In his recent trip to India, the Russian President Dimitri Medvedev took time-off to meet the bigwigs in Bollywood and called for a closer co-operation between Russia and Bollywood. Sharing the podium with Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, President Medvedev even expressed his admiration for Bollywood song and dances. Last November, U.S President Barack Obama too came to Mumbai which has resulted in more joint-ventures between Hollywood and Bollywood.
While the local-media went ga-ga over this wooing of Bollywood by world leaders, the average movie-goer appears to be less enthusiastic. They are wondering how these joint-ventures could bring any visible change in the quality of Bollywood pot-boilers. They are already sick and tired of the 'escapist-entertainment' churned out by Bollywood. For a record, all the much hyped big-banner movies of the previous year - despite their agressive publicity campaign - have flopped. On the other hand, small-budget indie-movies, which deals with real life issues - targeting the middle-class/multiplex crowd - have done brisk business.
In any case , it's a wise move by President Medvedev to court superstar Shahrukh Khan - Bollywood's most talented and popular actors. He is an original actor with a solid theatre-background ( like most Hollywood actors) which enabled him to develop his own style, technique and confidence. Shahrukh Khan is also one of the few actors of Bollywood who is not part of any star-dynasty. But he also made his debut long ago (in the early 90s) much before the star-dynasties began to monopolise the film-industry. In the past decade (2000s), many original and talented actors like Shahrukh Khan have made their debut and where are they now ? Despite winning popular and critical acclaim, these newcomers have vanished (or banished ?) without a trace. In contrast, the good-for-nothing star-kids - in spite of their repeated failure and incompetence - are still clinging to their inherited 'stardom'. As a critique has put it, Bollywood have long ceased to be a film-making industry - infact it's now a 'star-producing' industry !
Once upon a time in Russia (and also in China and other parts of the world), Bollywood movies - or Hindi movies as it is then known - were very popular, thanks to the pioneering efforts of stalwarts like Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Mehboob Khan, V.Shantaram, Kamal Amrohi, Bimal Roy etc. Their classics besides entertaining, also dealt with the issues concerning the masses. The current Bollywood , living in their 'castles' have not only lost touch with the common man, they now started looking down upon them. Most Bollywood movies now are either poor parody of earlier classics or a scene-to-scene, shot-to-shot copy of major Hollywood movies.
The present decadent state of Bollywood - with its 'Kings','queens' and 'king-makers'- resembles the Tsarist Russia of 19th century. It's indeed a shame that the largest film-industry in the largest democracy still functions like a bunch of medieval artisants - closely guarding their trade .The scribes of local-media (esp. the beneficiaries of a corrupted system) may claim the contrary, with phrases like - 'this is the most exciting times in the history of our film-industry'. But the average movie-goer cannot be kept under dark for long.
Unless merit and creativity is not given its due recognition, all the boasting and bragging about 'Bollywood becoming the next Hollywood' will always remain a day-dream.
