Semester 3rd

BAMMC – 301: Exploring Hindi Cinema

Unit 1

Historical Overview

Cinema: a brief history

Cinema is the Latin spelling of the Greek word kinema , meaning a motion. Cinema, or
motion picture, is the art of moving images; a visual medium that tells stories and exposes
reality. Created in the tail end of the 19th century, cinema is the world‘s most recent art form.
According to Webster‘s dictionary, the word derives from Cinematography. The use of the word
comes about in the 1899 in Britain. It is the British word for a movie theatre.

The history of film began in the late 19th century, with the invention of 'magic lantern'
optical toys such as the Phenakistoscope and the Zoetrope, which presented short, repetitive
animations exploiting the eye's persistence of vision. Coleman Sellers modified the Zoetrope,
replacing its hand-drawn images with photographs, creating the Kinematoscope in 1861. Henry
Renno Heyl then projected a series of Kinematoscope photographs, using his Phasmatrope
device, in 1870. Projection speeds for silent films were not standardised. The first film the
Lumieres projected was La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere A Lyon, in Paris at the very end of 1895.

Early movie cameras were fastened to the head of their tripod with only simple leveling
devices provided. These cameras were thus effectively fixed during the course of the shot, and
hence the first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle.
The Lumière brothers shot a scene from the back of a train in 1896.

The first decade of motion picture saw film moving from a novelty to an established
large-scale entertainment industry. The films became several minutes long consisting of several
shots. The first rotating camera for taking panning shots and the first film studios were built in
1897. Most films of this period were known as "chase films". The first use of animation in
movies was in 1899. The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The
Nickelodeon" in Pittsburgh in 1905.

Innovations like sound recording, sophisticated cameras, editing techniques, exhibition

pattern, production styles and narrative methods made cinema more impressive and attractive.
Earlier history of cinema can be divided into ‗Silent Era‘ and the ‗Era of Talkies‘. Silent era
refers to the period during which films were produced without sound due to the absence of
adequate technology. The power of the cinema during the silent era was the power of their
stories. Talkies mean the films with sound.
 Films of the 1890s were under a minute long and until 1927 motion pictures were
produced without sound. Until 1927, motion pictures for films were produced without sound.
This era is referred to as the silent era of film. During late 1927, Warners released ‗The Jazz
Singer‘, with the first synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature film. By the end of 1929,
Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing sound systems (soon to be
standardized).

Another categorization of the history of cinema was on the basis of the colour of visuals.
Earlier films were produced in black and white films. Colour film revolutionized the medium as
the audiences were hugely attracted to colour film as it provided them with a colourful real life
visual experience.

Indian Cinema
India is the world's largest film producing country. It produces around thousand films
every year. About 300 of the total films produced are in Hindi while the remaining are in
regional languages. However, Hindi films account for almost half of the total revenue generated
from cinema in India. The provision of 100% foreign direct investment has made the Indian film
market attractive for foreign enterprises such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, and AOL Time
Warner etc. Prominent Indian enterprises such as Zee, UTV and Adlabs have also started
producing and distributing films. Lately tax incentives to multiplexes have resulted in the
multiplex boom in India. Multiplexes have posed a potent danger to the very survival of
orthodox cinema halls. The facilities at multiplexes attract the cine goers from far and wide. As
certified by Guinness Book of World Records, Ramoji Film City is regarded as the largest film
studio complex in the world.
Indian Cinema vs Hindi Cinema

Indian cinema has always been mistaken Bollywood (Hindi Cinema). Actually, Indian
cinema is far more than Bollywood. It includes the mainstream cinema as well as regional
cinemas like Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri etc. some of these regional cinemas have
got immense recognition worldwide and acted as a source for others to throw a remake of that.
The diaspora cinemas are also a part of the Indian cinema and it has given some marvelous
sequences.

Origin of Hindi Cinema

With the screening of the Lumie‘re moving pictures at Grand Caffee in Paris on 28th
December, 1895 Cinema became a sensation across Europe and in July 7, 1896 the Lumie‘re
films were shown in Bombay. Lumie‘re brothers produced another film A Trip to the Moon
which introduced the element of imagination in films. The Birth of A Nation by D.W. Grifith in
1915 proved to be a mile stone in the history of World cinema.
 In India, Hiralal Sen is credited with directing the first short film Dancing Scenes from
the Flower of Persia in 1898. Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekhar populary known as Save
Dada whose interest in still photography led him to produce his first film The Wrestlers in 1899
which was shot on a wrestling match at Hanging Gardens in Bombay. F.B. Thanawala made his
debut in the year 1900 with Splendid New View of Bombay and Taboot Procession.
The credit of producing first full-length motion picture in India goes to Dadasaheb Phalke
who broke ground with Raja Harishchandra in 1913. Phalke is often regarded as ―the father of
Indian film‖. Raja Harishchandra became the first in a long line of Indian films that drew on
Indian Mythology for their subject matter. Its instant success encouraged him to make more than
hundred more silent films which include Savitri, Lanka Dahan, Sinhasta Mela, Krishna Jamuna
and Bhasmasur Mohini. The traditional Indian society in those days did not allow womenfolk to
act in performing arts like films. That‘s why Phalke chose a youngman A. Salunke to play the
woman in his films. This era also saw the debut of D.G. Ganguly, Chandulal Shah and Himanshu
Rai. D.G. Ganguly made comedies like England Returned (1921) and Barrister‘s Wife.
Chandulal Shah made some social films like Gun Sundri and Typist Girl (1918). Himanshu Rai
made The Light of Asia (1925), Shiraz (1926), A Throw of Dice (1929) and Karma (1934). The
acting skills of Devika Rani in Karma (1934) immortalised her in the history of Indian Cinema.

The Birth of Cinema in India – Silent Era (1899 to 1930)

On 28th December 1895, two French men by the names Louis and Auguste Lumiere
presented the first display of a projected motion picture to a small private audience in France.
Several thousand miles away in the land of colonial India, no one had even dreamt of such a
technology let alone hear of it. The country was in the throes of a political and freedom
movement and the only means of entertainment available to the masses were the traditional
travelling theatre troupes (Nautanki), puppet theatre (Kathputli Natak) and the occasional dance
and music shows for those who could afford it. The very next year in 1986 the Lumiere brothers
brought their showcase of 6 short films to the Watson Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai in the
state of Maharashtra). This was a significant event in the history of Indian cinema, as it was the
first time that the subcontinent was witnessing the screening of Cinematography.
Even though Dadasaheb Phalke is often (inaccurately) credited to be the pioneer of
cinema in India, it was in fact the efforts of a couple of gentlemen by the name of Save Dada
(Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar) and Hiralal Sen who were the first to make 2 short films
as early as 1897 and 1899. These films were often matter of fact documentation of events and
had they survived the tribulations of time would have been valid cinematographic representative
of those times with great historic value.
More than indigenous productions a lot of cinematic entertainment was imported from
abroad like Life of Christ (1901), Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp (1902), Alibaba and 40
Thieves (1903) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1904). This was primarily because India was a colony
of the British Empire and a large English population lived in the country. It turned out to be a
blessing in disguise as the availability of foreign cinema not only brought the wondrous
technological advancements of the western world to India but also inspired the Indian film
makers to venture into making full length feature films.
Regardless, cinema came to India in a commercial manner (commercial being the
operative word here) at pretty much the same time that it did in the western countries. Although
the west had been producing silent short films for over a decade now, the first full length feature
film made in India was Dadasaheb Phalke‘s silent opus Raja Harishchandra in the year 1913.
Main films that followed included - Mohini Bhasmasur (1914), significant for introducing the
first woman to act before the cameras - Kamalabai Gokhale, Satyawan Savitri (1914), Satyavadi
Raja Harischandra (1917), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna Janma (1918) and Kalia Mardan
(1919). By 1920 India was producing more than 27 films a year which was a big number. The
first Indian film makers turned to ancient epics and puranas for source material. The phenomenal
success of Raja Harishchandra was kept up by a series of mythological films. The content of the
films would not change for a long time till the advent of talkies and colour in the 1930‘s.
The Talkies Era
The ‗Talkies Era‘ was started with the screening of The Melody of Love (1929), the first
talkie to be screened in India. The credit of producing the first Indian Talkie Alam Ara ,
however, goes to Ardeshir Irani. This film was released on March 14, 1931 in Bombay‘s
Majestic theatre. Devika Rani made her debut in this film. As many as 28 films, Hindi (23),
Bengali (3), Tamil (1) and Telgu(1) was released in 1931 itself. With the induction of sound in
Indian films, there was unprecedented rise of music in Indian cinema with musicals such as Indra
Sabha and Devi Devyani marking the beginning of song and dance in India's films. J.F. Madan
of Madan Theatres released the film Indra Sabha (1932) had as many as 70 songs including
several superb Ghazals in Urdu.
Studios emerged across major cities e.g. Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai as film making
became an established craft by 1935. Led by Himanshu Rai, ‗Bombay Talkies‘ came up in 1935
and V.Shantaram and others set up ‗Prabhat Film Co.‘ in Bombay which was later moved to
Pune. Ayodhyacha Raja (1932), Sant Tuka Ram (1936), Amar Jyoti (1936), Duniya Na Maane
and Admi were some of the best known films of V. Shantaram.
 The credit of producing the first Colour movie in India also goes to Sir Ardeshir Irani
who made Kisan Kanya ( Peasant Girl) in 1937 which dealt with peasant revolt against feudal
oppression. J.B.H. Wadia and brother Homi produced 130 movies under the banner Wadia
Movietone. Wadia made the first railroad thriller Toofan Mail (1932) and the first film on Hindu-
Muslim harmony Jai Bharat (1936).
Chandu Lal Shah came up with Desh Dasi (Country Maid) a ‗love triangle‘ melodrama in
1935 and one of the most influential and bold film Acchut (Untouchable) in 1939. Mehboob
Khan‘s Al Hilal (1935) was inspired by Cecil B de Mille‘s Biblical films. He followed it with
Manmohan (1936), Jagirdar (1937) and Hum, Tum aur Woh in 1938. Prithviraj Kapoor and K.L.
Saigal gave depth and intensity to Nitin Bose‘s Dharti Maa (Motherland, 1938) which was
stimulated by Alexander Dovjenko. Sohrab Modi‘s big budget Pukar (The Call, 1939) was a
great mercantile success. It was replete with spectular scenes of Moughal palaces and battles.
Vishnupant Damle and Sheikh Fatehlal produced Sant Tuka Ram a magnificent classic of the
humanist current in Indian Cinema. At the Venice Film Festival in 1937 Sant Tuka Ram received
the award for the Best Film.
Major Trends in Hindi Cinema
Hindi cinema has a glorious history from the Past 100 years. It is also known as
Bollywood. It has been ranked as the largest film industry in India and one of the largest films
producing centre in the world. On 3rd May 1913, the legendary Dhundiraj Govind Phalke
lovingly known as Dadasaheb Phalke, released India‘s first and foremost epochal film Raja
Harishchandra. The pioneer movie maker was later sobriqueted as the father of Indian cinema
and to honor him, government of India introduced Dadasaheb Phalke award in 1969 as the most
prestigious award in Indian cinema.

