Even if we don't remember the names of the movies Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor acted in we at least do remember their names and their songs. Bollywood used to be poetic, romantic, and it often illustrated fantasies - handsome heroes who sang perfectly, could play any instrument and could fight the world to be with their lovers. Their lovers would be beautiful, stunning heroines who could also sing and dance with a group of lesser-beautiful people copying her moves. They could pull off a saree in every weather, including the bitter temperatures of the summits of icy-cold snowy mountains in New Zealand. Yes this seems like a sarcastic reflection upon Bollywood movies but it was those things we have grown to love that strongly differentiated Bollywood from Hollywood and gave Bollywood it's unique masala flavor.
However, that traditional Bollywood masala formula is starting to change.
The mirch is different now; it's becoming more eminent, increasingly so much so that sometimes members of the older, India-born generation look away from the increasing amount of kissing and suggestive sex scenes in disgust. Especially after the Dhoom 2 (2006) kissing scene controversy many Bollywood fans have noticed the rise in more physically-suggestive scenes in Indian movies. Salaam Namaste's (2005) entire story and climax centered around an untraditionally-made and surprise pregnancy and the relationship tied to the baby and its parents. Nevermind kissing, you never saw Rishi Kapoor even hug his heroine sexually-suggestively!
So the hotness and spiciness volume turned up, so what? Well this event is the first reflection on Bollywood's new audience; the young, westernizing generation clearly involves a lot more sex appeal in its members' lives than those of the older or even previous generation. The people are more shallow and are are being drawn to these movies with less poetry but more body. This is also portraying and simultaneously slightly sparking the change in the mentality of the young generation. Instead of living by the traditional, one-woman/man for the rest of their life, saving virginity till marriage, and maybe even the "zindagi mein pyaar ek hi baar hoti hain" ideals, westernization is steadily moving the Indian mentality towards more practicality and also comfort in sexually-open activities. A man (who could be a probable lover) who sleeps with a woman in a woman's room was unheard of in times of Sholay (1975) and even Hum Aapke Hain Kaun! (1994). Though some other classic and infamous movies like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) have actually suggested the idea in their plotlines, none ever displayed any sexy scenes that temporarily changed the mood of the film. However it was movies like DDLJ that slowly shifted the romantic landscape of Indian movies from sensual hugs in the bedroom to full-out body movements and facial expressions beneath the sheets, or as we've seen in the movie RACE (2008), those reactions on top of a haystack. Whatever the case, westernizing Bollywood is displaying the fast-paced social change of our culture, using the young generation's greater value of sexual appeal to attract them to their movies.
The spiciness volume isn't the only knob that was turned up in Bollywood. Especially within the past decade many artsy movies have been popping up. These movies often require an audience that can and enjoy interpreting the films' metaphors and meaning beyond simply enjoying the entertainment. These (often independent) films also represent the growth of untraditional films in Bollywood. For example, Roadside Romeo (2008) was the very first fully-animated Indian film, that too with dogs as their main characters. To an extent, it can be agreed that through these new types of movies that are being released, Bollywood is slowly becoming a Hindi-spoken Hollywood. Still, no one has as much experience for dubbing songs and changing clothes every thirty seconds as we do.
Our movies used to be unique with our own flavor - movies were much more lengthy, actors and actresses sang to at least five or six songs in the film, and drama was more hyped up. Don't be afraid though, this flavor isn't going away, it's just changing. Though we are now often removing many, if not all item songs from our newer movies, shortening the lengths of the movies, and making them a little more realistic, we are retaining our uniqueness in new ways through highlighting our culture, displaying, portraying, and describing old as well as emerging concepts and concerns of our society and having the movies portray deeper messages that apply to our generation more often than for mere entertainment. So Bollywood's masala's formula is changing. The orders are now a lot more spicy, in shorter quantity, and overall, more modern Bollywood.
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