08 Wednesday, January 26, 2011 09Wednesday, January 26, 2011

In tune with changing times

Hindi cinema,the Khan way

STORY GOES FOR A TOSS INBOLLYWOOD GLOSS

FALAK KABIR

IF all goes well, Bollywood’s super Khanscould leave a lasting imprint on the USand the European markets this winter.

And guess who is leading the charge? Noneother than the Don himself!

The Indian film industry is heavily bank-ing on Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra One and Don 2

to infiltrate into Hollywood territory. Theother super Khan, Aamir, has alreadyunleashed his Mumbai Diaries orDhobi Ghat thismonth. As reports

suggest, ShahRukh’s Don 2 is slat-

ed for a simultaneousrelease with Tom Cruise’sMission Impossible 4 andnow it remains to be seenwhether King Khan’sdaredevilry will turnout as‘mission success or suici-dal’.

It’s true that Bollywoodhas made efforts to getnoticed in Hollywood ear-lier, in fits and starts. But,never before in its exis-tence has the Indian filmindustry been so close tothrow a challenge toHollywood. A lot rests onone of the prominent suc-cess pillars of Bollywood—the Khans - Shah Rukh,Aamir and Salman. Thescripts and directors theydecide to associate with inthe future will be the key.

KHAN-O-METERThe credit must go to the Khans for their 20

years of longevity in the filmdom. Over theyears the larger than life troika of Khans hasaccumulated enough firepower, picking upflamboyant titles on their way. Shah Rukh(SRK) is called the King Khan for his mediasavvy and indomitable image.

Aamir is known as the perfectionist for hismeticulous take on films and immaculaterecord at the box office. Salman or ‘Sallu Bhai’is called the big ‘bad boy’ and ‘sexy Khan’ for hisrebellious and glamorous looks.

Also, the real-like contribution of reel-like

characters, ‘Prem’, ‘Raj’, ‘Munna’, ‘Rahul’,‘Bhuvan’ and the recent ‘Chulbul Pandey’, hasboosted their image beyond the Indian sub-continent. The industry, without doubt, is cur-rently flooded with pools of talents and super-stars, but the three Khans have indeed addedthe same kind of colour to the Indian bigscreen which probably the troika of TomCruise, Brad Pitt or George Clooney has doneto Hollywood.

The three superstars, through sheer hardwork, talent and energy, not only boast of beingthe power centres of Bollywood today but have

also given enough reasonfor fans and their friends inthe industry to love them.Talks of American andBritish filmmakers doingmovies with Shah Rukhand Aamir are all over theindustry every now andthen.

After years of dominanceat the box office, the Khansupremacy remainsunabated. If 2009belonged to Aamir for 3Idiots, 2010 belonged toSRK and Salman for MyName Is Khan andDabangg respectively.And 2011 would probablybe no different. Withmajor releases like Ra One,Don 2, Ready and MyLove Story on offer andover US$800 million rid-ing on their shoulders, theKhan trilogy is only gettingbigger and the expansionof their ‘kingdom’ moreglobal.

How and when Bollywood will threaten torise to Hollywood heights, and how muchimpact the three Khans can make in this expan-sive endeavour are the open-ended questions.

As the Khans are trying to grab Hollywoodterritory, musician AR Rahman, also known as‘the Mozart of Madras’, has already put hisimprint on Hollywood with his music forAcademy Award-winning film SlumdogMillionaire.

But one thing is patently clear, this will onlybe the beginning, as SRK himself puts it aptly inone of his films, “The real picture is still a longway off my friends!”

The Khans havebeen the

undisputed sultansof Bollywood. Will

they enact a similar script in

Hollywood?

AMIT NEWTON

THERE ARE threemajor trends thathave helped shape

Bollywood music in the lasttwo decades: Technology(the media boom, theInternet and mobilephones), Hollywood andother western influences(Tata Young crooning andgrooving to Dhoom Dhoomin Dhoom), and a revival ofsorts of indigenous music(sufi, ghazals).

As an offshoot of all-per-vasive influence of technolo-gy, Hindi film music hasspawned phenomena suchas item numbers andHinglish: a mish-mash ofHindi-English lyrics.

