Every time Vidya Balan went about repeating, “Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment!”, audiences at awards nights went into raptures as if Voltaire had quipped from his grave. I am still wondering what was so tickling about it! Isn’t there a possibility that Vidya’s “entertainment” could as well be someone else’s migraine!
I remember the late Mani Kaul had once said in the 1970s that Bollywood films worked on the “principle of distraction”. He went on to elaborate: “It’s all about 20-odd items or episodes. You keep chasing the mind from one item to another cleverly, from romance to pathos to song to comedy to fight and so on at a relentless pace.”
When I mentioned Mani’s theory to Manmohan Desai, he burst out laughing. “That must be long ago,” he said with a wink....
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