No Great Divide that, it is the media which is dividing, South cine greats prevail
By D N Singh
The incredible success and fame that came to the kits of South cinema has for once pulverized boast of the North or Bollywood supremacy. The accolades coming as it did from Steven Spielberg and James Cameron besides host of cine giants from home and abroad for once distanced the media obsession with North cinema and focused its search light on South cinema.
With the super success of a few South Indian films throughout the Hindi-speaking areas, the South is extending its reach and trying to involve the media from the North, which limited its scope to covering only Hindi films.
They want to keep the people of Hindi-speaking regions aware of South Indian films all the way while a film is in production and not later when it is a hit in the South and plans are afoot to dub it and take it to the audience in the rest of the country.
Hindi filmmakers who depend heavily on the South for content, buying the Hindi remake rights of many South hits, have not always been welcoming of the South-dubbed films, breaking records in the Hindi market.
Hindi filmmakers and stars did not take kindly to the fact that South Indian films had invaded the Hindi market and were also creating records at the box office. Some even had Twitter spats with their southern counterparts. It was more upsetting for Hindi filmmakers because, while the South films were excelling at the box office, Hindi films of even top stars were failing on a regular basis.
The Hindi side did not have much ground to stand on because almost all makers were remaking South Indian films! It is also a fact that Hindi films alone can’t feed the cinemas for all 52 weeks of the year.
Multiplexes with five or more screens have multiple shows each day that need more supply. Regional films, be it Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi or Marathi, are not doing all that well,either! All they have is Hindi and the Hollywood films and, if the South films were an added alternative, so much the better.
So, to keep the audience informed about their films, the filmmakers in the South have taken to inviting the media from Mumbai, Delhi, and other North Indian centres to cover their events.
South Indian filmmakers inviting the media from the North used to be a routine practice when they made Hindi films. Now, it happens even for an event of a South Indian film because, at the back of their mind, the makers are envisioning the Hindi belt business.
However, just when the respective industries were coming to terms that what mattered was the Indian film industry, the North South divide was refreshed by the media in Bengaluru.
It was an event where the media from the North was invited to cover a promo launch of the Kannada film, ‘Martin’, starring Dhruv Sarja, in Bengaluru last week. The local media was reluctant to share their events with their counterparts from the North. In a surprising move, the local media blocked the media from the North from entering the event!
They probably don’t believe in the philosophy of Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God), which is ingrained in our culture. When, finally, the organisers convinced the local media to let the event proceed, they grudgingly allowed the guest media to be accommodated in the front seats of the hall where the promo was to be screened!
What the Bengaluru media did to their brethren from the North was the result of the North-South divide set off by the then Kannada superstar, Dr Rajkumar. Kannada was not much of a film industry. There were no remakes in Hindi. The circuit, known as the Mysore circuit, was not worth more than Rs 50,000 to 60,000 for the rights of a Hindi film, which did business only in Bengaluru.
I remember Dr Rajkumar was a demigod and, during what was termed as the Gokak Movement, he ordained that Hindi films should not be released in Karnataka! This was not all.
Sources: Bollywoodblogs