First stage (1890s)

To most of the people, 1913 is the year in which Indian cinema started but very few
people know that real cinema was originated in the year 1890s. In 1896 Luemiere brothers came
to Bombay to showcase short films. For Indian, films were something new. Till then
photography was an acknowledged medium, however films were still new. A year later, short
films were conjointly screened at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras. Soon after, Bhatavdekar
procured a motion-picture camera from London and went on to document day-after-
day events that eventually created the India‘s first silent short film in 1897. By the end of 1890s,
short films became common.
Second stage (1913-1931)

1913 witnessed the first silent movie made in India – Raja Harischandra by Dadasaheb
Phalke. After Raja Harishchandra‘s motion-picture, many different filmmakers joined the
bandwagon and continue toform silent films till 1931. The time made eminent film producers
like SS Vasa and Raghupati Venkaiah Naidu and most of the films created throughout this era
were either mythological or historical in nature. Also, the period saw Madras as the centre of
Indian cinema industry.
Third stage (1931 -1947)
 This period saw change from silent movie to talkie cinema. The first Indian talking
cinema ―Alam Ara‖ by Ardeshir Persian revamped the future of Indian cinema. The amount of
productions firms began to skyrocket, as did the amount of films being made every year—from
108 in 1927, to 328 in 1931. The film surpassed all
expectation and also the next number of years saw movies like ―Jamai Shashthi‖, ―Indra Sabha,
‗‘ Bhakta Prahlada‖, ―Dev Devyani‖ and ―Kalidas‖. Many theatres had been opened in various
cities of the country and filmmakers were slowly introducing new stories.
This phase is also known as musical phase because culture of songs and dance came to
the picture. Also color films shortly began to seem, as the early efforts were made at animation.
Fourth stage (1947 – 1960s)

The period of 1940s to 1960s is also known as ―Golden era‖ of Hindi cinema. Following
independence, film industry went through a vital change and modern Indian film industry was
formed. Now, historical and mythological stories of the past were being replaced by social-
reformist films. A number of theforemost critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time
were produced during this period. Some of them are Guru Dutta‗s Pyasa and Raj kapoor‘s Awara
and Shree 420. The period saw the birth of India‘s own new wave, supported by
eminent producers like Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak.
Fifth stage (1970s – 1980s)
 This period is the “Masala period‖ in the chapter of Hindi cinema. The earlier period
was the Golden Age, but these subsequent twenty years totally modified the way in which Indian
film industry was operating. Various social and economic changes were felt in the industry.
The trend was to provide ―Masala‖ films for the entertainment. The patrons of the
―Masala‖ film genre were Jeetendra, Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh
Bachchan, Nargis, Waheeda Rehman, Sridevi, Smita Patil, Sharmila Tagore, Hema Malini,
Rekha and many others. The period also became important due to arty flicks. Films like
―Paroma‖, ―Chashme Buddoor‖, ―Ek Pal‖, ―Arth‖, ―36 Chowringhee Lane‖, ―Salaam Bombay‖
and ―Sparsh‖ were symbolic of those times.
Sixth stage (1990 onwards)

This period saw many technological changes like advancement in sound technology,
choreography, etc. thanks to these changes which brought Indian cinema onto a
worldwide platform like we tend to see these days. The era saw films in horror, mystery,
comedy, action, adventure story and romantic genres. The actors and actresses became
―Celebrities‖ enjoying high status like never before. The Hindi cinema has become an
intrinsic part of the worldwide film heritage.
Indian Cinema has undergone a sea change over last couple of years with the advent of
digital technologies in India. Digitization of Indian cinema has affected movies on all fronts – be
it pre production, production or post production, but out of all these, one aspect which has got
completely revolutionized with digitization is the distribution and reach of Indian Cinema.
Changing Trend of Indian Cinema
The French may have pioneered the theory of moving images, the British might be the
forerunners in the process, but no one ever envisioned that the so called Indians would master the
art one day and go on to develop the largest and biggest movie industry in the world. Despite the
huge cultural, social, political and economical differences, the Indian Cinema (now Bollywood)
withstood all the test of time to create a history in the past 10 decades.
While the West presented exceptional movies in expressionist form, Indians were never
influenced by expressionist cinema. In the silent era (up till 1931), Indians continued making
film restricted mainly to mythology and history. In fact, Indian films were the replicas of well-
liked stage shows of that era. Therefore, Indian cinema from the very beginning sustained its
own distinctiveness.

Bollywood, or the Hindi film industry of India which produces almost 1000 films every
year is the world‘s largest film industry. From the time the first Indian sound film, Alam Ara was
produced in 1931 till the present decade, this industry has a remarkably rich history of producing
a variety of movies, showcasing different spheres of Indian life, in myriad themes, be it comedy,
romance, thriller, horror or drama.
However, there has been a changing trend in the representation of Indian films through
the years. The way movies were made in the 1950s is completely different from the way it is
done in the twenty first century.
The Indian film industry can be broken down widely into four sub-categories.

The first phase would consist of the movies made from the 1940s till the early 1960s.
This phase is called the ―Golden Era of the India cinema‖ where critically acclaimed movies
were made. Filmmakers like Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Ritwik Ghatak, Mehboob
Khan, Raj Kapoor, K Asif who went on to compose classic movies like Do Bheega
Zameen(1952n, Pather Panchali, Shree 420(1955), Mother India(1957), Awaara(1951),
Madhumati, Pyasa and Mughal-E-Azam, along with several others. These movies revolved
around the common man, who faced various struggles in life, which the audience could relate to
and would finally come out as a man with the right morals. These stories showed the protagonist
to be poor who even though wavered from his path (mainly due to greed and success) would
finally realize his mistakes and be a better person in the end and overcome his troubles in a just
manner.
The second phase is the phase from late 1960s to the early 1980s. This phase saw a
distinctive shift in the general storyline of the movies. Movies like Aradhana( 1969)
, Anand (1970) , Bobby (1973), Zanjeer(1973) and Sholay (1975) mark this period. These
movies were more action based and romantic in nature. Violence became an integral part of the
movies, and a lot of emphasis was given on villains, who were basically underworld mafias. The
image of the ―angry young man‖ was introduced here, a brooding hero who was very good at
delivering his punches and kicks, would destroy the villains and win the lady‘s heart in the end.
A lot of films during this time revolved around this basic theme.
The third phase is from the late 1980s till early 2000s. This phase saw the most diverse
shifts in the movie-making procedure in India. Advanced technology was introduced in the
country. The first Indian sci-fi movie Mr. India was released in 1987 which was a runaway hit.
Romance was still the main theme. Comedy movies were also a hit in this phase. A lot of movies
were shot abroad in this phase.
80s witnessed the arrival of women filmmakers such as Aparna Sen (Parama, 36-
Chouwringhee Lane), Meera Nair (Salaam Bombay) and Vijaya Mehta (RAO Saheb). It was the
same decade when sultry dancer, Rekha enticed the spectators with her spectacular performance
in ‗Umrao Jaan‘.
The modern phase of the Indian Film Industry in the 1990s witnessed advanced special
effects, Dolby digital sound, changes in choreography-cinematography, screenplay and of course
International appeal. It was the time of shifting the focus on aesthetic appeal altogether. This was
the start of the career of many of our primate actors now – Aamir Khan, Salman Khan,
ShahRukh Khan (SRK), Madhuri Dixit, Akshay Kumar and Juhi Chawla. The year 2000 started
with a bang with Hrithik Roshan along with many other talented people. This phase introduced a
lot of technical advancements in the ways movies are made. From Koi Mil Gaya(2003)
till Ra.One(2011), movies put a greater emphasis on the visual effects rather than the story. A lot
of movies have been shot abroad, with only the mention of India.

The Indian film industry has witnessed a colossal change in scripts and film making in
recent years. Credits to the talented directors like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, David Dhawan, Vishal
Bharadwaj, Dibakar Banerjee, Rajkumar Hirani, Anurag Kashyap, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali
who are coming forward with their own niche to woo the taste of the advanced Indian audiences
– both in the rural and urban sectors.

The main reason why there has been a shift in the content and the way movies are made
in the last few decades is because the target audience has changed. In the early phases of the
Indian cinema, the target audience was the poor people hailing from villages and the movies
were made so that they could relate to the protagonist of the movies.

As time shifted, and the urban class expanded, the target audience now became the upper
middle class or upper class, who related more with a hero who had money and big bungalows
and bikes. Hence, in order to make a movie sell, a poor boy from a distant village would not be
the formula. Even the rural audience is now more interested to watch movies where the dance
sequel is shot in Switzerland or Egypt.

Most movies generally like to deliver what the audience desired, and thus the main
reason for the shift in the theme and plot of movies would be the shift in the mindset of the
people watching it. The Indian film industry has become more professional in the last few
decades, where box office earning has a prominent importance. This makes it essential for the
film makers to work on plots that they know would sell, and sell big, not only in India , but
overseas as well, hence the dominance of NRIs in the recent past so that they can capture a wider
domain of audience.

