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Lifestyle
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MUMBAI’S DREAM FACTORY
THE BOLLYWOOD GENE
Tareque Laskar traces the umbilical connection between Bollywood and Bombay...
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 Amitabh Bachchan or even Shah Rukh Khan – you can trace vestiges of his aura. The decade of the 60s couldn’t escape the worldwide trend of a throwback to a romantic era (remember The Beatles and the hippies?) and Bollywood reflected the same with films like “Guide” (Vijay Anand’s magnum opus). The intervening years of the two decades though belonged to the tragic and stark realism of Guru Dutt, a man whose films (“Pyaasa” prime among them) were way ahead of their time. Music became the signature of this era and as filmaker Ravi Chopra puts it “Music became really important from 60s onwards. Even if the movie wasn’t very good, the music made it popular.” It was also an era of self realisation and social upheavel, a mood well captured by Manoj Kumar’s “Upkaar” and Chetan Anand’s moving war saga “Haqeeqat”. The 70s saw the emergence of the ‘angry young man’, crystallised in the image of Amitabh Bachchan in “Zanjeer”, one identifiable by a nation in turmoil. But it was a multi-starrrer released in 1975 that became a one stop showcase of cinema and story telling in Bollywood. Ramesh Sippy’s “Sholay” not only had a star-studded cast, it was perhaps the first time the villain received a billing at par with the heroes. Amjad Khan’s portrayal of Gabbar Singh was a performance for the ages and “Sholay’s” box office stint broke all records. Hindi films had known commercial success before, but “Sholay” was a game changer that rewrote the rule book on budgets, production and effectively the entire industry. What followed were a league of intrepid producers not afraid to gamble with big budgets and bigger stars and the entire country had found a thrilling pastime – the three hour movie escape that had it all. Points out Ravi Chopra, “In this period, good directors like Yash Chopra, Raj Khosla and Shakti Samanta made family oriented films which did very well.” Directors like Subhash Ghai picked the mantle in the 80s which saw the emergence of many more stars and the true democratisation of what (notwithstanding the successes of ‘outsiders’ like a Bachchan or a Dharmendra) was often seen as a dynastic milieu had begun.
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 Fresh faces in front as well as behind the camera saw a decade of expirementation in all forms, with films like “Roja” on one hand and “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” on the other. It also was the decade that the nefarious Bollywood-Underworld link was exposed, and the underworld became inseperably intertwined in the Bollywood plot both on and off the screen. On the brighter side, an Oscar nomination for Aamir Khan and Ashutosh Gowariker’s “Lagaan” was the tipping point that embedded Bollywood in the international psyche. Actor Kabir Bedi believes, “Internationally, brand Bollywood is more recognised now and respected. Today, it stands by itself and people no more question – why songs in the middle of movies!” The film industry still remains the launch pad for thousands of hopefuls and their millions of dreams – whether it is an independent film maker or a wannabe starlet. Says Ravi Chopra, “Bombay – everyone loves the charm of it. Especially in the early days it was the place where people came and realised their dreams. We are dream merchants and this was the place where dreams can be realised.” The city itself has remained a dramatic backdrop for many a movie.” The portrayal of the city on the silver screen has changed says Kabir Bedi because “the older Johnny Walker kind of films were about fantasy stories but the gritty realism in the modern films has given a far more grim kind of picture to Bombay, especially all the films made on the underworld.” Says Muzaffar Ali, the maker of the highly acclaimed “Umraao Jaan”, “Bombay has grown from being a poet’s inspiration to a gangster’s den. It has evolved from a romantic metropolis to a don’s paradise. Bombay is Bollywood’s muse, now gone out of the hands of the poets to the hands of the angry young, the smuggler and now the terrorist.” He will doubtless identify with that Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt song from CID that captured the spirit of the city and the film industry it nurtures. Like the city, its lyrics remains timeless: “Zara Hatke, Zara Bachke, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan!”
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With inputs from Swati Hora
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