Bombay Talkies

The Indian Cinema certainly has come a long way through by growing in itself and letting people related to its different fields to hone their skill as well. No one would have ever thought that once considered a menial job will eventually turn into a job which people will wish for to have. Earlier people used to pursue acting career when they used to think that they are not worth doing anything else or they had some kind of urgency in their family so in order to meet up with the needs they used to get all histrionic, i'm not saying that people were not interested in dramatics then, there were people who used to eat, sleep and breathe acting but majority in the industry used to fall into the former category of people. Even those who were acting buffs, were compelled by their families to do something else for their livelihood as this was considered highly ignominious. There were, in fact, are many regional cinematic groups but which raise to most prominence is the Hindi Film industry or famously known as the Bollywood which is a portmanteau. 

Well, anyhow the hindi cinema came into existence, it certainly changed the way of entertainment for Indians. Its larger than life portrayal of the common indian men on celluloid touched the heart and minds of millions of its audiences which undoubtedly garnered accolades to the industry as well as to the performers. People were so enthralled by the cinema that they started imitating the characters, their gait, their dance moves and many other things at their homes or even at public events. The whole Indian fashion trend started getting influenced by the movies, as people demanded the clothes which their favourite actors have worn, so it had a gargantuan effect. People started christening their children by the names used in movies or names of their favourite actors, well what else should i need to mention to show that people were all agog by celebrities, they use to queue up in hundreds and thousands just to get a glimpse of their hero. By this mentioning of the word "Hero" i would like to elaborate that the word which actually has a complete different meaning than its usage in India, where people simply use it as an alternate word for  actor, which is used so, is also completely understandable because of all the heroic activities which a hero need to do in a movie from fighting with villains, to romancing with the "It Girl" of the movie, to singing and dancing with her, well last two are certainly not heroic but these are one of the chores to be performed by an Indian actor. People simply idolise this creative milieu, leaving all rationality behind and thereby it has become a social obligation for the artists to be next to perfect in whatever they do otherwise it could and certainly would hamper there lionised persona.

The year 2013 marked as the centennial year of Indian hindi cinema and there were several films made to commemorate the occasion. By seeing these films whether be old or new and interviews of the stars from all these decades who dedicated their entire life just to the industry you certainly get adumbrated by the fact that industry which started from scratch has now become a multi million dollar business and it indeed has been the result of all the hard work and perseverance of so many people who were involved throughout these years. Now, movies earn in millions and billions of rupees creating new definitions of a successful movie, like, 3 Idiots is the highest grossing movie of all time earning a total of Rs 392 crores, some others on lower rungs are Chennai Express, Ek Tha Tiger, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and many others.

This industry has given birth to many popular actors as well, in order of their presence on the silver screen are like Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bacchan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Ranbir Kapoor and many more actually there are so many that it will take me a week or maybe more to jot down all the names, now turning to the dream girls of the indian cinema to name a few would be Madhubala, Nargis, Vyjayanthimala, Rekha, Hema Malini, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and many others whom people blindly follow.

The movie buffs also admire one more thing which got very hip in the culture were the movie posters. The movie posters were an essential part as well because apart from the cast and crew of the movie these were trusted to be the crowd pullers. Some posters which went viral were of the movies like Mughal-E-Aazam, Deewar, Zanjeer, Don and others which can be to some extent credited for the success of their respective movies.

Well, now posters are usually not used on that great scale, as now much of the publicity is done through the visual media like internet and television. So, it would be apt to say that the stars have somewhat lost their sheen now to an extent due to the audiences getting jaded by their presence on television shows, advertisements, on social media and on other such platforms concerning mass media. Earlier there used to be a certain kind of enigma attached with each star as they didn't used to be that accessible, people also had scarce resources to get intel about celebrities like through magazines and radio. But with the development of media whether electronic or print and the growing rivalry amongst them, have overwhelmed the audiences with informations which have mostly been proven tangential and has thus reduced audiences interest.

The whole century long odyssey of the hindi cinema has been segmented into decades and each decade marks its presence with signature movies, posters, dialogues, actors. Each decade has distinct type of movies which had different issues to depict according to the audiences they catered to. Well, nowadays movies are made which are though more lucid in their way of presentation but the basic elements of a good movie being its storyline, screenplay, editing even good music has supposedly taken a back seat. Nowadays, what works is gimmicky neither people are that much enthusiastic nor the industry people themselves and this remiss on the latter front has led audiences to shift towards Hollywood where still some good movies are made which are "watchable", i'm not saying that Bollywood movies are no good but the quantity of good movies is a handful or might be even less. Indian directors need to comprehend the ever varying tastes of viewers and work upon it, they need to add some sense to their movies instead of letting profanity and lewd language to intrude. It's not just the sex or item songs which people feel like seeing, now their need to be a strong storyline which have to act as backbone of the film. With the mushrooming internet channels, sex videos and pornography already flush these channels and with their accessibility they also have an equivalent reach if not wider than the former. People watch movies in their leisure times and want such cinema which can serve their need of spending a good family time without people getting awkward throughout the movie.

It is true that movies are meant for entertainment and need to cover a large volume of audiences but a middle way need to be found out without being either too perverted or too bland. There are different movies made for different group of people whether the group either being differentiated on the grounds  of age or taste for movies but only making non sensical flicks just to get the cash registers ringing at the box office is highly contemptible. I would like to request industry people on my part to please get some senses and start making movies which really have substance and stop plagiarism as the viewers have become very smart, so it is difficult to get them hoaxed now. Well, against all the odds indian cinema has grown by leaps and bounds and hope to grow at the same pace and keep on entertaining and enthralling people through its world of imaginations and reality.

PS:- 3 Idiots the highest grossing movie of Indian Cinema and one of my favorites too. I hope everyone would have seen it, if not then go grab a dvd or watch it here ..