Long back...I still remember,in the good-old-day's of orkut(when 'facebook' had not yet invaded the social-networking scene),I used to be a member of a community called "Inidan Films outside Bollywood".It was supposed to be a forum for film-buff's to discuss Indian films(including hindi)which were possibly outside purview of the run-of-the-mill commercial potboilers,churned out of Bombay's popular film-industry...which collectively led to the coinage of the term "Bollywood".Along with the reminiscence of being a part of that community & also recently coming across an article on "10 years of 'Dil Chahta Hai'" has steered me to take retrospective look at the evolution of Bollywood over the last 10 years.
Probably,"Lagaan" & "Dil Chahta Hai" were the two films which,though very different from each other,for the first time showed that Bollywood could be different...'in the true sense of the term'....& sesnible cinema could be crowd-pullers too.It was also the same time when cross-over films started being made in a ‘Hinglish’ lingo which made good use of character-actors of Bollywood & greatly got fit in to the growing multiplex-culture in India,eg.Monsoon Wedding,Leela,Jogger’s park,Bollywood/Hollywood,Bend it like Backham,Morning Raga & MR&Mrs Iyer.But this actually led to a small-film movement in hindi as well which produced promising directors like Vishal Bharadwaj(Makdee,Maqbool,Omkara,Blue Umbrella,& khoon Maaf),Madhur Bhandarkar(Chandni Bar,Satta,Page 3,Corporate,Fashion) ,Anurag Basu(Gangster,Life..in a metro,Kites), onir(My Brother Nikhil,Sorry Bhai.I Am) & Anurag Kashyap(DEV D,Black Friday,Gulaal).”Bheja Fry”.a film made on a shoe-string budget of 60 lacs with limited locations & no stars had garnered as much as 6 crores.While veterans like Shyam Benegal,Sudhir Mishra & Prakash Jha have also made good use of the multiplex-audience,& commercial directors like Sanjay Bhanshali & Karan Johar have made alternative films like “Black” & “My Name is Khan”…the difference between so-called parallel & mainstream cinema has definitely diminished greatly in Hinda cinema.
