A history of sorts was made Friday when ‘Goal’ became the first Indian Bollywood movie to get simultaneous release in the cinema halls of India and Pakistan. ‘Goal’, a contemporary story of the Asian community in the UK, told through the dynamic prism of professional football, has already created a tremendous buzz in India.
Pakistan and India share a common passion for cricket and Bollywood movies. The Pakistan cricket team is at present in India and the matches are well attended, and also watched on the TV. The majority of Pakistan’s population watch Bollywood films due to the similarities between Hindi and Urdu languages as well as similar culture. Bollywood films are also watched avidly in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh and Nepal. Even Afghanistan, African and Arab countries have a huge market for Bollywood films.
” ‘Goal’, released in seven cities of Pakistan, including Lahore and Karachi, along with the rest of the World on Friday, has thus become the First Indian film to have a day and date release in Pakistan. The film, directed by Vivek Agnihotri and starring Bollywood hunk John Abraham (Christian), the glamorous Bipasha Basu (Hindu), Arshad Warsi (Muslim) and Boman Irani (Parsi), was released worldwide on Friday,” reports DNA.
“The Pakistani release for the film came after the producers received a clearance from the Pakistan Censor Board to release the film in the neighbouring country. In Pakistan the film releases with 12 prints across Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala.
“The release of ‘Goal’ in Pakistani theatres makes it the fifth Indian film and the second mainstream film, after the Emraan Hashmi-starrer ‘Awarapan’, to secure a theatrical release in Pakistan. Other films that have in the last couple of years managed to secure a release in Pakistani theatres are K Asif’s 1950s classic ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, Akbar Khan’s ‘Taj Mahal – an Eternal Love Story’ and 1980s hit ‘Sohni Mahiwal’.”
Bollywood produces more than 1,000 films a year and has an estimated audience of 3.6 billion people, more than half the population of the world. Bollywood name is a portmanteau of Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry.
“Raja Harishchandra (1913) was the first silent feature film made in India. It was made by Dadasaheb Phalke. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum. The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani’s Alam Ara (1931), was a super hit. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming.”
(Photo above: Bipasha and John courtesy bollywood.blogspot.com)
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.