However, it would be wrong to completely write off the modern movies as movies made
to earn huge profits as a long of main stream cinemas also focus on the eminent political, social
and cultural issues of our countries and have been received well.

In conclusion, the changing patterns in movies are basically a result of the changing
mindsets of the audience as well the bid to attract international audience who have different
perspective than the ones for whom movies were made in the 1950s.

Romance and Social Mores: “Heroes and Heroines”

The culmination of a romance is a widely accepted concluding moment in stories because

it signifies a transition from the unmarried or single state to a married state. But the reason why it
is virtually indispensable in Indian popular cinema needs inquiring into.Romance is a key
ingredient of popular Hindi cinema, but its social implications have rarely been studied. The
motif of romance is closely associated with the family in cinema primarily because romance
leads to marriage. Romantic love and the institution of the family are also logically linked and
lovers are transformed into fathers and mothers, and romance necessarily terminates in the
founding of the family.

The family in Hollywood cinema means the nuclear family, while in popular Hindi
cinema it represented the joint family until. Love stories in Hindi cinema for a large part of the
1950s and 1960s were sub-plots of main stories which were mostly drama films with a large
amount of social commentary in them. Prominent films such as Awaara (1951), Bandini (1963),
Sujata (1959), Shree 420 (1955), Pyaasa (1957), Deedar (1951), Daag (1952) , Baazi (1951),
Taxi Driver (1954), Kala Bazaar (1960), Kala Pani (1958) and Guide (1965) explored social
themes with love stories in the background.

The theme of love stories and the nature of their unfolding in Indian cinema have been
fairly reflective of the dominant, part socially preferred and part revolutionary, idealised/utopian
ideas and notions around romance of their times. Hence a film like Pyaasa or Mere Mehboob
could have happened in the 1950s and 1960s when wooing was an art to be appreciated and
excelled in." There were a few love stories which served as clear templates for future Hindi
films. Prominent among these were Andaz (1949), Tere Ghar Ke Saamne (1963), Nau Do
Gyarah (1957), and Bombai Ka Babu (1960). One film that proved to be an exception in
portrayal of love story in Hindi cinema in the 1960s was Guide (1965). It was the first Hindi film
to explore theme of a married woman abandoning her unfaithful husband and choosing to stay
with the man she loves.

In the 70s, with socio-economic changes such as rising unemployment, poverty,

emergency and the rise of 'Angry Young Man' persona, love stories in Hindi cinema did not have
much prominence in the central plot. In the 1970s romantic love became less central as Hindi
cinema took a turn toward gangster films. Stories of individual revenge against social injustice,
mediated through elaborate family melodramas, proliferated. Amitabh Bachchan's pre-eminence
eclipsed women's roles: the attrition of the romance subplot limited the space for women
characters, turning them into luminal figures in narratives centered on a newfound masculinity.
The proliferating gangster-cum-action films revealed corruption in high places, grasping
'antinational' elements, and profiteering by wealthy smugglers and were eagerly consumed by
audiences throughout the 1970s and 1980s, becoming integral to Hindi cinema."

There were, however, few love stories which redefined the genre and created a
benchmark in Hindi cinema. One such film was Bobby (1973). It emerged as one of the early
films which showed teenagers as lovers in an entertaining and engaging way. The teen lovers
face parental authority's power to summon privileges of class and the support of the state via its
restrictive age of consent laws." The film had such an instant connection with the youth that
today Bobby has become a benchmark in not only teenage love story but in the genre itself.
Other love stories that also provided template for future love were Abhimaan (1973), Avishkaar
(1974), Koshish (1972), Rajnigandha (1974), Mili (1975) and Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se
(1978).

In the 1980s, with a few exception of love stories such as Ek Duje Ke Liye (1981), Love
Story (1981), Ijazzat (1987), Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985), and Sagar (1985), action films
dominated a large part of the decade. However, in the late 80s, two films came as a whiff of fresh
air. One is Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT) (1988) and other was Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989).
QSQT explored a Romeo and Juliet kind of love story in which families of the lovers shared a
tragic past which created rift and hatred in them for each other. Maine Pyaar Kiya, directed by
Sooraj Barjatya, was a benchmark for future love stories in the true sense of the word. It showed
the importance of proving oneself as a worthy match and winning the consent of the families
without resorting to unconventional ways of union was possible. It showed how one can love and
accept social acceptance even with values that form the bedrock of Indian culture.

Post liberalisation of India (after 1992), after Maine Pyaar Kiya, Sooraj Barjatya made
film Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994), which showed how 'home' becomes the background for
romance and how family serves as a supporting link in the blossoming of a romantic relationship.
Both Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989) and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) served as inspiration for
future narratives on love themes such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995) in which even
when one transcends national boundaries one does not abandon the values and seek consent of
families by proving one's worthiness. This was followed also Kuch Kuch Hota Hain (1998).

In subsequent years, the theme of love began coming into the foreground in Hindi
cinema. Over the twentieth century love became increasingly important in the pursuit of
happiness, and was defined hedonistically in 'individualistic and private terms.' Love is entangled
with marriage and conjugal bliss as true happiness, and the happy ending is married life."

Modern love stories are valuation of friendship as a serious relationship. Perhaps it is the
valuation of friendship as a serious and fulfilling relationship that is part of the shift. The idea
that romantic love isn't the only important relationship one forms outside one's family. A
relationship that doesn't have to become part of a family but stands apart from it." There is also a
cultural context to these love stories which can be traced back to classics in Indian mythology.
 Consider the film Yeh Jawaani Hain Deewani (2013). Deepika Padukone's character
remembers everything while Ranbir Kapoor's character is fooling around and then due to some
trick of events they come together. This is the underlying theme of most of these love stories.
The entire frame of such love stories is of denial. Though these love stories seem to reflect the
changing times we live in, they have garnered neither high critical acclaim nor have they proved
to be money-spinners at the box office. A case in the point is the audience's tepid response to the
latest release Befikre.

Films have been changing for the past ten to fifteen years. Today, young people want
different things in life. They definitely want romance but they don't want Romeo and Juliet type
of romance anymore.

Some prominent Heroes and Heroines of Romantic Hindi Cinema:-

Heroes
Raj Kapoor

Raj and Nargis were not only great couples on-screen but, off-screen too. When Nargis met Raj
he was already married but, their souls felt passionate towards each other. The duo gave super-
duper hits under RK banner which are still famous. Although, Aag (1948) was their first film
together, their relationship began to bloom with Barsaat (1949) and it was evident in the later
movies. Raj and Nargis acted in 16 films together.

Rajesh Khanna

The biggest ―Star‖ of Bollywood and the first person with whom the contemporary women were
even ready to have one-night stands (blasphemous in those days!), Rajesh Khanna is
undoubtedly the most romantic actor ever in the history of Bollywood by popular choice.
From Aradhana and Kati Patang toMehbooba to Dard, all his films never failed to display the
romantic aura of this master.

Dev Anand

If we have to pick out the best romantic ―hero‖ ever, it‘s got to be the evergreen actor, Dev
Anand! And, what aided most to this persona, apart from the great stories—the songs, of course!
From ―Acchaji main haari..‖, and ―Dil ka bhanwar‖ to ―Yeh dil na hota bechara‖ and ―Ek ghar
banaunga..‖, there seems to be no better exemplification of onscreen romance ever!

Shammi Kapoor

He‘s been our darling superstar since he came into Bollywood! Unlike the actors and actresses of
today, weight was never an issue with the Elvis Presley of India; after all, there have seldom
been any leading lady who wasn‘t romanced onscreen by him, albeit in his own style!
Shashi Kapoor

Yes, any Bachchan fighter-film would be incomplete without this master actor, but did we much
see him fighting it out? His charming looks and killing smile was enough to sway hundred girls
onto floor—need we say anything more? If yes, then please watch his early Merchant-Ivory
films and Abhinetri!

Shah Rukh Khan

No, we are not going to speak anything about Shah Rukh. We better let his filmography, from
Deewana and DDLJ to Dil to Pagal Hai and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, do the talk!

Rishi Kapoor

Tumne Kabhi Kisise Pyaar Kiya….Maine Bhi Kiya—this song tells a lot about this charming
persona‘s fame and attitude. Although with the kind of films he did in his young-age, fighting
out in the last scene was inevitable, still, if there‘s any ―first‖ chocolate-boy hero of Bollywood,
then it‘s indeed him!

Aamir Khan

He forayed into Bollywood as a chocolate-hero in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and had sustained
likewise in several films to follow—from Love, Love, Love to Ishq. Now, no matter how much
of an social activist he becomes, tearing off the garb of a chocolate-hero is just impossible!

Salman Khan

Khan went on to establish himself in Bollywood in the 1990s and gave many romantic hits like
Sooraj Barjatya's romance Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994),Karan
Johar's romantic drama Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) etc.

Heroines
Nargis

She was born on June 1, 1929 as Fatima Rashid in Rawalpindi, British India, daughter to
Jaddanbai and Uttamchand Mohanchand, a former Hindu Mohyal Brahmin who converted to
Islam as Abdul Rashid. Her mother was a well-known dancer, singer, actor, composer, and
director.
Madhubala

Arguably the most beautiful artiste to ever grace the Indian screen, Madhubala rose from humble
beginnings to become the most captivating star India has ever produced. Madhubala was born
Mumtaz Jehan Begum on Valentine's Day 1933, in a poor, conservative family of Pathan
Muslims in Delhi.

Sridevi

Sridevi was born on August 13, 1963 in her father's hometown of Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, India.
Her mother was from Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. So Sridevi grew up speaking Telugu and Tamil.
She has a sister named Srilatha and a stepbrother named Satish.

Madhuri Dixit

Born in a Marathi-speaking Koknastha Hindu Brahmin family,An acclaimed Kathak dancer,

acting was not her goal, for she wanted to be a Micro-biologist, and did study in that course in
Bombay's Parle College.

Sharmila Tagore

A Bengali actress who achieved success young, Sharmila appeared in numerous Bengali classics
before making the jump to Hindi cinema, which first made her a romantic actress and later a
legendary actress thanks to her intense films opposite Superstar Rajesh Khanna.

