Bollywood Nostalgia Article Revised

Down Memory Lane Recipe For Bollywood Love
Dileep M.M
After a relatively long silence there is a fresh air in Bollywood, in terms of productions.
And an important stream in this air is filled with an aroma of nostalgic past. More
accurately we can say, nostalgic love of swinging 60’s and roaring 70’s or even from the
beginning of the previous century! Filmmakers are more eager than ever to emphasize a
nostalgic connection to Bollywood. Generally, nostalgia for the past is pervading in our
popular film culture. In the recent past – recall Om Shanti Om, Khoya Khoya Chand and
Parineeta- filmmakers have loved going on a flash back mode.
The recent example we have is Imtyaz Ali’s new kitty consisting Saif and Deepika. This
time he rekindled his love magic recipe with a correct mix of nostalgic ‘Aaj Kal’
ingredients. Is this because love as a ‘pure passion’ has morphed into something fun and
cool? The answer needs more probing questions.
Nostalgia expresses itself through a contrast between an idealized past/love and an unstable
future. The reason of the growth of nostalgia connection is concurrent with the appearance
of the tastes of NRIs. They are pushing content in Bollywood films with some ‘idealized
love’ images of the past. This trend is more evident with the arrival of Hollywood money in
Mumbai –example, Saawariya (2007) was financed by Sony. But at the same time audience
no longer want the substance of those films. Tashan bombed, because it adapted the
substance of those 1970s films, which no longer suit the tastes of contemporary audiences,
despite the nostalgia for them that pervades popular film culture.
To recreate the bygone era is not only strenuous, but a challenging task as well. It's equally
arduous to capture the essence of Bollywood of 1950s and 1960s with precision on
celluloid. In that respect, Sudhir Mishra's Khoya Khoya Chand succeeds in transporting the
viewer to the golden era.
Set against the Hindi film industry in 1950s and 1960s, Khoya Khoya Chand is the
tumultuous story of a budding actress Nikhat played by Soha Ali Khan and Zafar by Shiney
Ahuja. Nikhat becomes a big star with the help of superstar Prem Kumar by Rajat Kapoor,
but in return of favours. Zafar helps Nikhat get free from the iron grip of Prem Kumar. But
the relationship is short-lived. Sudhir Mishra captures the behavioural pattern of stars,
budding actors and filmmakers to perfection. Be it some shades of Guru Dutt’s saga or a
dash of Meena Kumari’s life or Waheeda Rehman; Mishra has simply borrowed chunks of
life from the sagas of many yesteryear stars that has pathos as a second name.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra searched for his nostalgic recipe in letters and found none other than
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic "Parineeta”. For him, it's not the first time, though.
He did it in "1942 - A Love Story", a good decade before Bollywood saw a trend in period
films and nostalgic past! The novel is written in 1914, but Vidhu has brought the idea to the
`60s. Even he had a claim that, the version was free from the original.
Imtiaz Ali too added his own contribution to this stream of recipe. Has love really evolved
over the years? How? Ali focused on these questions of love that set in ‘Aaj’ and ‘ Kal’
periods. He places the Romeo-Juliet romance in modern times. The story captures love in
two eras – now and the 60s.
‘Love aaj’ is set in London, San Francisco and Delhi. Jai (Saif) and Meera (Deepika) is a
modern-day couple in London. They are very happy together but do not believe in tying
each other down. So when life pulls them in different directions, they decide to go with the
flow. In Jai’s opinion, that type of Romeo-Juliet couples exist only in storybooks. In the
real life, we have to be practical. In that sense he is the so called ‘modern day lover’. On
the other hand Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor) is a man whose world is moulded by ‘Love kal’.
Young Veer (Again Saif!) is struck by a thunderbolt when he sees his sweet heart Harleen
for the first time. He travels a thousand kilometers by train to stand under her balcony only
to have a glimpse of her face. And yet not speak a word with her.
As both stories unfold, we realize that the process of relationship might be different in
different eras, but the experience of being in love remains the same. So there is the present
- despair of modern living, the liberation and confusion. And there is the past — the times
of innocence and compulsion. The young adults who enjoy the nostalgia today may have
grown up hearing the songs from those 50s, 60s and 70s films played by their parents.
Remembering those films allows them to remember their parents and culture, even though
the actual films themselves do not satisfy their desires.
“It is a film about a modern day working couple who understand the issues of being in a
relationship. Jai is a man of today and Veer lives in the 60’s,” said Imtyaz Ali. The 60s, he
says, has its own charm. “Each one of us likes to hear how our parents and grandparents
lived”, says Ali. And off course how they loved! Filmmakers exploit this yearning of the
viewers.
Farah Khan uses less nostalgia quotient in her flick, Om Shanti Om. Her ‘love recipe’ has a
retro as well as a modern taste! But, most of the viewers watched OSO because of an
incarnated Junior/Super Star twin roles of Sharukh Khan. Obviously Farah Khan used a
chunk of style statements of the 70s with a dash of humour. By doing so, she manages to
take little digs at the cinema of the 1970s’ that conveyed much joy, shared little angst. In
other words, Farah does not want to idealize our love/past. The director only wants to take
us (viewers) a ride with an incarnation love theme. Om Shanti Om, except using some style
statements of the seventies such as vintage hairstyle of the ‘Dream Girl ‘ and theatrics /
styles of the ‘Jumping Jack’ heroes with some humour (mocking?), is nothing to do with
nostalgic love. Comparing to our other three recipes, the film is less dependent on the
nostalgic quotient. She cares only for style, not for any content. Even some critics cornered
her for the reason of mocking our yesteryear stars/heroes [past] of Bollywood.
If Farah used vintage hair style that were once used by Hema Malini and Soha Ali Khan
used her mother’s jewellery, Pradeep Sarkar uses Howrah bridge and charm of
Culcutta/Kolkota, Imtyaz recreated streets of Old Delhi. We the viewers have the urge for
the nostalgic romance of our parent’s era.
With the success of ‘Love Aaj Kal’, we can expect more blast from the past. Whether that
recipe of success for the Bollywood will work or not is a question that will only be
decisively answered after some more time.
The End.

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Down Memory Lane Recipe For Bollywood Love

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