2020’s biggest buzz in Bollywood!

In the year 2020 the Indian film industry, like the rest of the world, hit an all-time low. Films meant to be viewed on the  70mm screen were watched  on 12-inch phones. “I feel I’ve been cut down to  size,” a director  whose film went  STG (straight to digital) said to me. I can’t say I enjoy watching  films at home.  But better shrunk than dead. In the year when Covid-19 ruled our lives, a list of the scandals and controversies that hit us hard.

Sushant Singh Rajput’s death: Sushant’s death shook the nation. Henceforth  the  Indian entertainment industry will be evaluated as before and after June 14. A storm was raised on social media over nepotism and demand for CBI investigation into his death which then proceeded to drug-use probe by NCB, which is still on. We witnessed social media users being bitter and abusive as never before.

Bollywood  gets drugged into a  controversy:  Are our stars charsis and ganjeris? Do they think they are real-life heroes with heroin? What’s cocaine in their kitchen?  As  the  Deepikas and Shradhas marched into interrogation  the Narcotics Control Bureau suddenly became famous. Hum to  mashoor huey tere pyar mein….

The mythological explosion: The one thing that Covid did was to make all Indians extremely devout and pious. Ramanand Sagar, God rest  his  soul, would have been pleased to know that his long-buried Ramayan was a  superhit . Suddenly Arun Govil and Deepika Chikhalia were doing more interviews in 2020 than Ranveer Singh and  Deepika Padukone. BR Chopra’s Mahabharat also scored bigtime among the newly Covid cleansed and converted communities.

The web Of deceit!  Covid gave the OTT platform the kind of boost that  hooch got after Bihar went dry. It was clearly the biggest winner  of  2020 (not counting Flipkart and Amazon) with  viewership and sales hitting skyhigh as theatre owners sulked seethed and  simply  shriveled up. We  now wait for the day when Netflix India  would be comparable with Netflix abroad.