Busher Dada : three for two.

Born in 1944, i finished, and graduated from, watching Hindi/Bollywood movies in 1960, when I turned 16, after a four year stint between 1957-1960. Since, I had already finished my undergraduate degree and had started my graduate studies, and had not much time on hand for entertainment, except occasional forays at sports, like soccer, cricket,
Badminton, carrom and tennis.
Since then I might have seen over a dozen or so Indian movies in the last 45 years, but have never enjoyed them, except those of Satyajit Roy, Shyam Benegal, Ismail Merchant,
Adoor Gopalkrishnan and the likes of them.
In the early 1970s, my younger brother, who lived in Bombay, far away from sleepy Bihar where I did, enticed me to see more of Hindi movies, which I simply declined.
I was reading Time, The Illustrated Weekly of India those days and will regularly come across, obviously propaganda material, from an Indian guy in Switzerland, promoting his mediocre brother to become a successful movie star in Bombay on Hindi screen, from funds in Switzerland. Indians get swayed away easily by things coming from the West.
This clever ploy made me to further resist, watching those movies and those actors. I have successfully managed not to fall victim to this slick misinformation.
The guy became successful movie star on Hindi screen but neglected his promoter brother in Switzerland, who vanished into oblivion for decades. He might not have received even the funds he expected to get from the deal of promoting his brother, in addition to getting into limelight, as ‘star-maker’. The brotherly love did not survive for long. Now the father needs to promote his son, and wishes to put him on the path he treaded so well. This is obvious in the traditions of Senior Bush to George Bush, Nehru to Indira, Rajiv to Sonia, Lalu to Rabri and numerous others.
The path seemed more difficult than imagined by the Big Star, hence the old Swiss brother is back into the equation, and a new set of propaganda initiated. Plenty of wealth is available now in India, compared to the days of 1970s, foreign exchange is not required to buy pages in Time, rather the work can be done in Mumbai itself now. The father says, ‘he could not have acted, as his son did’ and also insists, ‘this is not from a father, but from an actor’. This model actor-cum-father should be a rare find, but can be compared to the much maligned caste system propagated by Brahmins.
In addition to the son, we need to promote the daughter-in-law too, more the merrier. The
mediocre performance of the daughter-in-law is more obvious than that of the son and the father. I could be incorrect, for not being a movie critique. The mother is back in the game too. Father, mother and uncle are now a team, bent upon bringing glory for the son and his wife. Earlier there were one promoter brother and one actor to benefit from it. Now we have three promoters and two actors to be glorified. Based on the past promotion and propaganda, it should be rather easy this time, and may not take as much effort as it did back then.
Now comes into picture the 90 year old marketing guru, esteemed painter/artist, hiding in London, who plans to return (finding BJP discredited and gone, and replaced by friendly Congress and Dalits in power) to Mumbai. The court cases for offending Hindus by painting their deities naked, has started in Delhi, to help negate the wrath of sena in Mumbai. His young famous friend, ‘naked sarasvati’ is back on the silver screen too.
The latter’s dancing skills, thus, may delay the plans for the beauty-queen daughter-in-law to succeed quick, while the son may reach the podium faster.
After copying Hollywood for decades, without acknowledgement, the Hindi cinema even copied the name, and changed to Bollywood. A self respecting group of movie- makers/goers would have waited for bollywood to change its name to Humbai. But that
seems too much to ask for from Indians who fall fast for aping the West.
In my opinion, the previous generations of Indians, watched Hindi movies for just entertainment, and did not accept them in their lives. They were considered cheap and lowly. But the recent/modern generations try to imitate the movie-icons in their life-styles, hence plethora of love-scandals, broken-hearts, extra-marital affairs, romantic flings, divorces and remarriages, have become so common, as in the western world, which was not as rampant in India as it is now.
This stunt, more enjoyable to me than the Bollywood movies, made my Bengali friend to scream, ‘Ore Baba, Era to Busher Dada’, referring to the spin and propaganda George Bush has managed for the last six years or so to take the country into war in Iraq on false pretense.
No wonder, even after almost 100 years of film making, over a billion fans, numerous big-A actors and actresses, and the talent of others that releases highest number of movies
year after year, Bollywood has failed to receive even a single Oscar in any category ever during the 80 years of Academy awards.