Bollywood boulevard

Gone are the days when every NRI worth his salt in the UK turned up at Wembley for such colossal shows as Jumma Chumma in London, where Amit...

SOME of our bright young stars — Hrithik Roshan, Karisma Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Aftab Shivdasani — took off earlier this week for a series of stage shows across the US and Canada in the month ahead. Last week, Sunny Deol, Tabu, Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta returned from their month-long stage shows in the US.

For all that, the buzz isn’t too positive overseas. To put it simply, the Sunny Deol & Co shows were far from a roaring success. And the Hrithik & Everybody Else shows aren’t expected to be full-house either, what with tickets priced as high as $1000 at some venues.

Gone are the days when every NRI worth his salt in the UK turned up at Wembley for such colossal shows as Jumma Chumma in London, where Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi, Aamir Khan, Neelam and Kalyanji-Anandji enthralled the crowds for hours at an end. These days, you’ll have Shah Rukh do one solo dance, one medley with Juhi Chawla, then a second-level star like Arshad Warsi or Sanjay Kapoor will take over with a Mayuri Kango or Namrata Shirodkar. They’ll come together at the end for one group dance, and that’s it. Worth your $500-dollar ticket? Hardly.

Since the release of Dil Chahta Hai last year, there’s precious little that Aamir Khan has done. He did, however, tour the US extensively with his Lagaan boys. He also took the show to Dubai, and there are plans for more shows across the country.

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Film fans around the world have wisened up. They won’t shell out their precious money for a few hours of star gazing in a crowded stadium. Instead, they throng the stars’ hotel mob them for photos and autographs when they’re leaving for rehearsals. Urmila Matondkar is notorious for snubbing fans when they beg her to pose with them.

Why our filmwalas are very willing to sign up for a month-long series of foreign shows is because of the potloads of money involved. For some stars (think Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman, Hrithik), the fee they receive for such shows is astonishingly high — almost as much as they would receive for doing a film, sometimes. Even for the girls, it means many, many lakhs. Add to that the fact that all the money is non-taxable as it’s paid for performances on foreign soil. And then, a month away from the studios in the scorching Mumbai summer is always an attractive option. Of course, stars never travel alone. So who’s going to say no to a month-long foreign holiday with your husband/wife/ mummy/girlfriend, and a bagful of shopping money?

But Bollywood insiders say the party is coming to an end. With five to six concerts held every year across Europe and America, the exclusivity is gone. Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Raveena Tandon and Urmila Matondkar are no longer exciting draws.

There’s definitely some amount of excitement for the Hrithik-Kareena shows, but with what face can Hrithik Roshan, Arjun Rampal and Aftab Shivdasani peel off their jackets and throw it to the crowds? Do they remember the box-office collections of Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage, Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai and Deewanapan respectively?