Rekha

Bhanurekha was born in the Tamil-speaking Ganesan household on October 10, 1954. Her dad
was the popular Tamil actor, Gemini, while her mom was a popular Telugu actress, Pushpavalli.
She has seven sisters and one brother.

Hema Malini

Hema was born in the Tamil-speaking Chakravarthy household on October 16, 1948 in
Ammankudi, Tamil Nadu. Her dad's name is V.S.R. Chakravarthy and her mom, Jaya, was a
film producer. She was enrolled in the Chennai-based Andhra Mahila Sabha.

Kajol

Kajol was born on August 5, 1974 in Bombay, Maharashtra, India as Kajol Mukherjee. She is an
actress, known for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Fanaa (2006) and My Name Is Khan (2010).

Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra was born 18 July, 1982 in Jamshedpur, India, to the family of Capt. Dr. Ashok
Chopra and Dr. Madhu Chopra, both Indian Army physicians. She had a very varied upbringing.
She started her education at La Martinière Girls College in Lucknow as a resident student; a
short stay at Maria

Deepika Padukone

Deepika Padukone, born 5 January 1986 in Copenhagen, Denmark, is an Indian model &
Actress. She is the daughter of former badminton Champion Prakash Padukone. Her mother
tongue is Konkani. Deepika has a younger sister named Anisha.

Preity Zinta

Preity Zinta shot to fame as the refreshing, cool, wet model in the Liril commercial. She also
modeled for Perk and her dimpled smile won the hearts of millions. Preity never thought she
would be an actress.
 Unit 2
Some significant turns

Formula Films
The formula (or masala) film, refers to the key ingredients that go into the making of a
film. Music, archetypal characters and star actors were all essential components from the 1940s,
and by the 1980s they had become much more exaggerated. Posters reflected this film format by
constructing a montage of images depicting these various components.
We have often heard actors, directors and even producers complaining about how certain
films were made ―way ahead of their time‖ after they failed to do well at the box office, implying
of course that the audience lacked either the sophistication or the intellect, or both, to perceive
and appreciate a film which made sense. This is exactly how producers justified and still today,
continue to justify badly made formulaic films.
A very typical plot for an Indian Movie potboiler would be : the rich spoilt girl, the apple
of her father‘s eye with little or no manners, falls in love with a poor boy who has nothing to
give to his beloved but his heart of gold and who lives in a tiny shack with his widowed mother.
After a showdown or two, the boy teaches the girl some manners and the two promptly break
into song and their feet sway in tandem to the rhythmic beats of their own song. Then the daddy
finds out and cuts the girl off his property and tries to hack the boy‘s limbs or have him beaten
up by goons if he dares to even look at his daughter. But true love is, after all, all-conquering and
overpowering and our hero walks away with his golden egg, the rich girl‘s daughter and the
property.
Masala films of Indian cinema are those that mix genres in one work. Typically these
films freely mix action, comedy, romance, and drama or melodrama.They also tends to be
musicals that include songs filmed in picturesque locations. The genre is named after the masala,
a mixture of spices in Indian cuisine. According to The Hindu, masala is the most popular genre
of Indian cinema. Masala films have origins in 1970s Bollywood (Hindi) films, and are most
common in Bollywood and South Indian films.
The masala film was pioneered in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain, along
with screenwriter duo Salim-Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Yaadon Ki
Baarat (1973), directed by Hussain and written by Salim-Javed, has been identified as the first
masala film. Salim-Javed went on to write more successful masala films in the 1970s and 1980s.
A landmark for the masala film genre was Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), directed by Manmohan
Desai and written by Kader Khan. Manmohan Desai went on to successfully exploit the genre in
the 1970s and 1980s.
Sholay (1975), directed by Ramesh Sippy and written by Salim-Javed, also falls under
the masala genre. It is sometimes called a "Curry Western", a play on the term Spaghetti
Western. A more accurate genre label is the "Dacoit Western", as it combined the conventions of
Indian dacoit films such as Mother India (1957) and Gunga Jumna (1961) with that of Spaghetti
Westerns. Sholay spawned a subgenre of "Dacoit Western" films in the 1970s.
 Masala films helped establish many leading actors as superstars in the 1970s and 1980s,
such as Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakrabarty, Rajnikanth, Chiranjeevi,
Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh. Sridevi received stardom in her early Bollywood career with
Masala movies. Since the 1990s, actors such as Salman Khan (Salim Khan's son), Shah Rukh
Khan, Akshay Kumar, Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan, Allu Arjun, Jr. NTR, Ajith Kumar, Joseph
Vijay, Darshan, Dev and Jeet have all tasted success in this format.
This style is used very often in Hindi (Bollywood) and South Indian films, as it helps
make them appeal to a broad variety of viewers. Famous masala filmmakers include David
Dhawan, Anees Bazmee, Prabhu Deva and Farah Khan in Hindi cinema; Raja Chanda, Raj
Chakraborty and Rabi Kinagi in Bengali cinema; S.S. Rajamouli, Puri Jagannath, Srinu Vaitla
and Boyapati Srinu in Telugu cinema; S. Shankar, Hari, AR Murugadoss, K. V. Anand, N.
Lingusamy and K. S. Ravikumar in Tamil cinema; and in Kannada cinema it was V.
Somashekhar and K. S. R. Das in the 1970s; K. V. Raju, A. T. Raghu and Joe Simon in the
1980s; Om Prakash Rao and Shivamani in the 1990s and Mahesh Babu, K. Madesha and A.
Harsha in the 2000s.
Aamir Khan (Nasir Hussain's nephew), who debuted as a child actor in the first masala
film Yaadon Ki Baraat, has been credited for redefining and modernizing the masala film with
his own distinct brand of socially conscious cinema in the early 21st century.
Examples of this include the techniques of a side story, back-story and story within a
story. Indian popular films often have plots that branch off into sub-plots; such narrative
dispersals can clearly be seen in the 1993 films Khalnayak and Gardish.
―The audience of earlier time was very forgiving and innocent. But formula films won‘t
work much now. People now have so much exposure to everything that their way of looking at
things has changed.
There might just have been an outside chance of appreciating such films had it not been
made over and over again. Interestingly, if we go way back in time and look at what is now
―literature‖ (at the time, they were plays written by a little known scriptwriter).Shakespeare did
not only cater to the rich. He wrote for people from all walks of life; from aristocrats to
―groundlings‖, the people who sat on the ground and watched his plays.
As Shakespeare wrote to sell and sell to the masses, even our filmmakers sell to the
masses. And look now, Shakespeare is a legend, while very few even know Beaumont
(Shakespeare‘s contemporary, who wrote only for aristocrats). It is also interesting to think about
the entrepreneurial angle, which directly interferes with the creative decision making of a film.
There have been producers who have refused to back projects simply because they felt that it
wouldn‘t ―sell‖. They believed that by investing their money on a story which had a tried-and-
tested-plot, they would be the eventual winners.
But Sholay broke that notion. The protagonist of the film died, something which was
unheard of at the time. The ―hero‖ never died. He was a ―good guy‖. Only the ―bad guys‖ died.
Thakur‟s death was justified, but Vijay‘s death? Vijay‘s death was formulaic hara-kiri. But the
film worked and became a classic. Earlier in Anand, by Hrishikesh Mukherjee,the protagnost
dies.
 Slowly, but surely, filmmakers realised the importance of a good story. For every Bobby,
there is a Pakeezah. And the new crop of filmmakers are waking up to the fact that films like
Taare Zameen Par and Chak De India do not necessarily need to be formula films for them to
have to do well at the box-office.
Making zara hatke films are best left to offbeat cinema — this is the current mood in
Bollywood. Many offbeat films with some of the biggest names in B-Town —Ravan, Guzaarish,
Kites, Action Replay, Kheley Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Jhootha Hi Sahi — and did not get as good a
response from the theatre-going audiences as expected. On the other hand masala films
like Dabangg, Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai, Golmaal, et al seem to have hit jackpot.
Bollywood is now choosing to play safe by sticking to formula films this year.
Be it Hrithik Roshan in Agneepath or Shah Rukh Khan in Don 2, Saif Ali Khan in Agent
Vinod, Abhishek Bachchan in Dum Maaro Dum, Akshay Kumar in Joker, Salman Khan in
Ready, Ajay Devgn in Singham or John Abraham in Force, almost all stars will be seen doing
films that are being labeled a mass film than class.

New Wave and Parallel Cinema

‗New Wave‘ in Indian cinema is complicated, it has no clear beginning and end, and no
defined aesthetics or issues. Mrinal Sen‘s NFDC-financed ‗Bhuvan Shome‘ is widely considered
to be the beginning of the New cinema movement, but it has no clear culmination. The Avant
Garde bug has caught Indian filmmakers in bursts and pauses. For example, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal
Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak in the 1960s and 70s, Shyam Benegal, Kamal Swaroop, Mani Kaul in
the 80s, and Ram Gopal Varma, Mani Ratnam, Aparna Sen in the 90s and early 2000s all
brought new grammar and ideology to Indian cinema. But their films remained commendable
singular works rather than culminating into a movement.

The contemporary New Wave in Indian cinema is distinguishable from previous

movements through several factors, the most relevant of which are the issues and themes it
concerns itself with. Unlike in the past when India‘s existence was a story of nation building, and
thus the works of Avante Garde filmmakers were entirely socio-political in nature where the plot
and characters served only as commentary on worldly matters concerning the Indian nation. But
today that matters concerning personal well-being of the individual have taken precedence over
well-being of the state as overarching entity. It is the characters and their unique psychological
issues that take the forefront in contemporary New Wave Indian films.

Every year a bevy of films strive to tackle new concerns and do away with the aesthetics
of mainstream Indian cinema to a certain extent, and are thus marked harbingers of a ‗New
Wave‘ movement. But a movement is not only a cumulative shift in the ideology, aesthetics,
modes of finance, production, and distribution of films, but also of audience appreciation.
However, when a blind, middle-eastern girl appears on screen photographing the by lanes of
Mumbai in Soap opera writer turned Avant Garde filmmaker Anand Gandhi‘s ‗Ship of Theseus‘,
it becomes clear that something is afoot in the world of Indian cinema.

