In India, Hindi film industry has ruled the roost for a long time. Hindi film industry with Bombay (now Mumbai) as its center of activity is known as Bollywood. The name is quite similar to Hollywood, the capital of American cinema.

Bollywood dreams are a part of the life of an ordinary starry-eyed Indian. There are many people who have dedicated their lives to live a full fledged Bollywood dream. And many of them ended as the perpetual junior artist and the more unfortunate lot languished in the crowded rail station of Mumbai and took a train to get back to their hometowns. There are movies made in Bollywood that detail the story of such a nonentity like a junior artist who dreamt some fruitless Bollywood dreams.

Bengali Group Theater

Bengali Group Theater flourished and soared in popularity with path breaking, excellent performances by Sombhu Mitra, Tripti Mitra, Utpal Dutta and others. Some of the most talented and knowledgeable actors of Bengal had begun their careers as group theater actors.

Sadly, the glory of Bengal Group Theater is on the wane now. Commercial acting institutions produce actors in bulk who are lured by the lucre of money. With only a handful of people trying to hold on to the tradition of Bengali Group Theater, the future of this once popular art form has become uncertain indeed!

The director, Raju Hirani of Munnabhai fame is able to raise a few very pertinent questions in the garb of comedy and entertainment which helps in easy viewing. The questions posed by the film include:

1. The fixation on achieving high grades
2. Efficacy of learning things by rote
3. The issue of parental pressure that forces a young individual to take up vocations that are not their preference and committing suicide when they fail to match their expectations.

   On the whole the film is well worth your money with some stellar performances by its leading actors.

Indian Dancer

India is known all over the world for its rich cultural heritage. It is a land of diverse religions and each state of the country beautifully displays its distinct cultural legacy. Dance is one of the unique cultural aspects of all Indians. The charm and grace of the Classical dance of India is truly inexplicable.

The classical dance performances of India will surely take you to a different world of pleasure. Classical Dance is one of the two leading dance forms of the country. Another leading dance form being the folk dance. Where classical dances are mostly associated with the temple culture, folk dances on the other hand are more identified and inclined with locales.

The essence of the Classical Dances of India is both spiritual and aesthetic. These dances are more or less performed to pray and please Goddess. The main element of the classical dance forms is allied with that of myths, philosophical explanations, symbolism and other mystic responses.

The elegant body movements including hands, neck and eyes add a distinctive flavor to this dance form. Moreover, eye and facial expressions, costumes, jewelry and postures also add a unique essence to this enchanting art. It adds an ethnic aspect that makes it more and more charming for the audience. The dance performances are carried forward by skillful dancers to offer remarkable experience for the audience.

If we look back to the journey of classical dance in India we will find that only 6 main classical dance forms have developed in its 2000 years history. Today, according to the Sangeet Natak Academy, one of the premier institutions of dance and drama in the country, there are eight prominent classical dance forms. These include Bharatnatyam that originated from Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Sattriya of the state Assam, Katak of Northern India, Kathakali and Mohiniattam of Kerala, Kuchipudi of Andhra Pradesh and lastly Manipuri Dance of Manipur.

Bharata’s natyashastra or the authoritative text of Indian drama includes the major attributes and guidelines of the Indian Drama. This particular treatise also provides you two significant aspects of pure dance, interpretative dance or dance Nritya. In addition, Abhinaya Darpanam also considered Indian dance bible offers you all the fundamental rules related to each technique.

The history Bengali cinema dates back to era of Royal Bioscope Company and Indo British film Co., in 1918. But what Ray gave to the Bengali cinema changed the course of history of the Indian cinema. In the timeline of the Indian cinema, Satyajit Ray evolved as an illustrious phase, still proving its valor down the ages.

The film career of Ray started with Pather Panchali, adapted from the famous book written by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay. He showed his talents as a film maker lavishly in the very first opportunity. This film along with the other two, called Aparajito and Apur Sansar is collectively known as the Apu Trilogy. It revolves around a small village boy, who goes to the city for higher studies and later establishes a world of his own there, totally uprooted from his origins.

In Apu Trilogy what Ray portrayed was a making of a modern human being, i.e. Apu, which happened for the first time in Indian Cinema. As per the history of mankind, human settlements grew up as villages which later became cities and even bigger cities. With the Industrial revolution, more and more manufacturing works in the cities led to generation of income and job opportunities. People from far off places came to the cities to earn a better living. This exodus is termed as the beginning of the modern era.

Apu being a village boy has no idea about a modern world outside, but he is portrayed as inquisitive and innovative. The famous sequence where he and his elder sister Durga run through the field to watch the steam engine is a tale in itself. Train is an important symbol of the modern era as it was the age of speed. In the sequence, Apu could reach the train but by the time Durga reaches it, the train is already gone. Later in the film Durga dies of fever. These events symbolize that Apu, with his clear thoughts and urge to do something new, could adapt to the changing world whereas Durga could not, so she had to leave the world.

In Apu trilogy, the death of the family members one after the other led to a new beginning for Apu and a window of opportunity for him. In the film Aparajito, Apu finishes his school years and wanted to go to Calcutta for higher studies. Once in the city, he got lost in the grandeur of such a scale. The city is held responsible for separating a son from his mother. In Apur Sansar, Ray depicted “one of the cinema’s classic affirmative depiction of married life” which again runs into the death of Apu’s wife and later a new development in Apu’s life with his son.    

Apart from being successful as a film director, Ray also made a mark in giving music for his films. He introduced a unique style of blending western music with Indian and folk, to produce a spectacular effect which is the trademark of his films.  

The film describes the poverty, inequity and corruption which are vividly evident in India in a visible manner. The film Slumdog Millionaire is regarded as the symbol of hope for the people living below poverty line in most of the third world and so called developing countries. The film’s popularity made the rest of the world apprehend the types of problems India is facing and numerous hardships borne by the poor Indian people, living in the cities. Slumdog Millionaire represents the modern aspiring India, facing the full fury of the global economic spin. It’s an explosion of color and light with the darkness ever ready to invade. This film reveals the shocking reality of dreadful brutality, a romance which is disturbed by sexual abuse, a desire of amassing wealth that is due to the crushing poverty.

The plot of the Slumdog Millionaire revolves around the life of an illiterate kid called Jamal, his brother and his girl friend Latika from the slum areas of Mumbai and he goes on to win the Kaun Benega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The road to the victory was not a bed of roses. He had to go through a lot of hardships. Most interesting part of the film is that the story telling process follows a flashback format. The answers of the questions asked to him at the game show came out of bizarre incidents in from his own life.

During the game he was captured by the police after being dubbed as a fraud. Even after repeated efforts the police officer failed get out what he was looking for, so he was sent back to the show to answer the last question and win the jackpot.

Both the director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy brought out the maximum drama based on the book by Vikas Swarup called Q & A.