When I think of Hindi movies, I remember my incessant visits to the video parlour as an eight-year-old, to surreptitiously catch new releases for Re 1. I knew the dialogues by heart and still clearly remember not just the plots but also the names of the characters essayed by the stars of the 80s like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra.

The quintessential surnames of the protagonists would be:

Sharma

Chaturvedi

Gupta

Verma

Thakur

Bollywood’s progression from Black & White to Eastmancolor and subsequently from Cinemascope to Ultra High Definition did not alter its social essence and tilt towards depiction of Savarnas.