The filmmaker uses characters and their stories to discuss his thoughts on the matter,
rather than the film being driven by plot or characterization. ‗Ship of Theseus‘, which delves into
intricacies of everyday life and transcends the material to philosophical discourse, is as much an
experiment of the cinematic form as it is of the stories and characters it brings to screen. The film
was presented by Kiran Rao, filmmaker and wife of actor Aamir Khan.

Ritesh Batra‘s film ‗The Lunchbox‘ managed to strike a global chord because of the
universal emotions it captures. The film espouses a rare quality which is often attributed to
Satyajit Ray‘s work; it is so deeply rooted in its cultural milieu that the world it creates is almost
completely real and thus immediately relatable. Subsequently the sentiments attached become as
real and passionate as human emotions can be on screen. This in turn lends a universal quality to
the conditions of the characters, and indeed the film too.

Films like ‗Ankur‘, ‗Uski Roti‘, and ‗Ardh Satya‘ kept the focus on the narrative and
adopted an almost dry approach in utilizing cinematography and other tools of filmmaking. The
current crop of New Wave filmmakers, like the Hollywood brat pack of the 1970s, are aware of
their role as artistes and storytellers, but more specifically as filmmakers. While watching films
like ‗Dhobi Ghat‘, ‗Gandu‘, ‗Ship of Theseus‘, or ‗The Lunchbox‘, the audience is very much
made aware that the lights, sounds, rhythms, and patterns bombarding their senses are tools in
the hands of the makers.

Parallel Cinema is a film movement in Indian cinema that originated in the state of
Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema, inspired by
Italian Neorealism, Parallel Cinema began just before the French New Wave and Japanese New
Wave, and was precursor to the Indian New Wave of the 1960s. Even though the movement was
initially led by Bengali cinema and produced by internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as
Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Tapan Sinha and others. Later it gained prominence in
other film industries of India. It is known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a
keen eye on the socio-political climate of the times, and for the rejection of the dance-and-song
numbers that are typical of mainstream commercial cinema.

Origin of Parallel Cinema in India

Parallel Cinema in India traces its origin back to the 1950s in the Bengali Cinema. It
developed with the aim of developing an alternative to mainstream commercial films of India. It
served as a precursor to the Indian New Wave which followed in the next decade. The movement
of parallel cinema began in Bengali films with the initiatives of eminent filmmakers like Satyajit
Ray, Tapan Sinha, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and others. Gradually, the concept got highlighted
in other film industries as well. The prominent features that delineate parallel cinema from the
commercial ones include serious and realistic content, illumination of socio-political scenario,
naturalism and exclusion of typical entertaining elements of a commercial film.
 The era of the 50s when parallel cinema gained prominence is often regarded as the
Golden Age of Indian Cinema. Indian Literature formed a vital inspiration for such films and
thus they became the reflections of contemporary Indian society. Indian film industry has had,
right from the beginning, members who have made efforts to use cinema as more than a medium
for entertainment. Existing issues became the burning topics of parallel cinema often
accompanied by the new thought provoking ideas. Although a few realistic films emerged in
early phases of Indian cinema, Chetan Anand's ‗Neecha Nagar‘ (1946) being an excellent
example, the movement gained momentum a little later when a few filmmakers wanted to break
the monotony of film genres made only for entertainment. Satyajit Ray, through his first film
‗Pather Panchali‘ in 1955, was accredited as the pioneer of parallel cinema in India. His film
attained a distinct stature in the film arena and became one of the greatest films of all time. The
film was followed by ‗Aparajito‘ (1956) and ‗Apur Sansar‘ (1959), together forming The Apu
Trilogy and winning several accolades and acclamations at major international film festivals.
Other Bengali films that conferred momentum to parallel cinema include ‗Ajantrik‘, ‗Abhijan‘,
‗Bhuvan Shome‘ and others.

Parallel Cinema in Bollywood

Bollywood, an industry known for its surrealism movies, had a few notable films during
the Golden Age that were art films but also garnered commercial success, made with a successful
blend of art and commercial facets. An early example of this is Bimal Roy's ‗Do Bigha Zamin‘
(1953), which was both a critical and commercial success. It won the International Prize at the
1954 Cannes Film Festival and paved the way for the Indian New Wave. Hrishikesh Mukherjee,
one of Hindi cinema's most successful filmmakers, was named the pioneer of middle cinema and
was known for making films that reflected the changing middle-class ethos. Filmmaker Basu
Chatterjee too built his plots on middle-class lives in films like ‗Piya Ka Ghar‘, ‗Rajnigandha‘
and ‗Ek Ruka Hua Faisla‘. Another filmmaker whose integrated art and commercial cinema was
Guru Dutt, whose film ‗Pyaasa‘ (1957) featured in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best
movies list, and is considered a landmark cult in Hindi Cinema.
The Government of India started financing such independent art films based on Indian
themes in the 1960s, to popularize and render significance to this genre. Parallel cinema
witnessed a wider reach and grew in Bollywood in 1970s and 1980s with the efforts of directors
like Gulzar, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Shyam Benegal, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Mani Kaul who were
later joined by Govind Nihalani and Mahesh Bhatt. Their creations attained huge praises by
critics on national as well as international arena with films such as ‗Uski Roti‘ (1971), ‗Ashadh
Ka Ek Din‘ (1972), ‗Duvidha‘ (1974) and ‗Ek Ruka Hua Faisla‘ (1986). Kumar Shahani who
was a student of Ritwik Ghatak made ‗Maya Darpan‘ (1972), which marked itself as a landmark
film of Indian art cinema. Parallel cinema in India also conferred prominence to the career of
new genre of actors of immense artistic calibre and finesse, the likes of Smita Patil, Shabana
Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapoor, Om Puri and many others. The actors of commercial
cinema also ventured into this genre and got a platform to showcase their skills through
unconventional portrayals.
Decline and Resurgence of Parallel Cinema in India
By 1990s, Parallel Cinema witnessed a setback for number of issues like investment,
underworld financing of commercial cinema, piracy, advent and popularization of television and
economic turmoil. However, it once again arose in the film arena with the emergence of several
modern filmmakers with passion for art and realism. Their depiction of realistic concepts in
different styles once again provided the required momentum to parallel cinema and developed it
as an appreciable and indomitable genre that has its own credible space, unaffected by
mainstream commercial films. Films of the modern era that once again highlighted parallel
cinema include Ram Gopal Varma's ‗Satya‘, Sudhir Mishra's ‗Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi‘,
Aparna Sen's ‗Mr. and Mrs. Iyer‘, Homi Adajania's ‗Being Cyrus‘, Nagesh Kukunoor's ‗Dor‘,
Rituparno Ghosh's ‗The Last Lear‘, Ritesh Batra‘s ‗The Lunchbox‘ and many others.

