Drawing inspiration from Hollywood and linking it to the origins of the Hindi language film industry of India is ‘Bollywood’, with alphabet ‘B’ borrowed from the earlier Bombay (now Mumbai).

The film industries thriving across different parts of India particularly focused on regional cinema are following the bandwagon to be referred as Tollywood (for the Telugu film industry in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Kollywood (Tamil language film industry based in Chennai), Mollywood (Malayalam film industry based in Kerala), Pollywood (Punjabi language film industry in India and Pakistan), Lollywood (Urdu and Punjabi films of Pakistan film industry in Lahore) and others.

From Reel-to-Real or Vice-Versa?

As is the influence of Hollywood on youth in the West, so is the influence of Bollywood on the culture of Mumbai and across India. It has its far-reaching impact on young minds in neighborhood countries of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Drawing comparisons or parallels between two distinctively unique film industries, Hollywood and Bollywood is rather unfair on each. However, we would like to bring to light some noted observations about Bollywood cine-goers who tend to dwell in larger-than-life imagery on their minds and live constantly in a dreamy world of hope.

Romanticism and quest for true love is the quintessential theme of most Bollywood movies with a villain (in the form of either opposition from father or another lover, or an external force) tries all possible means to ensure that the couple in love is confronted with hurdles. These could be in the form of traditional conservative ideals of society, which makes their transition to the “happily-ever-after” narrative seem almost impossible. Bollywood movies have always emphasised on happy and stable families as the most important aspect of Indian culture.

While romanticism as idealized in Bollywood movies gives hope for the hopeless, is it making people drift away from embracing realism? For when the romantic ideals do not get met in real life, people are unprepared for failures to get extremely disheartened soon. Is Bollywood to be blamed for the damage caused to the social fabric of life?