BOLLYWOOD ECSTASY

Cinema has always been a medium where everything is possible, free from all constraints and crushing realities of our everyday life. Since it’s inception in 1913, Bollywood, a contraction derived from Bombay and Hollywood, has been the most successful face of popular Indian cinema.

Bollywood churns out around one-third of the total films produced by the Indian film industry which is nearly 900 films per year. That's approximately thrice the number of feature films produced in the United States. According to statistics, fourteen million Indians visit the theatres on a daily basis which accounts to about 1.4% of the population of a billion and pay the equivalent of an average Indian's day's wages (US $1-3).

The movies are usually a concoction of songs and dances, love triangles, comedy and dare-devil thrills all wrapped-up into a three-hour-long extravaganza with an intermission. This poularity can be ascribed to the aspirations of a vast majority of the audience, who seek to be transported to another world. Apart from the obvious entertainment value, they seek a world, where some, if not all of their dreams can come true. A release, even if for a few hours, from the boredom and struggles of everyday life.

A direct result of such popularity has been the inevitable elevation of the actors to the status of living gods. Such is their star status that they successfully break all barriers of local languages and regional boundaries of a diverse nation, to become instantly identifiable national icons.

Behind this phenomenal number of productions, what remains unseen and often unheard, are the efforts of thousands of professionals behind the scenes. Among these thousands are also those aspiring actors who land in Bombay searching for the single break that could catapult them to unimaginable fame and riches.

In recent times, a large Indian diaspora in English speaking countries, and increased Western influence at home, have nudged Bollywood films closer to Hollywood models in terms of form, technology as well as production techniques. Besides a purely entertainment point of view, Bollywood has also delivered many path breaking films that are based on criticsm of societal practices, politics etc. and as such used to spread messages of social change and awareness.

While from a Western point of view, Bollywood, with all its improbable tales of fantasy,colours and music, presents a vignette of Indian culture, it is wrongly misunderstood to represent fact while in reality all that the majority of the audience can afford is just a dream. The Bollywood dream.