Contemporary Bollywood Cinema

In the last decade of the 20th century, popular Hindi cinema grew considerably in stature,
style and reach. It was a period of creative and commercial activity that was as frenetic and
eventful as any other in the annals of filmmaking in Mumbai. Hindi films conquered several new
frontiers in geographical and market terms. Quite a few of these releases also managed to push
the boundaries of Bollywood's typically flamboyant, colour-spangled, exaggerated and kitschy
narrative idiom.
In the beginning of 1990 the Bollywood dream factory cranked up three of its biggest
ever hits: Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and Gadar - Ek Prem Katha.
The advent of a fresh breed of directors eager to update and upgrade the time-honoured
Bollywood mould and the process of corporatization of film production - emerged as likely
harbingers of the shape of things to come.
It cannot be denied that during this period the Hindi film industry did come in news for
wrong reasons. Amid all the dimness and disarray, two stories of personal triumph stood out.
One was the remarkable comeback of Amitabh Bachchan and the other was the meteoric
emergence of Hrithik Roshan.
Hrithik, propelled with a made-to-order launch pad assembled by his father Rakesh
Roshan, made a dream debut in Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. Bachchan reinvented himself famously and
proved his talent once more. He delivered hits like Hum and Khuda Gawah. However he once
again went into a self imposed exile. His later films in 1990s failed miserably. Kaun Banega
Crorepati catapulted him to stardom once more. Then came Aditya Chopra's second film,
Mohabbatein where he enacted the role of as a cold, no-nonsense residential college principal.
The Yash Chopra-produced film, released on a Diwali weekend, took off like a dry
cracker, reaffirming the once-infallible actor's power to set the box office on fire.
If Mohabbatein was the biggest hit of the second half of 2000, the first half of the year
belonged entirely to Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. It whipped up a mass frenzy of unprecedented
proportions and Hrithik and Amisha Patel were instant stars. After Amitabh Bachchan a vacuum
was created by the mid-1990s. This was filled by a slew of male stars led by the Khan
triumvirate (Shah Rukh, Aamir, and Salman). They in a way continued the legacy of Bachchan.
Competing with them was surely no cakewalk.
The 1990s threw up other success stories as well. The irrepressible Shah Rukh Khan
wrestled the top slot among Bollywood's male stars and held on to that position. His films like
Karan Arjun, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
established him as the never fading star. The dashing Salman Khan delivered hits such as Karan
Arjun, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, and Biwi No. 1 and he survived as a bankable star all through
the decade. Aamir Khan, delivering at least one major hit a year since making his debut in
Mansoor Khan's Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, attained the enviable status of an infallible star. His
standing as a diligent actor and one of the safest box office bets around received a major fillip
following the release of Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and Taarein Zameen Par in quick succession.
The top female star of the decade, Madhuri Dixit, much like Aamir, gave mass hysteria a
whole new meaning, achieving near-cult status. No matter which actor she teamed up with, the
actress who began her ascent with Tezaab, Ram Lakhan, and Dil, delivered one hit after another
virtually all through the 1990s. Her other films include Saajan, Beta, Khalnayak, Hum Aapke
Hain Koun, Raja, Mrityudand and Dil To Pagal Hai. Simultaneously new names emerged in the
Hindi film industry: Kajol, Karisma Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai. Yet, Madhuri retained her
unrivalled standing as an actress and an industry woman of uncommon substance. She was back
with a runaway hit in 2002 with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas.
As far as star director combinations are concerned one of the most talked about box
office features of the 1990s was the consistency of the prolific David Dhawan-Govinda
partnership. It yielded a series of big hits beginning with the wacky Aankhen and stretching up to
the equally crazy Hero No. 1.
Another director-star combination that was in the news was that of Ram Gopal Varma
and Urmila Matondkar. Rangeela, Varma's first Hindi film, was a commercial humdinger, as was
Satya, one of the most remarkable releases of the decade. Their other films {Daud, Kaun, Mast,
and Jungle) achieved only mixed results. Varma, however, continued through the decade to
strengthen his reputation as one of India's most innovative directors. Few filmmakers in the
annals of Mumbai's popular filmmaking stream have had as much of an impact in so short a time
span as the prolific and farsighted Varma.
As the decade ended and the new millennium dawned, a radically new sensibility began
to take root in the industry. E. Niwas and Rajat Mukherjee crafted gripping films that employed
established popular Hindi cinema conventions to tell disturbing and unusually realistic stories. In
Shool, Niwas homed in on an upright, intrepid policeman in a small Bihar town where politics
and venality are indistinguishable from each other, while in Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, former
advertising man Mukherjee drew a by and large convincing portrait of a temperamental woman
who is obsessed with a married man.
Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan, a project far more ambitious in scope than either, carried
the nascent movement several steps forward in one grand sweep. Superbly scripted, peopled by a
gallery of believable characters and outstanding performances, the film quickly achieved cult
status and reminded one of the power that popular Hindi films have over the masses without
sacrificing quality. Deservedly, Lagaan is already being talked of as a film that is virtually in the
same exalted league as Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam, and Sholay. Patriotism was once again
the flavour of the season. Films like Border, Rang De Basanti, Lakshya, Swadesh and Zameen
followed suit.
The high-pitched Gadar was a conventionally structured mass entertainer. Its runaway
commercial success triggered the revival of interest in films about true or fictionalized incidents
and personages drawn from the pages of history books. There were numerous other projects that
were on the anvil at the end of 2001, including Rajkumar Santoshi's big budget screen rendition
of the life of the legendary Indian freedom fighter, Bhagat Singh.
The contemporary Hindi films are carefully packaged and branded product in which
every little visual and physical detail, from the components that make up the backdrop to the
attire and accessories of the stars. Farhan Akhtar's remarkably fresh; marvelously vivacious Dil
Chahta Hai is one such film. It is about a set of rich, young, urban characters but the film does
not succumb to escapist temptations. The three love stories that the narrative revolves around
involve real people and tangible emotions. The director shows characters who don imported
clothing, fly to foreign lands at will, drive higher-end foreign cars, and sport designer haircuts.
However, they exist in the film's schema not merely to attract the diasporic and urban Indian
audience but also to echo the problems that confront India's next generation.
The lively films made by Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra, and Karan Johar represent
candyfloss entertainment at its best. The recent years have also witnessed the revival of costume
dramas. One such film would be Jodhaa Akbar. It is not only romance and fun. The Mumbai
filmmakers also strived to strike a balance between commercial viability and artistic integrity.
This was evident in John Mathew Matthan's Sarfarosh, Ram Gopal Varma's Satya, Mahesh
Manjrekar's Vaastav, and E. Niwas's Shool. Mani Ratnam did much the same with Roja,
Bombay, Yuva and Guru.
The contemporary Hindi films have evolved through ages. From romance to realism to
comedy to action; it has traversed a long path. Farhan Akhtar's Don, Race, Humraaz, Gangaajal,
Omkara, Dhoom, Dhoom2 and others brought back action to the silver screen but with a lot of
style and glamour. Needless to say the contemporary Hindi films have a better variety to offer.
Cinema became increasingly popular in the early twentieth century throughout the world.
Unlike theatre performances, cinema has historically been, and continues to be, affordable for the
common man. Much like theatre, cinema allowed for films to narrate social struggles and depict
daily life in the city for broad audiences. India continues to be the largest producer of films in the
world, with the Hindi-language film industry (also known as ‗HiFi‘, Hindi Cinema or
Bollywood) based in Mumbai being the primary producer. Many films engage the viewer with
universal themes, entertaining songs, and fun dance numbers. More than twenty million people
go to the cinema daily, and can be regarded as India‘s ―religion‖ with the large following and
strong connection with Indian culture and identity.
 Unit 3
The Hindi Film Song

Cinematic Narrative and the Song

Narrative is generally accepted as possessing two components: the story presented and
the process of its telling, or narration, often referred to as narrative discourse. Story is a series of
represented events, characters (or agents for some), and actions out of which the audience
constructs a fictional time, place, and cause–effect world, or diegesis. In the Lumière short, the
material elements include the arrival of the train, the scurrying of rushed passengers, the gestures
of the railway workers, the steam emitted from the engine, even the moving shadows beneath
people's feet. Out of these rather minimal visual objects and actions, the viewer generates tiny
story events, including any effects that the train has on the people on the platform. The narrative
discourse is evident in strategies of presentation, especially the camera position, which offers a
view of the action that emphasizes perspective and depth, but also allows the viewers to watch
the faces and movements of a number of the people involved. However, Lumière's film offers a
very low level of narrative development, in part because of the short length and paucity of story
events, but also because of the absence of other narration devices, including plot ordering,mise-
en-scène choices, editing, sound effects, intertitles, or camera movement. As films expanded in
length and technical options, narrative strategies increased as well. Stories could develop more
complex characterization, thematic concerns, and temporal development, along with increasing
devices for the narrator to manipulate and present those events.
All cinematic experience is based by definition on illusion. Motion pictures are
fundamentally still images projected onto a flat screen. Nothing moves and there is no real depth
of space, yet we cannot help but "see" movement and spatial cues as the film is projected. The
entire process is based on a fiction that what we see is actually present.
Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian
popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their
films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology, history, fairy stories and so on
through song and dance. In addition, "whereas Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the
constructed nature of their work so that the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian
filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a
creation, an illusion, a fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with
people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways." During the 1970s, commercial
Bollywood films drew from several foreign influences, including New Hollywood, Hong Kong
martial arts cinema, and Italian exploitation films.
Theme
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television
program, video game or movie, and usually played during the intro, opening credits and/or
ending credits.The phrase theme song or signature tune may also be used to refer to a signature
song that has become especially associated with a particular performer or dignitary; often used as
they make an entrance. The purpose of a theme song is often similar to that of a leitmotif. Such
songs can also be used in other ways.
Mood
A mood is a feeling or a person's specific state of mind at any particular time. A mood is
also the prevailing emotion found not only in people but also in literature, music, and other
expressive arts. Moods set the overall tone for speech or writing and are an important element in
literature as well as in everyday life. Usually songs have a mood such as happy, sad, depressing,
but there is another mood that a lot of metal songs have that is different..
In most existing methods of music mood classification, the moods of songs are divided
according to psychologist Robert Thayer‘s traditional model of mood. The model divides songs
along the lines of energy and stress, from happy to sad and calm to energetic, respectively .

Story
Storytelling through Hindi movies or movie songs can be found in many songs way back
from the old movies to the present. There were songs come up over the years to convey a story.
Lata Mangeshkar‘s - Chal Mere Ghode Tik Tik Tik song
In the 1960‘s Aashirwad, a landmark movie by Hrishikesh Mukherjee revolved around
Ashok Kumar‘s character, a maverick who loved children and told them stories through songs.
There are some unforgettable story-songs in this movie, making it ideal for this list.
Ashok Kumar - Naani Ki Naav Chali (―Grandmother‘s Boat Sails‖)
Ashok Kumar - Railgaadi (―Train‖)
Amitabh Bachchan did something similar in the movie Mr. Natwarlal(Mere Paas Aao
Mere Doston), where he picked up the singer‘s microphone for the first time in a song for kids.
Another famous one was with children making up their own story in a song. Shekhar
Kapur‘s Masoom(Lakdi ki Kathi) had some of the most realistic portrayals of children and their
shenanigans seen in Hindi cinema. This iconic song had a beloved horse falling into trouble and
getting out of it by running, running, running, ever so fast!
But it‘s not like these storytelling songs were just sung to amuse children. Sometimes
they were sung to win the hearts of fair maidens, like this song in Jab Jab Phool Khile(Ek Tha
Gul Aur Ek Thi Bulbul - Mohd Rafi), where a local lad Shashi Kapoor tries to spin a yarn and
woo the lovely Nanda.
Some of India‘s oldest movies happened to be mythological films. Conveying stories
through song was very common in these. One example of such a situation comes in Ramayana,
when Luv Kush sing about their mother as a fictional character and end up arousing guilt in the
heart of their father, King Rama. Talk about effective emotional blackmail! This situation was
created several times in movies based on these parts of the Ramayana, and there are a couple of
lovely songs.
The iconic guitar refrain of the movie Karz(Ek Haseena Thi), which played such an
important role in the story, ended up ruling the climax of the movie as a full-fledged song. Rishi
Kapoor‘s character sets the story of his own previous birth to music and performs it on stage,
driving the murderess who killed him to confess out of sheer terror. Very Hamlet-esque!
Amitabh Bachchan as the eponymous drunkard, (Sharaabi - Jahaan Chaar Yaar) has an
alcohol-sozzled session of spinning some tall tales with his pals.
Shah Rukh Khan‘s character in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa staged a delightful story-song to
appeal to an audience comprising gangsters. It had panache and human interest, and was
superbly choreographed. This song also becomes a turning point for the ne‘er-do-well character
Khan portrays in the movie. After he pulls this performance off, he establishes his worth in the
eyes of his friends.
Thus, storytelling songs in Hindi films have been a fixture since the very beginning. They
serve a multitude of functions - giving a light, child-like moment, providing amusement, driving
the plot forward, reuniting lost families, conveying the emotions or situation of any given
character, and even eking out a murder confession!
Clearly, the impact of these songs cannot be underestimated!

