Is Bollywood Losing its Old Appeal?

Nepotism and discrimination in terms of selection of actors, music directors and also technical personnel and the alleged dominance of the underworld in matters of plot selection are becoming visible black spots for Bollywood. Also allegedly a coterie of producers and directors are denying opportunities to new comers and this has indeed translated to a dearth of fresh striking talent. 

Things are not going too well for Bollywood for quite sometime now. Firstly, the Hindi film industry is now fraught with severe competition from the South Indian film industry. Moreover, the reputation of Bollywood in recent years has been tarnished with the alleged involvement of many actors, producers and directors with illicit drugs. Drug use and drug trade –both these nefarious turfs have witnessed scandals involving the industry biggies and aspirants.

Also the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput, a young and talented actor, still remains unsolved. Although it has been declared that the actor had committed suicide, many still suspect that he was murdered. It is a clear and open secret that South Indian actors like Prabhas, Allu Arjun and Mahesh Babu have the talent and screen appeal to give the long reigning male stars of Bollywood some stiff and perhaps unprecedented competition.

With relatively greater viewership of the South Productions, their young actors are likely to give the middle aged actors of Bollywood a run for their money in the near future. There has been an increasing popularity of movies dubbed into Hindi from Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. The kinds of Karan Johar who believe more in star value in a film rather than overall substance too appear to be in a vulnerable state.

It is interesting to see how in the year 2017 a film named Bahubali 2 made in Tamil and Telugu had clocked a record of sorts at the box office by outdoing most Bollywood blockbusters. This trend is still on and infact is now turning more intense than before with films like KGF, RRR, Valimai to mention few of them.

Nepotism and discrimination in terms of selection of actors, music directors and also technical personnel and the alleged dominance of the underworld in matters of plot selection are becoming visible black spots for Bollywood. Also allegedly a coterie of producers and directors are denying opportunities to new comers and this has indeed translated to a dearth of fresh striking talent .

Lack of originality is now becoming one very conspicuous aspect of the Hindi film industry. Be it story, screenplay or music, instead of originality imitations are scoring and trending in recent years.

Bollywood, the largest film industry of the sub continent is more than one hundred years old and from the days of Dada Saheb Phalke to present day Karan Johar it has witnessed a slew of social and political events. The industry also survived the uncertain days of the First World War and the turbulent pre- independence period and essentially scaled its pinnacle of glory during the period from 1950s to the late 1980s. In the eighties it partially lost out to the ascendency of television when regulations over expansion of television networks were waived off and new networks made their inroads in overwhelming numbers.

There were days when films made in the tinsel town of erstwhile Bombay had storylines and music that left indelible impressions on the minds of viewers. Mehboob Khan's Mother India , Raj Kapoor 's Sri 420, Dev Anand and Vijay Anand's Guide as random picks were films that can claim of substance and an inherent message. However, most recent films are bereft of this kind of social messaging and influence .

The period between the seventies and late nineties saw the advent of new stars and superstars in Bollywood. Rajesh Khanna ruled the silver screen like none before and a new concept of stardom was established through him. Next came Amitabh Bachchan who alleviated the concept of stardom and called himself a megastar. However, as the Industry started getting dominated with the star system it started losing its altruistic essence. Stories were written to bolster the image of particular actors only.

The recently released film The Kashmir Files however is a silver lining to the considerably gloomy skyline of Bollywood with its phenomenal success. The truth however is that the film that has made a record of sorts at box office is neither a truly mainstream product of Bollywood nor is it a conventional film dominated by the star system syndrome. One would do well to leave this one particular film as a purely and solely exceptional one - a film that resides at a distance too far from the present Bollywood culture .

Bhaskar Phukan

The writer is an author, columnist and freelance journalist writing in Assamese and English since 1985

He can be reached at bhaskarphukan67@gmail.com

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