Bollywood culture: Decoding narrative in social context

Abstract

The reach and appeal of Bollywood cinema have been phenomenal. In the last three decades, it has crossed the boundaries of language and Nations. India‘s Film Industry is the world‘s largest film industry in terms of quantity of movies produced as Bollywood produces over 1500 movies. However, according to Box Office business, Bollywood comes in as the third largest film industry in the world after English and Chinese. Bollywood is the only Film industry in the world that has global presence apart from English Hollywood movies. One can mention Africa, Latin America, Far East, and Central Asia. This whole spread is not only driven by business or technology but also driven by the audience. Bollywood has its significant presence and appreciation in the countries where English cinema has very little presence. The very obvious question that arises is the reason for this unusual admiration. This question becomes more relevant when we consider the fact that Hindi has little presence beyond the boundaries of India. The answer lies in a critical aspect of the narrative culture of India. India has a great tradition of storytelling since the ancient period. Folklore was an actually popular commentary of Indian culture, philosophy, and belief in a very interesting way. This paper tries to understand the distinctive feature of the Bollywood narrative. There has been a whole lot of issues depicted in their very own way but the most frequent has been the narrative of love. This may seem very common but the treatment of narrative is very unique. It reflects a whole lot of culture of India. A unique aspect of Bollywood love narrative is longing for love in the missing situation. The decades of the fifties to eighties have been a great period of Bollywood song. It is one of the greatest imaginations of love, probably a masterpiece in literature. This Bollywood narrative can be seen in the context of Bhakti Movement* of Hindi poetry. The Bollywood narrative can be seen as a Philosophical treatment of love in the age of rationality which connects more emotion than a rational treatment of love. The Indian classics from the beginning has been having an optimistic end with the hope of life while the Greek Classics have been tragedies by tradition. It has been said that ‗There is a larger dark space of human life and mind than known spaces.‘ In other words, ‗Humans are very logical irrationals.‘ Bollywood is popular in a lasting way because of its greater understanding of culture and mind.