Relief

A Bollywood playlist is considered to be filled with songs which make us tap the dance
floor. These songs are usually crafted with a meaningful lyrics usually written by distinguished
poets. The lyrics are then given a suitable music.You may find a song from Bollywood for all
mood types. There are songs which could relate to your break up and also those which make you
dance. Some may motivate you and some are there to never listen. Music can be used as
a therapy to relieve stress.

Interior Monologue
In both fiction and nonfiction, an interior monologue is the expression of a character's
thoughts, feelings, and impressions in a narrative.
An interior monologue may be either direct or indirect:
• direct, in which the author seems not to exist and the interior self of the character is given
directly, as though the reader were overhearing an articulation of the stream of thought
and feeling flowing through the character's mind;
• indirect, in which the author serves as selector, presenter, guide, and commentator.

Interior monologue is dramatic and nondramatic fiction, narrative technique that exhibits
the thoughts passing through the minds of the protagonists. These ideas may be either loosely
related impressions approaching free association or more rationally structured sequences of
thought and emotion.
Interior monologues encompass several forms, including dramatized inner conflicts, self-
analysis, imagined dialogue and rationalization. It may be a direct first-person expression
apparently devoid of the author‘s selection and control, or a third-person treatment that begins
with a phrase such as ―he thought‖ or ―his thoughts turned to.‖
The term interior monologue is often used interchangeably with stream of consciousness.
But while an interior monologue may mirror all the half thoughts, impressions, and associations
that impinge upon the character‘s consciousness, it may also be restricted to an organized
presentation of that character‘s rational thoughts.

Indian Film Music - The Most Popular Music Genre in India

Bollywood films (referring to Hindi language Indian cinema), are mostly musicals and
are therefore expected to contain catchy music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven
into the script. A film's success often depends on the popularity of such musical numbers, which
has in turn given birth to India‘s most popular genre of music- Bollywood filmi music.
Accounting for approximately 72% of music sales in India, film music has few serious rivals in
India. Film songs permeate class, creed and language, making it the lingua franca of most
Indians. From dominating the airwaves and satellite channels to turning into ringtones and
popping up on the Internet, Indian film music is statistically, commercially and aesthetically the
most popular music genre in India. India film music emerges as the most popular music genre:
 The arrival of India's first talkie Alam Ara in 1931 ushered in the birth of the first filmi
song. Adapted from the theatre, the producers of Alam Ara, retained the original songs that were
in the play. This decision proved to be a success since the songs in the film were able to woo the
largely illiterate audience to the cinema. Right from then on music proved to be the essential
ingredient that played a necessary part in every Indian movie.
The trend set by Alam Ara continued and between 1931 and 1940, India produced 931 Hindi
feature films with an average of 10 songs per films. An interesting observation is that during this
early period producers did not favor "playback" singers as many of the original actors sang their
own songs. In fact, actors were chosen specifically for their singing abilities. The 40‘s and 50‘s
saw a shift in the way movies were produced, from big motion picture studios to independent
producers, and this trend opened doors to many new musicians and music directors. This period
was also noted for the introduction of the "playback" singer. Many famous playback singers rose
to prominence in this period including Lata Mangeshkar, Hemant Kumar, Mohammed Rafi,
Geeta Dutt, and Asha Bhosle. Major music directors like Naushad, C. Ramchandra, S. D.
Burman, Shankar - Jaikishan, and Madan Mohan became very popular with their soulful and
inspiring numbers.

The 60‘s and 70‘s on the other hand witnessed a change in the technical quality of film
music. Latest technical innovations resulted in an ever-increasing standard of recording quality
that improved the sound quality of film songs. The 80‘s and 90‘s saw the advent of television
and satellite TV that became a part of most Indian homes. This changed the way in which film
music was perceived. Songs were no longer distributed only via the radio and on tapes, but also
via the hugely popular satellite/cable networks which curiously not only internationalized Indian
film music but also increased its overall consumption. The above trends paved way and
established Indian film music as the most important music genre in the country.

India‘s traditional music, including Hindustani and Classical music, has always has
immense appeal among International audiences. However, the recent years have brought about
tremendous success for Indian film music on the International scene. While it is almost
impossible to characterize the musical aspects of Indian film music, it is this originality that has
encouraged its mass appeal. Although Classical and traditional elements are part of the genre, it
is more likely to be dominated by Western jazz, rap, disco or whatever styles may currently be in
vogue.

Two Academy awards won by internationally acclaimed film music director and
composer, A.R. Rahman winning the 2009 Academy Award for Best Original Music Score and
Best Original Song for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman brought international
acclaim and recognition for the Indian film music genre.

Many musicians feel that Bollywood is monopolizing the Indian musical market and that
belligerent marketing of Hindi film music is leading to the neglect of other genres. The solution
to this problem is to provide equal marketing platforms for all good music. It is only when music
companies and musicians will be in sync about which songs need to be marketed will the
standard of music increase exponentially." Until this happens, Indian film music will continue to
hold fort as the most popular music genre in India.

The Score – Lyrics, Music, Singer

Songs and music are an indispensable part of Indian cinema. Even in the Silent era of
filmmaking it was the presence of music that conveyed the mood of the film. Till date in Indian
films song is important for filmmakers. Hence the role of music directors in Indian cinema is
quite important in this industry. Whether it is the Bollywood or the Tamil film industry or any
other, music is essential. Indian film music industry is lucky to have been blessed with
remarkable singers. If one hears these voices it is impossible to forget the melody in them.

Pankaj Mullick, OP Nayyar, Shankar Jaikishen, SD Burman, RD Burman, Illayaraja,

Devi Sri Prasad, AR Rahman, Vidyasagar, Anu Malik, Vishal Shekhar, Shankar Ehsaan Loy and
Ismail Darbar are some of the Indian film music directors. The beauty of their work lies in the
unforgettable songs that they have created. The mellifluous voices of the singers add the much
required punch to their music.

Songs also include lyrics. The lyricists of Indian films have penned down beautiful words
to express romance, pain, anger and even humor. The haunting tunes, the soul soothing
crescendos, the soul searching Indian movie songs and awe inspiring Indian dances make an
Indian movie complete. However the changing times have led Indian film songs to fusion. Both
music and dance, presented on screen today, are a blend of the east and the west.

The music composers

With the success of the first Indian sound film, Alam Ara (Ardeshir Irani 1931), film
music became an essential element in Indian cinema. Background music was used to set the
mood for certain scenes, and used in place of sound effects. These chores were relatively easy.
The challenge came with the composition of film songs and their orchestration. For this task,
musicians trained in the classical tradition were brought in as music directors. It is the work of
such composers that has injected Indian classical music into popular film songs.

In many instances, music composers worked in teams; one person creates the melody, the
other sets the arrangement of various instruments. Shankar and Jaikishan were one such duo;
Kalyan Jee and Anand Jee were another. Some renowned composers such as Sachin Dev
Burman and Naushad were trained in the classical tradition. These artists blended the classical
with the contemporary.
The Score

A score is a written form of musical composition; parts for different instruments appear
on separate staves on large pages. Film score (sometimes called as background score,
background music, film soundtrack, film music, or incidental music) is original music written
specifically to accompany a film. The score forms part of the film's soundtrack, which also
usually includes pre-existing music, dialogue and sound effects, and comprises a number of
orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at
specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional
impact of the scene in question.

Scores are written by one or more composers, under the guidance of, or in collaboration
with, the film's director or producer and are then usually performed by an ensemble of musicians
– most often comprising an orchestra or band, instrumental soloists, and choir or vocalists and
recorded by a sound engineer.

Lyrics

Lyric is a collection of verses and choruses, making up a complete song, or a short and
non-narrative poem. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. A lyric uses a single speaker, who expresses
personal emotions or thoughts. Lyrical poems, which are often popular for their musical quality
and rhythm, are pleasing to the ear, and are easily put to music.

The term lyric originates from the Greek word ―lyre,‖ which is an instrument used by the
Grecians to play when reading a poem. Lyrical poets demonstrate specific moods and emotions
through words. Such moods express a range of emotions, from extreme to nebulous, about life,
love, death, or other experiences of life. Read on to learn more about lyric in literature.

Types of Lyrics

There are several types of lyric used in poems such as given below:

• Elegy

An elegy is a mournful, sad, or melancholic poem or a song that expresses sorrow for someone
who has been lost, or died. Originally, it followed a structure using a meter alternating six foot
and five foot lines. However, modern elegies do not follow such a pattern, though the mood of
the poem remains the same.

• Ode

An ode is a lyric poem that expresses intense feelings, such as love, respect, or praise for
someone or something. Like an elegy, an ode does not follow any strict format or structure,
though it uses refrains or repeated lines. It is usually longer than other lyrical forms, and focuses
on positive moods of life.
• Sonnet

A sonnet uses fourteen lines, and follows iambic pentameter with five pairs of accented and
unaccented syllables. The structure of a sonnet, with predetermined syllables and rhyme scheme,
makes it flow off the tongues of readers in way similar way to a on song on the radio.

• Dramatic Monologue

A dramatic monologue has theatrical quality, which means that the poem portrays a solitary
speaker communing with the audience, without any dialogue coming from other characters.
Usually, the speaker talks to a specific person in the poem.

• Occasional Poetry

Poets write occasional poetry for specific occasions such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays,
victories, and dedications, such as John Dryden‘s ―Annus Mirabilis,‖ and Edmund Spencer‘s
―Epithalamion.‖

A lyrical poet addresses his audience directly by portraying their state of mind or
emotions. That is why a lyrical poem expresses personal emotions of the poet. The themes of
lyrical poems are also emotional and lofty, enabling the readers to look into the life of things
deeply. That is why such poems have universal appeal, because readers can relate their feelings
with the poem.

The playback singers

For the first ten years of talkies in India, actors did their own singing. As the demand for
sound movies increased, producers looked for creative strategies for using actors that were
unable to sing. Playback singing offered a practical solution. Shamshad Begum and Mukesh
began their film singing careers in 1941, Manna Dey arrived in 1942, Mohammad Rafi and
Hemant Kumar in 1944, Geeta Dutt in 1946 and Lata Mangeshkar in 1947. Asha Bhosle and
Kishor Kumar appeared on the scene in 1948.

