Repeating history

According to me, 2001 is going to be a acirc;euro;tilde;historicacirc;euro;trade; year for Bollywood. Every second actor is moving i...

According to me, 2001 is going to be a acirc;euro;tilde;historicacirc;euro;trade; year for Bollywood. Every second actor is moving into period costumes and we are literally going backwards into history, legend and myth, to go forward.

Letacirc;euro;trade;s start with my favourite actor, Shah Rukh Khan. Heacirc;euro;trade;s doing not one, but two period dramas: the Santosh Sivan-directed Ashoka the words acirc;euro;oelig;The Greatacirc;euro; have been removed and the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed Devdas. Both are hugely talented directors, both films have big heroines, glossy sets, all the paraphernalia that goes into magnum opuses or should that be opii, both films will have great music and I would have bet my trade pundit reputation on both the films8230; except for the competition.

And that competition is in the form of another history lesson called Lagaan, starring and produced by none other than Aamir Khan. Set somewhere in the British Raj, somewhere in British-occupied India, itacirc;euro;trade;s a story lesson of a common Indian manacirc;euro;trade;s fight against an unreasonable taxation system, that the British had created to further oppress the Indians they ruled. Not so much gloss or pageantry, but realistic colours and authenticity mark this page of history directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar.

Meanwhile, Sunny Deol is girding up to give us his historical message8230; the Indian mutiny no less. Produced by the Zee TV people and directed by Anil Sharma who gave papa Dharmendra a huge hit called Hukumat during the fag end of his career, this one is called Gadar, and has Amisha Patelopposite the Deol putra. The film was to be shot on actual locations and you will remember the controversy created when the unit shot inside the maqbara in Lucknow.

And Zee TV is also gearing up to give us our first very own animated feature called Bhagmati. It has Milind Soman and Tabu playing legendary lovers in the non-animated portions and is more mythology than history but, in the end, costume dramas are costume dramas.

The most expensive of them all, however, will be Krishna, directed by Chandraprakash Dwiwedi and produced by the Oswal group backed Lucky Star Entertainment. Budgeted at Rs 100 crore, only divine forces will make this financially viable. The casting for Krishna will start soon and no prizes for guessing which actor looks great without his shirt on and guess what he does not have a periodical on the floors yet.

The best, meanwhile, is yet to come. Not one, not two, but three producers are starting films based on the life of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. One of them is none other than Raj Kumar Santoshi himself. He plans to start as soon as his Lajja is complete and wants to give us a definitive lesson in history.

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It has happened before: three versions of Heer Ranjha were made in the same year; all three flopped miserably. After Nagina set the cash counters jingling, a plethora of snake movies were made. All failed. So, whatacirc;euro;trade;s the moral to be culled from recent history? The moment a genre succeeds forget about it. Lagaan feels like 1947: Earth and Gadar feels like 1942: A Love Story and none of these exactly set the box office on fire.

Those who donacirc;euro;trade;t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.