Vinayak Chakraborty on why Yudh will work
Why was I subconsciously thinking of these very enjoyable films even as the camera panned in on yet another extreme close-up of Big B's face?
Staring blankly at yet another aimless episode of Amitabh Bachchan's debut telly trip Yudh earlier this week, a seemingly unrelated notion hit me. The mind went on a flashback to two films that had released in the late '90s, Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues and Kaizad Gustad's Bombay Boys.
Why was I subconsciously thinking of these very enjoyable films even as the camera panned in on yet another (by now annoying) extreme close-up of Big B's face? The thoughts cleared soon enough.
Back in 1998 when these films released, new-age Bollywood was trying hard to rejig its traditional definition of entertainment beyond larger-than-life frills. Multiplexes were just mushrooming, the terms 'multiplex movie' and 'crossover cinema' were yet to exist.
Hyderabad Blues and Bombay Boys started a quiet process that would burgeon into the revolution we now call crossover cinema in Bollywood. Yudh comes on the heels of Anil Kapoor's 24, another recent show that sparked off wide interest among the television audience thirsting for a different flavour. The succession with which these two serials have aired uncannily reminds of how Bombay Boys followed Hyderabad Blues within a span of months.
I am not about to make a qualitative comparison between these films and the two TV shows. The commonality lies elsewhere.
Like Hyderabad Blues and Bombay Boys did for new-age entertainment cinema in Bollywood, Yudh and 24 have proved audience curiosity can be raised with fiction fare that caters beyond the formula bag almost all our shows invariably succumb to.
The warts have been many for both shows, of course. If 24 failed to retain the taut tension that marked each episode of the American original on which it was based, Yudh, broadly rehashing the US drama Boss, has seemed totally confused about what way it wants to narrate its tale even after a two-week run.
Still, these serials have somewhere revealed a thought process of sorts, far removed from the loud brainless idiom that has come to define our small screen fare. 24 did not quite set the rating scale afire and going by the initial TVTs coming in for Yudh (1.5), the show will not create any TV records. But then, Bombay Boys and Hyderabad Blues were no box-office record busters, either.
An advantage these two films had was the rise of multiplexes around the time they released. PVR Anupam, India's first multiplex, had opened the year before and many more were rapidly coming up all over the country. These screens, catering primarily to the urban crowd, demanded cinema that was entertaining yet sensible. The crossover club closed in to fill that space.
Crossover entertainment in Indian fiction television may not get that benefit. There is no scope for multiple screens on television channels that may let the crossover coexist with the commercial. The likes of Yudh and 24 will have to battle it out with serials peddling tested formula for time slots on the same general entertainment channels, and soppy family drama will always lure primetime sponsors more effectively than an aging superstar portraying terminal affliction.
That is a hurdle Indian television must learn to bypass, if it has to grow up.