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Literary Review
The greatest hits
ANURADHA ROY
ASHOK BANKER'S Bollywood is a guide to 50 major Hindi films. Banker's ambitions are modest. In chatty pulp-mag lingo he tells you the cast, date, director and "Ishtory" of a film, and then gives it a "Kiss-Kitsch" rating. The book is divided into chapters with cool titles: "Silent Screamers"; "Cricket in a Dhoti"; etc. Intrigued to find Bimal Roy's anything but funny "Do Bigha Zameen" in the section entitled "The Sound of Masti", I looked further to see its Kiss-Kitsch rating: a middling 3/5 it was, the same as that given to the unforgettable "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron", and "Betaab", that quickly forgotten one.
Confusing classifications and pointless ratings apart, this is as good a TV guide as any. The introduction makes tall claims for Hindi cinema, taller even than those made for Indian fiction in English. Has it really "taken its place alongside the most respected ethnic films on the planet"? And what are "ethnic films" anyway?
Bollywood, Ashok Banker, Penguin, Rs. 125.
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