These playback singers revolutionized the nature of Indian film songs and their voices
lifted film songs from being mere 'add-ons' in the film to an essential element adding to the
aesthetic and commercial value of a film. Once professional singers joined forces, lyrics writing
too evolved into a poetic art form.

All elements of film music reached their peak in 1949 with actor-director-producer Raj
Kapoor‘s movie, Barsaat/Rain (Raj Kapoor 1949). This was the first Indian movie to that became
a megahit on the strength and popularity of its songs. The movie contained 11 songs and each
one became a hit. Eight of these songs were solos by Lata Mangeshkar, for another two duets,
she was joined by Mukesh. Mohammad Rafi sang the only male solo. Arguably, the movie
Barsaat contains some of the best music in the history of Hindi film.

Many historians have referred to the period between 1950 and 1970 as the ―golden era‖
of Indian film music (Krishnan, 2003). Fifty years later, songs and soundtracks from the hit
movies of the 1950s and 1960s are still in great demand on audiocassettes, CDs, and digital
downloads.

Entertainment and Box Office attraction of Songs

The popularity of songs from a film has a directly positive correlation with the success of
the film‘s initial run at the theaters. Hit songs also guarantee subsequent demand in the rental
market and sale of its soundtrack on CDs and audiocassettes. Some of the popular singers of the
Golden Era, such as Mohammad Rafi, Kishor Kumar, and Mukesh have recorded upwards of
5000 songs each. Lata Mangeshkar held the Guinness Book of World Record for having
recorded more than 26,000 songs in a dozen different languages. Asha Bhosle, who began
singing for the movies in 1948 and continues to sing at the time of this writing (June 2016) has
recorded more than 13,000 songs.

For many of the actors in Indian cinema, their star persona is built on their good looks,
their acting talent, and their own voice plus the association with a playback singer who sings for
them. For instance, during the 1950s, Raj Kapoor‘s popularity depended a great deal on the voice
of playback singer Mukesh who recorded a string of hits for the star. During the 1960s, Shammi
Kapoor‘s success depended on songs recorded by Mohammed Rafi. Similarly, another superstar
of the 1970s, Rajesh Khanna owed much of his success to the singing voice of Kishore Kumar.
This practice of repeated pairing of a star and a singer cultivates a demand for the teaming of a
certain star with a certain singer; both become equally important. Playback singers do not receive
any royalties from the subsequent sale of their songs. In 2012, Lata Mangeshkar launched her
own recording label – LM Music.

Hit movies are remembered not only for their stars but also for their songs. In the case of
many not-so-successful movies, their titles are remembered only because their songs have
remained popular and assumed lives of their own. In the era of ―item songs‖ and Indian Rap, the
dance sequences of the item songs are immensely popular with the new generation of film
audiences. The success of the top-10 money makers in the last ten years have much to thank for
the popularity of their item songs and item girls. Even during the best years of the Hindi cinema,
in many instances, music and the dances were more inspiring than the films. In many instances,
this also holds true in the 2010s. However, any discussion of Indian cinema of any period
remains incomplete without taking into account and crediting Indian film music.

Songs are not only a vital part of Indian cinema; they're also embedded in our conscience.
We play songs to celebrate different occasions in our life. Even if we are sad, we think of sad
songs. Despite such deep relation with music, songs are not seen as a serious art form.
 In Indian cinema, songs begin where words end. It is understood by the audience that
songs are used to convey emotions, or rasa bhaav. The song has four parts — form, melody,
rhythm and orchestration.

The Indian film music industry was established in the 1930‘s. Even though the Hindi film
songs were popular among the audience, they were not available on gramophone records or
played on the radio in the early stages of the industry. Since the arrival of magnetic tape in the
1950‘s, it became possible to transfer songs, recorded on a film track, to gramophone records for
release purposes. In this period, the film music industry was not yet an established industry and
songs did not have a commercial life separate from the parent film. The film audience learning
and reproducing the songs in new contexts, after seeing the movie in the cinema, mostly caused
the popularity of the film songs. Nonetheless, the music in the movies was still a significant
contributor to the commercial success of films.

Music has become an essential determining factor in the success of the movie. Moreover,
the film music industry, accounts for 80% of the sales in the South-Asian music industry.
Throughout the years the film music industry has been to similar developments as the film
industry, with barely any promotional efforts before the arrival of new technological possibilities
in the 1990‘s. The 1990‘s and the changes in the Indian economy provided many new
possibilities for the Indian Film music industry.

Film music is thus still an important factor in the promotional strategy of a movie. Songs
and corresponding videos are often released, before the release of the movie to make a impact on
the box office and that these music video stay in circulation, even when interest in the movie has
decreased.

In Bollywood to score hit is the biggest aim for any film and while hits call for
celebration, flops are the biggest nightmare for any producer. Like we cannot stop gushing about
the biggest hits of Bollywood similarly there so many flops which we just cannot forget and they
keep haunting us for a good long time.But even in such haunting flops there are those that made
us dance to their tunes first and enchanted us with some great songs only to disappoint us big
time later with their stories.

Baar Baar Dekho – With Siddharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif tossing us back and forth in time,
we could barely made sense of the story if there was any! But in all the fiasco the film did give
us some great romantic numbers like Sau Aasman and Daariya and a superb party number like
Kala Chashma to remember. The music was definitely the only highlight of the film on box
office.

Fitoor – The only few things that made this movie sell some tickets was Tabu‘s acting,
picturesque frames and some good music. Songs including the title track and Pashmina were a
listener‘s delight.
Dilwale –If a film that had the best onscreen couple of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in
it and then it failed us, we do not know what to believe in anymore. Well if the story was a buzz
kill the music did compensate some bit for our broken hearts. With songs like Gerua, Janam
Janam, and Tukur Tukur, the album was a hit.

Tamasha – The reunion of one of Bollywood‘s most favorite estranged couples on screen calls
for a large audience to come and watch, but it was not the case with this one. Ranbir Kapoor and
Deepika Padukone pulled together in this intense story failed to impress many. But the audiences
did love the songs like Matargashti and Agar Tum Saath Ho.

Shaandaar – The most royal flop of 2015, there was nothing quite Shaandaar about this Shahid
and Alia starrer movie. But the movie did create high hopes with some great fun numbers like,
Shaam Shaandaar, Gulabo and Raita Phel Gaya.

Roy – Just another flop of Ranbir Kapoor in 2015, the film failed to draw audiences with such
sullen face of Ranbir that we saw in the trailer and songs. But the songs like Chitiyan Kalaiyan,
Sooraj Dooba Hai and Tu Hai Ki nahi were super hits!

Anjaana Anjaani – The overly dramatic film certainly killed us with boredom. Most of the songs
however were played on loop by us. With songs like Anjaana Anjaani, Hairat, Aas Paas Hai
Khuda, Tujhe Bhula Diya, the album was a sure success!

Raavan - This Mani Ratnam film became a box office disappointment in 2010 with Abhishek
Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai in the lead. Even when the film disappointed we were in love with
the music A.R. Rehman created. Beera, Behen De and Ranjha Ranjha were definite hits!

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom – Not many had the patients to sit through this 2007 movie, but music was
pretty good and had more than one hit number in the album like Bolna Halke Halke, Jhoom
Barabar Jhoom, and Kiss of Love.

Anwar – If at all there is anything about the movie that we remotely recall is the music. Songs
like Tohse Naina Lage and Maula Mere certainly made us fall in love.

Saawariya – It was dream debut for Rabir kapoor and Sonam Kapoor to kick star their career
with a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film in 2007. But nothing saved the slow paced film from
becoming a box office flop. The music though indeed clicked with the audiences and can still be
found the playlists of many!

Jaan-e-Maan – This 2006 Diwali relase definitely tanked at the box office, still the soft numbers
from the movie made it to our hearts and became something we would croon away while sitting
idle. Sau Dard and Humko malum hai were our favorites!
Aashiq Banaya Aapne – This music album is a sure shot guilty pleasure not many of us will
openly admit to. The success of Himesh Reshmiya‘s songs in this otherwise disastrous movie
was no surprise even if his nasal voice was thoroughly trolled.

Jhaankar Beats – Many might remember this film but might not have seen it. The reason behind
the vivid memory of this musical comedy is the music which we loved. With Vishal and Shekhar
kick starting their journey in Bollywood the songs like Tu Aashiqui Hai and Suno Na stayed with
us.

Paap – The film had nothing in it except two great songs that we sing and lose ourselves
listening to any time. These songs were Mann Ki Lagan and the power pact number Garaj Baras.

Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon - Frankly this film had so much acting that we were sort of done
with movies for good if some other rational film did not reassure us and reinstate our faith in
movies. But even this over dramatic piece of work had songs that became super hits!

Some super hit songs of the earlier period

 Aaj Fir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai from Guide – Chittorgarh Fort

 Oh Mere Raja from Johny Mera Naam – Nalanda
 Jai Jai Shiv Shankar from Aap Ki Kasam – Gulmarg
 Dil Ka Bhanwar Kare Pukar from Tere Ghar Ke Saamne – Qutub Minar
 Yeh Chand Sa Roshan Chehra from Kashmir Ki Kali – Dal Lake Srinagar
 Tumne Kisi Ki Jaan from Rajkumar – Mahabalipuram
 Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi Shikwa from Aandhi – Avantipur Ruins
 Yeh Lucknow Ki Sar Zameen from Chaudhvin Ka Chand – Lucknow
 Mere Sapnon Ki Rani from Aradhana – Heritage Darjeeling Train
 Main Ek Raja Hoon from Uphaar – Golconda Fort

Best Rain songs in Hindi cinema

 ‗O Sajna‘ from Bimal Roy‘s ‗Parakh‘ (1960)

 ‗Rim Jhim Gire Sawan‘ from Basu Chatterjee‘s ‗Manzil‘ (1979)
 Koi Ladki Hai‘ from Yash Chopra‘s ‗Dil To Pagal Hai‘ (1997)
 Saawan Barse Tarse Dil‘ from Lateef Binny‘s ‗Dahek‘ (1999)
 Barso Re‘ from Mani Ratnam‘s ‗Guru‘ (2007)