Piasa vasool?? Not really!!!

First things first... I would like to wish all the readers of this blog a very happy and a prosperous new year.

I am finally done with the 8 weeks learning program at MindTree. The last one and a half months have been the most hectic days of my life. It was after a long time that I pushed myself so hard in to something! That explains why my blog posts have dipped in frequency as well. I must say that I am gradually getting used to this corporate life. Hope to update this space more frequently here after.

If KBC were to hit prime time anytime in the future, I am sure the question worth several millions would definitely be, ‘What does it take to deliver a box office hit in bollywood?’ Let me give it a try. The following is an attempt to derive an empirical formula for delivering a successful movie in bollywood:

1. If you are an aspiring director, dreaming to make it big in Mumbai, the bare minimum requirement is to have a big collection of Hollywood flicks in your house. Warna ’How do you get your share of inspiration yaar?’

2. After knitting a story (acha chalo ‘ripping-off-from-Hollywood-flicks’ hi bol deta hoon), you need to get call sheets from who’s who in bollywood.

3. Bollywood movie bana rahe ho aur koi gana vana nahi. Aisa kaisa ho sakta hai? So you gotta have a dance (item) number pa. It’s a must!!!

4. After getting the call sheets of so-called super stars of bollywood, you need to convince your director that Maliaka Arora Khan is playing a very crucial role in this movie (allegedly in an item number) and it’s absolutely okies to pay her 1 crore!

5. If that doesn’t drive away your fear of a delivering a box office hit, you gotta request the male protagonist (preferably a 40+ six packer) to persuade the super stars of yester years (yes the list includes Chunkey pandey!) to make a guest appearance in a dance number where they shall share the silver screen for a split second. You know what? The audience should consider themselves fortunate to see them all in a single movie!!!

6. Not to forget. You must have some sophisticated twists and turns in the movie like, the re-incarnation of the male/female protagonist. The hero must spill out clichés like, “Picture abhi bhi baaki hai mere dost!’ (A gentle reminder for all those who were planning to sneak out of the theatres after intermission).

7. Once you are done with shooting those must have item numbers and scenes where the hero blabbers some heavy clichés, you should start off with the promotion of your movie. The leads of the movie should make regular appearances on reality shows, FM stations as guests. The whole concept behind such ruthless campaigning (read as fooling the audience) with a subtle message ‘Look we don’t have anything special to offer in terms of story. So don’t expect Oscar winning performances from our lead actors. Kyu ki hame khud apni product par shak hai. Is liye we are trying to market it really hard. Watch this movie at your own risk!’

8. Since you already know that the movie you have offered to public is absolute crap, you should be extremely thankful to aam janata if they turn up at theatres in decent numbers. Pehli week pe collection acchi rahi to bach gaye mere dost warna to bhagvan hi tumhari madad kar sakta hai!

It leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you discover that a movie that hit theatres with so much of hype, failed pathetically to live up to your expectations, irrespective of the fact that it was the director’s second movie or whether the protagonists were new comers.

Every trend has an anomaly and bollywood is no different. Amidst a plethora of excessively hyped (over-promise-under-deliver-category) movies you find real good ones like Taare Zameen Par, where the focus is on story and not on some item number where the self proclaimed lady divas suffer from BPK3S (Badan Pe Kapdon Ki Kami Syndrome). I shall share my experience on TZP in my next post.

~IT's My Life