My second speech at Toastmaster's

Good afternoon everyone. I am Krishnan Subramanian and today, I am going to give my second speech. In my speech, I am going to talk about arguably, India's greatest asset---No, I am not talking about democracy, or freedom of speech or multi-culturalism or anything of that sort. I am going to talk about Bollywood and about how it simultaneously been the greatest reflection of the Indian society and also its greatest influencer.

If you see, it was only after independence, during the 50's and 60's, when making a movie for a living became a lucrative profession, and, India at that time was going through a turbulent phase. Independence had generated so much optimism and hope--maybe, for hte first time in their life, people believed in a bright future, but, there was also the concern of freedom getting to our head and our population becoming morally corrupt, the fear of the government not able to administer effectively and the country slipping into anarchy. These emotions were very beautifully portrayed in many Raj Kapoor movies, most notably 'Shri 420' where Raj Kapoor acts as a country boy who moves to a big city to earn a living and ends up becoming a swindler, or 'Jis desh mein Ganga behti hei' in which he shows the life of dacoits who steal and fight against the police. I think, the greatest contribution of Raj Kapoor to Bollywood and to Indian cinema in general was that, his movies made you sit and think--is our country going in the right direction? What can I do to change thing?, etc.

This kind of thinking took an extreme position in the 70's. That was the time when general disillusionment and hatred against the 'System' was beginning to take root, and the emergency only further fueled this feeling. In Bollywood also, this was the era of the angry young man who would fight the system, and, when you think of angry young man, only one person comes to your mind--Amitabh Bachchan. Whether it was the inspector Vijay Khanna of 'Zanjeer' or Vijay Verma of 'Deewar' or maybe movies like Trishul and Kaala Pathar, all of them showed Amitabh Bachchan fight the tyranny of the system, and , along with fighting the system, Bachchan also teamed up with Dharmendra to fight Ghabbar Singh in Sholay. That was one movie, which revolutionized the film industry, because, for the first time, both the hero and the villain were being shown as equally powerful characters.

In the late 80's and early 90's, the tide shifted towards family-centric, romantic musicals. If you would excuse my usage of non-English words, these were the typical "Samajik and Parivarik" movies-- movies like "Hum apke hei kaun", "Dilwale Dulhania Le jayenge", etc. These movies catered to a family audience consisting of both the young and old, and, in the last 4 to 5 years, to put it bluntly, the whole spectrum is getting covered, for example, gritty violent movies like "Satya", "D", "Ab tak Chappan" at one end, movies like "Kabhi khushi kabhi gham", "Kabhi alvida na kehna", at the other end and movies like "Krrish", "Munnabhai", "Jhankar beats", somewhere in between.

Now, there have always been allegations that stories in Bollywood are not truly original and that many times; they are "inspired" ones. Example, "Akele hum akele tum" as a copy of "Krammer Vs Krammer" or "Kaante" as a copy of "Usual suspects" and "Reservoir dogs", but, there have been some movies which have taken a very much existing story and blended it into an Indian context--the most recent example being, Shakespeare’s Othello in the UP badlands as "Omkara".

However, one genre of movies that Bollywood is yet to take up is science-fiction. The closest we have come to is Mr. Anil Kapoor Invisible as Mr. India or maybe, "Tarzan--the wonder car", but, this is one genre that is yet to pick-up. Also, we are yet to see more of super-hero flicks. "Krrish" is a good start, but, there is a lot of potential in that field.

From patriotic flicks to fighting against the system, to lovers running around trees to gangsters slugging it out--Bollywood has indeed come a long way and every time, it has succeeded in capturing the pulse of the audience. I dearly hope that this continues in the coming decades also.