The Inspiring and Unique Qualities of Bollywood

India is the most prolific film making nation on the planet.

The precise nature and definition of Bollywood is open to many varying interpretations, but it is generally understood to be defined as a film market where films are produced by the Mumbai film industry, principally adopting the Hindi language, and containing song and dance as an integral feature of the narrative. These films have been channeled through the North Indian film circuits.

However, Bollywood does not comprise of the entire Indian film output, making up 20% of the Indian film industry, it is therefore a distinguished area of the film landscape in India. Bollywood is not a single genre and therefore encompasses a broad range of categories of film. It has enjoyed a rich and diverse range of film production over many decades. Bollywood can be traced back to 1913 when its first feature film was produced and later it’s first ‘talkie’ was released in 1931. There are three key era’s for Bollywood, with the Studio Era occurring between 1935- 1950, mostly under colonial rule, the Music Director Era taking place between 1950-1998 and the Transition Era beginning in 1998 to the present day.

Gadar: Ek Prim Katha is a bold and moving film set in 1947 which tells the story of a young male truck driver Tara Singh who is a Sikh and falls in love with Sakin a Muslim girl who comes from an aristocratic family. The love story is played out against the backdrop of the Hindu-Muslim riots which erupted during the country’s partition period. The film examines one relationship in a very tumultuous time, and was not afraid to explore the social and political environment of the era. The central characters Tara and Sakin soon find themselves married and having a baby son. It is a happy and idyllic existence until Sakin learns her father is alive, believing he had been killed in the riots during the partition. It transpires her father is now the Lahore mayor and he arranges a flight for her to see him. However, he has very different plans for his daughter, he wants her to leave her husband and child and marry a Pakistani man and to become a politician instead and forget about India. Eventually Sakina’s husband turns up trying to find her.

(Indian period action drama Gadar: Ek Prim Katha, 2001)

The film takes us back to an age in which British colonial rule had just come to an end, India was divided into two nations, India and Pakistan, and tensions between Muslims and Hindus was increasing. Whilst the film is fictional it tells a story that is inspired by true events and in many ways the film represents the division within the country at the time, it depicts the journey of two people who love one another but who belong to two different religions.

If we compare Gadar: Ek Prim Katha to another Bollywood classic entitled Bride and Prejudice, which was released in 2004, we can see a number of parallels whilst simultaneously noting various key differences. Bride and Prejudice comes from director Gurinder Chadha and her film is based on the very well known novel Pride and Prejudice. Just as in Gadar we are treated to a romantic film but with much less drama, which is entirely deliberate. In the original Pride and Prejudice there is plenty of drama but in Chadha’s film this element of the narrative structure has been given a makeover and in many cases replaced with comedy. Both Gadar and Bride and Prejudice have both been made in the Transition Era of Bollywood cinema and both explore romantic relationships and all the struggles they can entail. However, in Bride and Prejudice the challenges the unmarried daughters face and the seriousness of the original novel have almost been removed. The plot has been modernised and the locations span Bombay, London, New York and Goa. The four daughters so central to the original novel are preserved and they reside in the Indian country town of Amritsar, again reflecting the country town in the novel.

(A Bollywood adaptation of a Jane Austen classic, Bride and Prejudice 2004)

The film explores class and custom and it is in this social evaluation where more parallels can be found with Gadar. However, the comedy which features in Bride and Prejudice is what sets the two films apart from a genre perspective. All of the loneliness and seriousness Austen wrote into the story have been thrown away by Chadha, the dark and more sinister themes have been removed. It’s as if Chadha has banished any nuance of meaning to ensure a more casual feel. The complexities within the original novel have been adopted in Bride and Prejudice, but within the basis of a glossy, elaborate musical production.

The Bollywood film industry is a force for Indian film diversity, albeit within distinguished parameters. It is prolific and has made a profound contribution to the construction of many established and often contentious dichotomies such as traditional versus modern or global versus local. It has helped to both define and affirm Indian identities and circulate these concepts to a global audience. Hindi films have proven to be the area of the Indian film industry that has managed to be successfully distributed internationally.