Interestingly, even thetrend of Hindi-English lyricsdictating the agenda finds itsroots in the technological

revolution. The trend gainedprominence with the musicgroup Bombay Vikings,which was started by NeerajShridhar in Sweden.Bombay Vikings caused asensation both in India aswell as overseas among theIndian music communitydue to its unusual combina-tion of classical Bollywood

style with a dash of Englishlyrics.

Meanwhile, good oldRock music has also hadits day to telling effecton Bollywood music.Proponents that come tomind are the music-

composer trio ofShankar-Ehsan-

Loy (of Rock Onfame) andP r i t a mChakraborty(Life in aM e t r o ) .

Both composers have putsoulful ballads and head-banging rhythms to tunewith equal ease.

Tuned into the times asthey are, music directors arenot afraid to experimentwith genres popular theworld over. Thus, it is notuncommon to find generousvibes of house, club, rap andhip-hop in Bollywood songsof the 2000s.

Sufi mysticism too caughtthe imagination of theIndian audiences and heldthem enthralled. The creditfor popularising Sufi songsin India goes to KailashKher. Singing Allah kebande (You man of God)from the film, Waisa BhiHota Hai (It happens likethat too) in hisSpringsteenish timbre, heentered many a heart andhas stayed there. Regularlyhe throws up a number thatone must listen, appreciateand absorb. One such num-ber is Teri Diwaani (Madabout you) from his albumKailasa.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan,Pakistani great late UstadNusrat Fateh Ali Khan’snephew, is another singerwho has capitalisedimmensely on the footholdhe got into Bollywood.With a style similar to hismore celebrated uncle butthe quality of voice richer,

he has all it takes to makean impression. One onlyneeds to listen to Tu najaane aas-paas haikhuda (You don’t knowbut God is here) to con-cur.

When 24-hour musicchannels beamed downexplicit videos into familydrawing rooms, alsocame in a certain permis-siveness in perceptions,one that only continues togrow. That open-minded-ness generated the trendof item numbers, featur-ing a new avatar of thevamp in revealing clothes(remember Helen?) pout-ing to titilating rhythms, ifyou will. What the media

boom did then, was to give alicence to be even more

scantily dressed, and togyrate even more suggestive-ly or so thought music direc-tors and choreographers.One would distinctly remem-ber the rage of the age, Cholike peeche kya hai from thefilm Khalnayak.

After that almost everyfilm carried an item numberand it was not just thewannabies that these songswere filmed on. There is abevy of Bollywood beautieswho have performed itemnumbers. The rage contin-ues and today it is the turn ofthe two lasses from theHindi heartland: Munni andSheila. Malaika Arora Khanin Dabangg as Munni andKatrina Kaif as Sheila inTees Maar Khan, collective-ly hold the imagination of anentire people and itsDiaspora to ransom.

With the Hinglish trendsetting in, lyricists under-stood, or were made tounderstand the new trendand so, came up songs likeEmotional Atyachaar’(Emotional torture) fromthe film Dev D and Humkapeeni hai (I want to drink)from Dabangg. If popularityis a measure of success, thesongs were right up therewith the audiences. Thenthere was no less thanAustralian superstar KylieMinogue crooning I wannajiggy-wiggy with you, boyin the film Blue.

Drawing inspiration andborrowing ideas from out-side cannot be scoffed at inmusic and arts. InBollywood, however, theWest is wildly aped, whilethe richness of our own cul-tural heritage is pushedback. Isn’t it why the fewexperiments with fusionmusic have largely goneunnoticed or have failed?The need of the hour is aproper marriage of the twoand better marketing strate-gies, to further the interestsof Indian music.

The horizon ahead is lit bycreative talent but the onusfor a better day lies on twofactors: the lyricist and themusic director.

In Gulzaar (Jai ho) andJaved Akhtar (Baawre) wehave the two best lyricists inBollywood. While theymight not be ready to passon the torch yet, fresh bloodlike Neelesh Mishra (OnceUpon a time in Mumbai) isinfusing vigour into lyrics.

With music makers likeAR Rahman (Jai ho),Pritam Chakraborty (Peeloon from Once upon atime in Mumbai), VishalDadlani and ShekharRavjiani (Jab mila tu fromthe film I hate luv storys),good music is sure to keepcoming our way.

