Anuvab Pal

TheBollywood New Wave published at MTV Iggy

The “real” India,everyday India,demystified and de-glamorized, was no longer the domain of foreign filmmakersshowing a slice of exotic life in an unknown culture to Westerners. It was timeto tell modest, observed stories of a people, for those people, depictingfamiliar surroundings in neighborhood cinemas across metropolitan India. It wastime to tell these stories without apology or fake Bollywood gloss. It wastime, as the French auteurs called it, for a “new wave.” The difference, ofcourse, was that the French new wave arrived fully-formed, articulated by ahandful of European critics and academics who wanted a clean break from theexisting French cinema.

The Indian new wave is a process of evolution more than revolution. It gradually evolved over casual chats among like-minded artists, creating together in a place (Mumbai) and a point in history (now), rather than in response to some desperate audience demand.

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