Entertainment : Sold Out

So yes, It began in the year 1913 and it’s still the most common way of providing entertainment to the audience around. Oh well, do I give out an impression of discussing and explaining a history chapter? I am afraid that I might be disappointing you and with all due respect to history lovers, it’s a No.  When Indians come to think of entertainment, majority of the people would rush to gather a bucket full of butter popcorn  or ‘shingdaana’ or ‘time–pass’ a la potato chips and relax ;  catching up on the latest blockbuster. Yes, we talk about Hindi Cinema aka Bollywood today.

Watching a movie, during a few decades back was all about a family get together - enjoying, whistling, clapping on action scenes, throwing chawanni on the screen when the hero came out as a winner. It was all about Amitabh Bachchan’s action movie, the tragedy king Rajendra Kumar, Rajesh Khanna’s  charming style of romancing with his heroines and Mithun Da’s Disco steps and Helen’s gorgeous moves, Hema Malini as the Dream Girl, Asha Parek’s experimentation with the choice of roles to mention a few. Movies were so much about the acting skills of the actors and the unsurpassed beauty of the actresses. The dialogues and the scripts are recalled and appreciated even in today’s time. How can one forget the memorable dialogues like “Inn kutto ke samney matt nachna” or “Kitney aadmi thhe” or “rishtey mein toh hum tumhare baap lagtey hai, naam hai shehensha”. Also,  who can forget Mr. Mogambo or Crime Master Gogo and the very famous, Gabbar? The movie, actor, actress, costume, songs, villain, vamps , dialogues, to sum up ,just about everything in the movies then were so well described and intricately defined.

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Let’s just forward the time a little, well, the check list goes somewhat like this – Actor, Actress, Action scenes, Item number, masala songs, big budget. About the movie script and the acting skill – Let’s just leave it here, depth analysis might just spoil the fun.
No doubt that the actors are loved for the performance of the action scenes, dancing on the foot tapping tracks, showing off their six-pack abs. Only the acting and the script remain a question  mark in today’s big budgeted cinemas. It’s a race among the Khans to reach the big hundred crore target. The rest of the elements take a back seat.

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I am not an accredited critique to criticize the changing trends in the Bollywood Cinema because no matter how much we say that acting skills have gone far away, the actors make a serious attempt  to sell and their confidence sells too.  After all, nobody minds two hours thirty minutes of complete entertainment be it Shahrukh’s romancing, Salman’s dialogue delivery or Akshay Kumar’s comic sense. Nobody refuses to shake a leg on songs like “Chammak Challo” or “Fevicol”. It’s an evolution in the Bollywood cinemas which is undoubtedly appreciated and accepted by the audience irrespective of whether  the scenes are even remotely close to reality. Very rightly said, Jo dikhta hai, who bikta hai…and hence, the story continues.

Picture Courtesy : Google