these days I have been missing one of the greatest stream of movie making in the history of mankind.  By then Amitabh Bachhan’c peak was over , Shah Rukh Khan is transforming into a star, Karan Johar’s  glossy, melodious, middle-class epics for homegrown Indians and affluent expatriates were rising. I set myself the task of learning, understanding and absorbing these movies inch by inch. Starting with Rajesh Khanna starrer ( my earliest memory) to Amitabh Bachhan  to Shah Rukh Khan I started collecting and watching all their major works. As interest grew, I went back to the earlier classics of Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy,Raj Kapoor and even further back to the origins, tracing all the way to films of my times.  I felt complete. I felt that at last I got a feeling of what India is , the blood, guts , the sheer essence of Indian life or life itself.

Like a tapestry of post independence Indian consciousness these movies in many ways represented modern India itself.  Unlike the art house movies that came out from Satyajit Ray-Ritwik Ghatak-Mrinal Sen et all these movies were never a personal expression of the film director. It was a joint effort, collective expression and elaboration of artistic skill of everybody involved in the making of the film. They brought forward an idea, an idea painted with song and dance, colors, emotions, action, brightness and confidence.  The idea itself again is not individual opinion, rather the core of life and times of the Indian masses (the main audience) embellished with hope and spirit.  After watching one of these movies, I can assert that anybody will leave the theater with strong upbeat feeling.

Bolywood movies were successful, over and over again, because it was always the market that benchmarked them. Why will I not watch a movie where the hero ( the main protagonist of the film) rising out of my contemporary life sets out and achieves all that I ever dreamt of? It makes me feel good. It makes me think positive aspects of my life and makes me believe, even for the two hours, in a hope that the achievements of the hero can happen to my life also.  Hindi movies are and always have been about people very unlike the blockbuster Hollywood movies where the characters live in a somewhat rational framework.  Hindi movies are idiosyncratic, the character live their life in entropy just like our life itself. Yet the underlying narration has deep sense of continuity in time.  Yes the life portrayed in them are not a photograph of reality, the poverty, dirt and ferociousness of Indian life. The question is do we need to show that? Why will we go and see a movie with so much pain thrown at us when we ourselves live it day after day. We need to get out of it , even for a moment and splurge ourselves in hope and optimism. This is what Bolywood movies give us, the characters shown living in a reality like ours yet the pain of the reality on the screen is deliberately dulled out. The hero somehow gets over all the obstacles. …think about the recent hit ‘ Chennai Express’ of Shah Rukh Khan.  Yes they are cheesy, but that is the point of it. They have been made so. Shah Rukh Khan made the following statement in response to the cheesiness of some of his dance numbers:  "I make movies that must appeal to both the 5-year-old child and the 90-year-old grandma". I agree with him. Imagine Rajesh Khanna, Amitbah Bachhan or even earlier stars like Ashok Kumar, Raj Kapoor all of them had acquired and portrayed mannerism which will appeal to the widest possible audience. Yet these characteristics gestures were function of the time in which these stars operated.  Ashok Kumar or Raj Kapoor will not survive today nor will Shah Rukh Khan in their time.

No Bollywood film is complete without songs. In fact, each movie has around 4 to 5 songs, out of which just one hit song can alone make or break a film. These songs are not just in the back-ground, they throw at you the soul of the movie in beautiful lyrics and music.  This is another aspect which I love , the innovativeness, the boisterous optimism of the heart brings forth the real meaning of sheer joy. Truly, for all the hindi movies over the years, there are thousands of songs, for different moods and times, which can refresh and revitalize me immediately. Besides, some of these songs are also very well choreographed and shot with such brilliant cinematography that they, in those few minutes, portray a pure complete entertainment. Family entertainment I would say, I can watch these movies with my teenage daughter to the little baby and their grand ma. Another aspect is that almost 90% of hindi movie revolve around  tender romanticism and necessarily without any scenes of explicit love making. The rich girl/poor boy ( vice versa) plot for movies have been done million times by movie makers from all over the world, still no one does that better than Bolywood. The depth, the pathos, the angst , the melodrama and the eventual triumph of true love all packaged into an universal rainbow ..it just doesn’t get better than Bolywood.  The other fundamental aspect of these movies that I like are the necessity of triumph of the hero over villain and social message embedded in the movies. True, I would not expect the villans of today’s movies to be like the comic character of Mugambo of ‘Mr India’ ( though for some reason I found that the age group of 7 to 10 who live in make believe world love this movie) it will be much sophisticated colored with ambivalence  like in ‘ Rajneeti’ or bawdy and rough like in Dabaang. Like the heroism evolved from Ashok Kumar to Shah Rukh Khan so did the villainy, but the basic premise of the triumph of heroism over villainy remains. I think that through this truism comes out another aspect of these movies, the social message. The uncharacteristic value system of Salman Khan a police inspector in Dabang suggests a different approach, but keeping with modern times, to fight for the truth. So are the complex thread and intricacies of Rajneeti , a distilled version of Mahabharata. Another enchanting aspect of these movies are its spirit, the sense of society, its characters, their social consciousness. Immediately after independence, the post colonial India had remnants of  babu culture dominating the value system which was properly reflected in the Hindi movies at that time. ‘Mother India’ broke free and almost singlehandedly defined the sense of what is India, its passion, its belief and dedication.  As society evolved we get another set of movies celebrating the freedom like a fresh breath of air.  Rajesh Khanna’s Anand or the great song sequence of ‘Ye Dosti’ in  the movie Sholay told us that  this is freedom come celebrate with us. Slowly as we learned to govern ourselves lurching sideways, forward and all over the place we missed industrialization leaving the society into the hands of criminals, smugglers and unemployment. Hindi movies reacted with the angry young man, Amitabh Bachhan, a hero who could break all the barriers and bring new order. Then came the economic liberalization and with it came Shah Rukh Khan, the smart young man who will go at any lengths, though keeping faith in a truthful (Hindustani) value system, to achieve what he wants. I think that what made these films astonishing is the mix of people involved in the creative process of making them. People from all over India the Bengali, the south Indian, the Muslim poet flocked to Mumbai to contribute and make a living. The diversity of the movies reflects the diversity of its people collaborating to make them. That is true India. That is what I like and love.