Bollywood - The Frankenstinian Monster

I have never been diplomatic or forgiving enough to conceal my impatience with Bollywood. The name in itself should beget a grimace from reasonable persons. A “B” grade imitation of something “gora", that begins with an H. If only, replacing a letter could truly create a “new", original idiom. Alas! it can never be. Did no one in this alleged “industry” read Mary Shelley as mandatory tuition while growing up? Evidently not, or else half a billion would have recognized and shunned this monster - patched together from the remains of other beautiful bodies. The result, as Victor realized to his despair, of cobbling eyes, ears and organs from buried resources, can never create a singular object beautiful enough to behold. Not even if one can muster up enough heart to truly love it. Or unless you are an old, blind flute player.

I am often chastised for my utter disregard for this “genre” of “film-making".(yeah, right!). And sometimes subjected to it in various doses - the so called “top of the heap". (Names like Eklavya, OSO, Aamir Khan etc. are used to reason with me). I sometimes choose the three hour torture over the ordeal of a two day argument, and bear it as one does the proverbial dentists chair - trying to find distraction in the form of buxom nurses. As I know, it does not happen. There are no buxom nurses at any dentist’s and neither are there any real reasons to watch a Bollywood film.

Bollywood, is like the one and same monstrous creation of young Frankenstien, seen under different, neon lights. A hotch-potch concoction of ideas and original works of others, stitched together by songs that are either lifted blatantly or are as complex in their harmonic progression as “Doe a deer". The cleverness of the manner in which the body parts have been stolen, is remarkable though. Mozart, Kurasawa, La Traviata. Often the sources are the types that very few “aam admis” can get their hands upon. That explains the halos. That explains the worship. That explains our ability as a nation to applaud plagiarists, who masquerade as “creative” people.

I have oft been accused of being too harsh with this opinion. I am told that there are, after all, only so many story lines. Only 13 notes. There is bound to be some repetition (not copying!). Of course, there will be. But ask Schubert to make a melody in C, and then Mozart. And bet that the tunes will have nothing to do with each other. Similarly with storylines. The same elements can give us an odyssey or ramayana. My issue is with Bollywood not admitting the true sources, and humbly accepting that they make a duplicate copy (not adaptation) of other creative people. That is the biggest trick that Bollywood has pulled. To make a nation believe that its doyens are a more than addicts of decadent stardom, with little regard for integrity. And definitely no concept of art. No wonder, Bollywood gets angry when called Bollywood. A word invented to abuse itself.

No wonder I cringe everytime I see another Bollywoodian enterprise (its commercial success can take a hike). It sincerely reminds me of Frankenstien’s monster. Except that Mary Shelly had put some soul and intelligence into that poor creature. And he looked less hideous than what our land dishes out every Friday. The person in the seat next to me, has no idea, though. Who reads good books and sees real cinema, anyways?

Wait! the person in the seat next to me, is just another stitched up monster. Made up of an incomplete British upbringing and faded Sanskrit roots. Agrarian grounding, and capitalist temptations. Unlimited time to while away, and less than sufficient inclination to be the best.

Bollywood, I guess, is not just the industry. It is also the audience of itself.