The story you are about to hear is true. The names of people and places have not been changed....
 

The year was 1994. Of late, many Bollywood movies had been remade from South Indian (mainly Gult and Tam) movies. Take, for example, the Venkatesh starrer Anari, with Karishma Kapoor. This movie was remade from the Telegu version which was remade from the Tamil version starring the two fatsoes, Prabhu and Khushboo. The name of the Tamil film was Chinna Thambi, and it was released in 1991.

Who cares!

The point is, there were quite a few movies being made this way in Bollywood at the time.

Everyone knows how it works. Someone comes up with an idea that is either totally original or just something that hasn't been tried in a while, and it clicks and makes a lot (or maybe just enough) money and/or achieves what they like to call "critical acclaim" (which usually consists of assholes like Khalid Mohammed raving about it), and suddenly everyone wants a piece of the action so: ALL the monkeys start throwing their caps down from the trees, too. Monkey see, Monkey do.

This is how it worked for the South Indian movies, too. The story is sort of like The Lord of The Rings, the way I will tell it:

In ages past (by which I mean the fifties and the sixties, said Sundalf, as he slurped on his Cauca-Colah), stories, plots and ideas, sometimes even the actual portrayers themselves, were freely exchanged between what was then called Baahu-Leh-Ud and the Talkie-makers South of the Vindhya. There has always been the (mostly illegal) import of stolen stories, plots and ideas from Haahu-Leh-Ud into all these lands East of the Arabian Sea, and it did exist even in those times. This trade across the Vindhyas was not just restricted to stories, but also to music and songs sung by folkspeople across all lands.

As everyone knows, the original idea of moving pictures as entertainment was devised in the West, but in our land called India, too, it originated in the West, ah, the beautiful Bay that was then called (and should still fucking be, puffed Sundalf angrily, spraying Cauca-Colah on the listeners closest him) Bombay. But as soon as the hungry fisheaters from the Evil East of the Lower Ganges [of whom spake Lord Macaulay himself in words he chose with complete hatred] heard of this new technology, they decided to move to Bombay and they brought with them stories and ideas and their thousands and thousands of relatives, each supposedly well-versed in one area of movie-making or another. The brother would produce the film, while the uncle would make music (or what passed for music with the horrible Bengalee, Sundalf winced), while another uncle bothered with bringing in the finance from the local Durga-Puja association.... They had it well-thought, did they. People of your young age might not notice the Bengalee anymore among the movie-makers in Bollywood, and that is a blessing. They aren't around as much as they used to be, due to the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema (The Eighties, Sundalf whispered with just a hint of wetness in his otherwise dry eyes).

But when it came to fresh ideas, of course most turned instead to being inspired by other spicy works either already set on film (Cinnamon? asked a young listener, causing Sundalf to growl, It's Hollywood!, with a twinkle in his old but clear eyes) or works that had been borrowed from the written word - they started with That Bard from Aingland, did they. At this point, the Bengalee came forth with written monstrosities from his own cursed lands (Mujrim Haazir Ho, in the Eighties!, said Sundalf, mysteriously, in an almost conspiratorial tone, as if none of the kids would understand, which they didn't)...

But change came with the invention and import of chroma, or colour, to the Lands we know. Around that time, movie-makers in Baahu-Leh-Ud became aware of the barbaric rituals in the beyond the Southern Vindhyas, the Tamils. These beings had a horrible way of making eldritch sounds in all of their songs with a single instrument, some sort of African percussion instrument that they used to make two sounds throughout all their musical barbarosities: tak-dhudup, tak-dhudup. (Sundalf visually shivered, as if a Bengalee had spotted Sandesh lying on top of his grave)... Anyway, the barbarians had one thing going for them - the sheer volume of the excreta-worshipping fans who prayed to the actors and actresses as if they were Gods. And they were, in a way. The exchange began maybe (no one knows for sure) with a silent agreement that one region would remake movies from the other, and vice versa. Such money-doubling schemes did not become well-structured until the late 50s and early 60s, upto which point the South-bound original stories were of higher volume than the North-bound consignment. But after the advent of, and excessive application of, a talent possessed by the Southies called melodrama, the North-bound express started to increase in size. A single stagecoach became a caravan. One of the earliest men whose characters were sent North was later bestowed the title Chevalier, (after utterly mispronouncing the word in a deep Southern accent, Sundalf snorted some more, and even looked like he was laughing) by the government of the land of cheese-eating, truffle-shaving, bedet-slurpers.

