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Exclusive Review: Asian Network's Love Bollywood
From Biz Asia. Posted June 17 2007, 1.30pm
As part of its programming changes, the BBC Asian Network unveiled a series of new shows, the most ambitious one being 'Love Bollywood', which launched on Saturday 16th June and Sunday 17th June. I had a listen to the eight-hour marathon over the two days and spoke to key industry and media insiders, representatives from the listening community and of course his own mind, to critique the shows, which clearly left a lot to be desired! "Is it wrong to buy pirate CDs and DVDs?" (Yawn!) This age-old issue isn't even a debate anymore - the answer is a foregone conclusion. But 'Love Bollywood' (replacing the hugely popular 'Film Cafe') believes this is a hot topic to discuss for a full hour on its Sunday edition. Worse still, on its Saturday edition, the presenters were devoting precious airtime to vapid brain-dead issues such as "Kissing In Bollywood", linking kissing to potential progression of the Indian film industry (for Chrissake!). What followed was a string of Joe Blogs calling the hotline to express random amateurish viewpoints (all in the guise of interactivity), nothing you haven't heard before or don't know about. [If this lot is keen to get this in-depth, why not get artistes and filmmakers who are notorious/famous for kissing to talk (if at all) and debate with credible culture crusaders? But heyho, that's hard work!] The precise problem with 'Love Bollywood' is that it fully and heartlessly takes out the entertainment and fun quotient from Bollywood to give it a falsely and superficially serious edge, that is far from welcome on weekend mornings. The razzle dazzle, glamour, gossip and excitement associated with the industry have gone for a toss only to be replaced by topics, points and facts that reflect a serious non-understanding of the Indian film industry and what it stands for. There is nothing time-specific about this programme either - you can play it anytime of the day and it will fit in! So why have it replace 'Breakfast'? Alright, so on the odd occasion we are lucky to have an intelligent commercial product or an aesthetic one from parallel cinema ('Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi', 'Sardari Begum', 'Omkara', 'The Legend Of Bhagat Singh', to name a few) but let's get real- on the whole, Bollywood cinema is predominantly commercial cinema, known the world over for its escapism and grandeur - why completely intellectualise it with casual verbal diarrohea that's far from stimulating or thought-provoking? More amusingly, why do that, when the presenters (two self-proclaimed 'it' boys, a fun-filled madcap and a shreeky political correspondent - none of whom match the intended character of the revised programme) quite evidently suffer from a pronounced lack of domain knowledge and expertise? (leave aside the floundering oratory and miserable pronounciations!) More pertinently, what is all this debate eventually leading to? Does 'Love Bollywood' have serious recommendations or solutions to curb piracy or was it a debate for the sake of a debate to kill an hour? The stunning Lara Dutta sat pretty in BBC's Mumbai studio on Saturday answering bog-standard PR questions about her new release....'Love Bollywood' obviously believes she's big enough to have back, considering she featured on 'Film Cafe' only last week! An over-saturated Amitabh Bachchan was used as a 15-minute filler, talking about the usual "honour" and "privilege" that it was to be felicitated by BAFTA and the IIFA Awards (for which he is the brand ambassador) being "the best". What else were the producers and presenters expecting him to say? Let's tread the originality path now.....The Maestro feature (featuring Asha Bhonsle on Sunday) is an obvious rehash of 'Musical Genius', that was previously on Sunday Soundtrack. The Lurve Bollywood feature (where a listener talks about a song to do with his/her love life or something like that!) is reminiscent of 'Undercover Lover' on Sonia Deol's show. The concept of interactivity and phoning in is a lame attempt to ape 'Phone-In by Nihal'? (At least, he does a good job of it!) So much for an all-new 'Love Bollywood'! Finally, according to the maiden episode of this programme, the Chopras' 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge' was a defining moment in Bollywood. What does 'defining moment' mean? And whose opinion is that? The presenters'? The producers'? Or was their result drawn out of an online customer survey or a research scanning the annals of Bollywood history? Does it take a runaway hit at the box-office (like 'DDLJ') to define or redefine Bollywood? We don't think so! If 'DDLJ' redefined Bollywood, in recent years, what about RAAZ (which made the horror genre fashionable in Bollywood all over again), 'Jism' and 'Murder' (which brought in a wave of sensuousness), 'Dil Chahta Hai' (which introduced new-age youth culture), 'Don' (which popularised remakes), 'Krrish' (which gave Bollywood its first superhero), 'Lagaan' (which brought in sport), 'Rang De Basanti', 'Black Friday' and 'Parzania' (which brought in political awareness and consciousness) and 'Khosla Ka Ghosla', 'Honeymoon Travels...' and 'Bheja Fry' (which introduced unconventional budget cinema to the box-office)? Sorry guys, these films redefined Bollywood! (Heard of them?) I can't, for the life of me, understand why anyone with two grey cells would want to surface at 8am on weekends to endure four boring hours of pseudo-analytical gibberish interspersed with the odd song! Lazing around in your duvet, cooking some tidy breakfast, gardening....or perhaps.....tuning into the telly might be saner alternatives! What do you think of BBC Asian Network's new weekend programming, email us at raj@media247.co.uk. (more)