No netagiri on screen please

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />It''s a film close to his heart. "But nobody believes in it," wails Anurag Kashyap, who''s been unable to shoot anything more than a few scenes of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Gulal</span>. "There are no financiers ready to back the film.Nobody wants a political film." <br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="32.1%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/569007.cms" alt="/photo/569007.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">Tabu and Suniel Shetty in </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Hu Tu Tu</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Trade analyst Taran Adarsh points out, "Political films have no market. There is so much </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">dramebaazi </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">in real life that nobody wants to see it on the big screen." But the fact is, Bollywood has, by and large, stayed away from realistic political films, resorting to over-the-top formula flicks with blood-spattered climaxes. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Like Chief Minister Amitabh Bachchan gunning down his Cabinet in </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Inquilaab</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">. Even a filmmaker like Gulzar couldn''t resist the idea of ending his </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Hu Tu Tu </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">with what is popularly considered the invention of Lankan militants — the belt bomb. </span></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="32.1%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/569008.cms" alt="/photo/569008.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">Sanjeev Kumar in </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Aandhi</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Two years ago, when 60-year-old communist Krisna Prasad watched the climax where a power-hungry politician and a crooked industrialist are blown to smithereens by their own children, he couldn''t help but comment, "Is this the only way an audience could be </span><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">rewarded for sitting through a hardcore political film?" Of course, Gulzar still holds the distinction of having made the best political film to come out of Bollywood — </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Aandhi</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">, about a woman giving it all up to pursue a political future. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">In the ''80s, the South churned out quite a few films with political undertones. A case in point being </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avatar</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">, where a barber, Rajesh Khanna, becomes CM. "But too much realism can land you in trouble," points out Kashyap. Like </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Kissa Kursi Ka </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">in 1975, which was passed with 40 cuts but ended up being destroyed during the Emergency. "Democracy is just a term in India," says Kashyap. "Which is why we end up making caricatures of politicians and don''t address real issues," he says.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""><formid=367815></formid=367815></span><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">Kashyap too is playing it safe by setting <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Gulal</span> in a fictional state (Rajasthan in disguise). <br /><br />Adman Bharat Dabholkar, who made his feature film debut as director with <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">God Only Knows</span>, is not aware of any politician having seen his film about a politician, who goes to heaven and causes havoc. "But my experience is that politicians have a sense of humour. It''s their minions who take offence. I''ve done plays, where politicians have been made fun of and they haven''t objected. In one play, where I had made fun of Rajiv Gandhi''s village visits, the entire Central ministry was present. They loved it," says Dabholkar. <br /><br />But for now, Bollywood has no plans to churn out hardcore political films, continuing instead to just make veiled references to the likes of Laloo Prasad (<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dandnayak</span>) and Bal Thackeray (<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bombay, Narsimha</span>). And a bunch of actors to campaign for the men in white. <br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">What screen </span><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">netas</span><span style="" font-weight:="" bold=""> say </span><br /><br />What you see in films is dramatised so that people are entertained. Politicians are as good or bad as any professional or businessman — Amrish Puri <br /><br />What we did in films as politicians, these people are doing in real life. The funny, stupid and corrupt politicians are all there. Whatever happens in reality is shown in films <br />Sadashiv Amrapurkar<br /><br /><formid=367815><br /></formid=367815></div> </div>