In the sixties, the barriers broke for a few years, and we freely exchanged ideas with the South, trying to reduce somehow the nonsensical tak-dhudup, tak-dhudup. We succeeded to a certain extent, but only for a few years. Suddenly, the remainder of the Bengalees and yet other out-of-work screwups from the Middle Ganges, from a region called Allahabad, showed up, set up station in Bollywood, and started to churn out what became later to be called Vacation flicks - every single movie was filmed at Observation Post, but was supposedly taking place in Kashmir. Some actual shooting took place in Kashmir, too. Every movie seemed to have Kashmir in the title, and almost every third movie had the scene where the heroine would faint in the snow... apprently, this increased the population of the film industry by a lot. The Bengalee brought in their actresses, and by the time you knew it, we were into the seventies, and we had Unemployment Films (Sundalf shuddered).... Some were even borrowed from the South, it was that bad.

But at the end of the seventies came the Formula Films, Lord Yakhpradutvam bless them! It was the time of Mindless Entertainment, and it kicked Unemployment Movies in the buttocks. Even though the Bengalee tried to keep up, their style of flatulence they termed art film was now a lost cause in Bollywood, and they retreated back to the swamps of The Ganges whence they came, leaving a few changing and improving Bengalee children here and there. This is how we entered (at this point, Sundalf definitely spoke in a choked voice that all his young listeners noticed but pretended not to out of respect for the Grand Old Man) the Eighties. The art of rape was streamlined to fit into cinema at regular intervals, and the art of revenge was sharpened to perfection. And then someone came along and did something better: someone said, why not make an R'n'R (Rape 'n' Revenge) movie? Entertainment was never at a higher point ever. The Cheese flowed like water, and there was so much cheese that people lived healthy lives, and long lives, too. (Look at me, I am myself old, his eyes sparkled)

At this point in time, the Southbound caravan increased to gigantic size. A stellar object named Rajnikanth was remaking Amitabh's movies one by one. There were other remakes at points of time. Once in a while, the small northbound stagecoach would drop off a film or two, ready to be remade, and Rajnikanth would be given a chance to act in a remake of some sort, sometimes even originals that were borrowed from somewhere else. Padmalaya productions monopolized the Telegu-to-Hindi ripoff movie industry, with Jeetendra The Ageless prancing about with ugly bitches from the South such as Sridevi (Sundalf shuddered again) and dumb bitches such as Jaya Pradha. May Lord Yakhpradutvam bless Jeetendra The Ageless with a healthy life! For he hath made such landmark remakes as Justice Choudhary, Himmatwala and Tohfa (each name rolled off Sundalf's tongue as if he were tasting the sweetest nectar he had tasted in his life), but the credit for the songs with double-meaning goes to a poet who came from the race of the jobless bullshit-artists called the Allahabadis. His name be Indivar. He was joined by the Bengalee that rebelled against the flatulent art film, and controlled his own battle with flatulence (at least at an earlier age) with increasing numbers of ripped off music from The West, put together with an endless ensemble of musical instruments. His name be Bhappi Lahiri. Another Bengalee who hath rejected the art film and hath been bestowed the title of Bengal Tiger be Mithun The Endless. His work with Bhappi Lahiri in the early eighties set the standards for what became the Formula Film.

But I prattle on, do I not, little children? You want to hear about how The South came again into Bollywood...

Yeah, in fact, I think you do wonder. So let's quit the LOTR crap and get to why this page is called what it is called.

1994, suddenly the trade caravan bound northwards increased in size. Therefore, what was then one of the good programmes, maybe by a Bengalee who people thought had rejected his roots (at least I did), Prannoy Roy, The World This Week. I remember walking to my uncle's place so I could watch this half-hour programme, mainly so that I could catch the Newsmakers section so that I could see what musical personality or movie was mentioned this week. It was good, all until PR once again discovered his hungry Bong roots, sold out to the Gold, and to the endless crap that is 24-hour news television. Anyway, this was before that time, time when I still occasionally watched TWTW.

One such TWTW episode featured Prannoy Roy asking the question: Why are South-Indian movies suddenly popular in Bollywood, everyone's making ripoffs? Why, indeed? Maybe, he said, we could find out why the Southern people like their movies, and what they like in their movies. Let's go to TWTW correspondent Jennifer Arul in Madras, and find out.

Cut to: Jennifer Arul standing outside what was probably Devi Theater in Madras, introducing the problem and then saying, we asked a few people to find out what they wanted from movies.

Cut to: Jennifer Arul asking someone with a lungi (probably an auto driver) with a long moustache and stubble, probably someone who hasn't bathed in two days. Some arbitrary Madras slum dweller. Situation: of course this dude has never learnt English or even any language in his life, so she is asking him the question in Tamil. I think the question definitely had subtitles in English so that the literate audience could understand what was going on. But, as you will see (and you won't be surprised), the answer didn't merit a translation into English.

Question: What do you look for in Tamil movies? What do you want?
Answer: (stares into the camera) Todai venum! (lifts up one half-naked leg, slaps thigh) Todai venum!

Cut to: Studio, with Prannoy Roy changing topic.

And we all know that Todai is definitely what is present in abundance in South Indian cinema. Look at ugly bitches like Khusboo and Rambha (ugggg!!!) if they can be sexy heroines, don't you think its because of people like this auto-driver?