RAJESH MISHRA

RENOWNED Bollywood thespian DilipKumar had once said that a good storywas a must for a good film and hadregretted its absence in an averageBollywood movie.

However, his comment failed to move filmmakers ofthat time as a majority of them believed that a film’ssuccess depended more on the star cast than on thestory. The less imaginative filmmakers ignored filmslike Mother India, Ganga Jamuna, Pakeezah andGuide, which were commercially successful and yet leftan indelible mark on viewers’ minds.

This popular belief led to churning out of scores ofsubstandard movies year after year. Many of themdespite being successful at the box office are hardlyremembered today because of their triviality. Most ofthe big names in Bollywood including superstarsAmitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and even theselective Aamir Khan have acted in many such movies,which failed to leave an imprint on viewers’ minds.

Amitabh Bachchan’s Coolie or Mard; Shah RukhKhan’s Anjaam and Aamir Khan’s Mela fall pre-cisely into this category of films. The films are fullof melodramatic details and project larger than lifeimages of the protagonists. Such movies had sto-ries, but were too simplistic. The stories were onpredictable lines like separated twins, who areunited after a final showdown with villains or the

struggle of lovers from two warring families.However, even when the drought of good story-

based films was at its peak in the ’70s and ’80s, therewas one band of filmmakers led by HrishikeshMukherjee and Basu Chatterjee, who made mean-ingful movies with beautiful storyline. These film-makers made light of the situation surrounding acommon man. Films like Hrishikesh Mukherjee’sBawarchi or Basu Chatterjee’s Rajni Gandha areclassic examples of such movies.

Parallel cinema as an alternative to mainstreamcommercial cinema emerged in the late ’70s and wasspearheaded by filmmakers like Shyam Benegal,Govind Nihlani and Gautam Ghosh. Parallel cinemacan be credited with not creating stars but great actorslike Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapoor,Smita Patil and Shabana Azami.

The paral-lel cinemas are known for its serious content, realismand naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopoliticalclimate of the times. However, it goes without sayingthat such films were only appreciated by the classesand not the masses.

Filmmakers of late have realised the importance ofstories in films, though the hard way. Today merepresence of a superstar cannot ensure the success of afilm unless there is a strong story to back it. The failureof much-hyped Farah Khan’s big budget Tees MaarKhan bears testimony to this. The film crashed despitethe presence of stars like Akshay Kumar, AkshayKhanna and Katrina Kaif.

There are exceptions as well. Swadesh of Shah RukhKhan, which despite having all the ingredients of agood movie did not fare well at the box office andSalman Khan’s Dabangg, which despite having noth-ing but plenty of farcical humour, was a bumper hit.However, critics would not disagree that Shah RukhKhan gave one of his best performances in the film.The film presented him realistically, sans his KingKhan glamour, in a rural atmosphere reminding us ofHrishikesh Mukherjee’s healthy household moviessuch as Golmal or Bawarchi.

Onthe con-

trary, the mem-ory of Dabangg,

despite being so recent, has alreadystarted to fade.

Same is the case with Amitabh Bachchan, who gaveone of his best acting performances as a jaggery sellerin Saudagar or Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s NamakHaram than in many of his mega hits such as Suhagor Mahan.

And Aamir Khan is simply fascinating in TaareZameen Par in which he portrays an innovativeteacher.

Aamir Khan’s contribution to the making of healthymovies in recent times is remarkable. His recent filmsPeepli Live and Dhobi Ghat reassert that a film doesnot need to have magnificent sets, handsome andimposing heroes and beautiful heroines for its success.The success of his low-budget films like Peepli Liveand Dhobi Ghat reiterate the importance of story in afilm. Similarly, Raj Kumar Hirani’s contribution to themaking of issue-based healthy movies is really com-mendable. His films Munna Bhai MBBS or ThreeIdiots convey a strong message.

The genuine attempts made by some mainstreamcinema makers to work on good stories show us lightat end of tunnel and signal the arrival of more seriousfilmmakers on the scene in future.

Bollywood isthe largest film producer in India and oneof the largest centres offilm production in theworld. However, quality hasgone a backstage here withfilmmakers compromisingon storyline

Malaika Arora Khan in the film Dabangg.

Deepika Padukone

AmitabhBachchan

Aishwarya Rai

From left: Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan.

Katrina Kaif in the film Tees Maar Khan.