Cinema: those six letters spell, and spin, a magic yarn of glamour, riches and adulation; a visual shorthand, woven of a thousand scenes that flit by, of the dolce vita. For the mesmerised many fixated by the big screen, the repository of all that gold-plated confetti is the film world—Mumbai, a city that has lured thousands of the young and bedazzled since the ’40s to its fickle tinsel town. Even though most dreams die unrealised, they still flock to it, like moths to a flame, for, as the saying goes, Bombay bole toh Bollywood.
But is Mumbai’s long-standing monopoly over Bollywood under threat? Will its dream merchants, who have peddled 70MM fantasies from their seaside villas for generations, leave the maximum city lock, stock and barrel and shift base? Will Bambai no longer be Bollywood’s jaan? Can it be even a possibility in the near future?
Such questions aren’t sacrilegious any more, given the way Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has resolved to establish a film city with...
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