Queer fish, these jazzy swimmers in the sub-continental cinema! These species, which have evolved into some rare newts in the tub, have gone through Bollywood and Lollywood in the 20th century with incredible aplomb, with twitching nasal hair and twiddling tails!

And now, as 21st century trumps up a new halla gulla cinema, things are coming to a head. Let’s just look at some of the peculiarities of our cinema.

During the 60s, a typically dreamy cinema took root in the subcontinent. In this type of movie, the hero was quite a different man from the 40s (melancholy) and 50s (revolutionary). The dreamy, chocolate hero of the 60s, generally met the sari-clad heroine through a husn-e-ittefaq! It turns out that it was a planned move by the mischievous hero, as in Ali-Zeb’s Aag, where hero poses himself as a blind man, or a real co-incidence, as in Dil Aik Mandir, when Meena Kumari took her beemar husband (Raj Kumar) to the hospital, she finds that she is face to face with her college-day Romeo, Rajindar Kumar (copied scene to scene in Pakistani film, Insaniyat)!

Today, there’s no such formality involved. In 21st century, in well-developed(!) Indian cinema, the hero could be downright badtameez, who has a falling out with heroine’s Abba (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge), or gets extra friendly in the very second minute they meet in a train. No matter, everything turns out well in the end!

When things used to turn too troublesome (no, just the father of the heroine being a prick!), the hero and heroine, in the 60s, would sing a late-night duet at least five miles apart (say hero walking on Khalid bin Waleed Road, and the heroine in a posh bungalow behind Numaish!), which doesn’t disturb anybody, except being audible to the noble pair, as in Jab Raat Dhali (Kaneez). This day, hero ke akele ganey ka to sawal hee paida naheen hota! At least 40 boys and girls accompany him, and why not! This is the age of late-night weddings and parties, where even a mayon function runs to 2:30 am, and contains full-blast 10 Indian hits. So, the mohalley waley can go have fun in one of their own parties!

(To be continued)