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Bhojpuri cinema is the segment of Indian cinema dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Bhojpuri language widely spoken in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Bhojpuri cinema has grown in recent years.[2] Bhojpuri cinema also caters to second and third generation emigrants who still speak the language in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius and South Africa.[3] With a limited presence in mass media, Bhojpuri cinema acts as a primary vehicle for cultural expression and self-assertion for its people. Its audience is not limited to its home region and the international diaspora; it also includes a large population of migrant laborers from the region who live in other Indian states.[4]
Bhojpuri originates in Western Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh in East India. Speakers of it and its creoles are found in many parts of the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, and Netherlands. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, many colonizers faced labour shortages due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians, many from Bhojpuri-speaking regions, as indentured servants to labor on plantations. Today, millions of people in the Caribbean, Oceania, and North America speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language.[6]
History
Initial period (1962–1967)
In the 1960s, the first president of India, Rajendra Prasad, who hailed from Bihar, met BollywoodactorNazir Hussain and asked him to make a film in Bhojpuri, which eventually led to the release of the first Bhojpuri film in 1963.[7] Bhojpuri cinema's history begins with the well-received film Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo ("Mother Ganges, I will offer you a yellow sari"), which was produced by Biswanath Prasad Shahabadi and his partner Jai Narayan Lal under the banner of Nirmal Pictures and directed by Kundan Kumar.[8] The production of the movie was also motivated by a fact that mainstream Hindi cinema seldom depicted the culture and stories of the Purvanchal region (eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar).[4]
Throughout the following decades, films were produced in fits and starts. Bidesiya ("Foreigner", 1963, directed by S. N. Tripathi) and Ganga ("Ganges", 1965, directed by Kundan Kumar) were profitable and popular, but in general Bhojpuri films were not commonly produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Between 1962 and 1967, 19 Bhojpuri were made.[9]
Decline (1967–1976)
In this period, only two Bhojpuri films released, namely Vidhana Naach Nachawe (1968) and Dher Chaalaki Jin Kara (1971).[9]
Revival (1977–2001)
In 1977, Dangal, the first colour film in Bhojpuri released. In 1979, Balam Pardesia released.[9] In the 1980s, enough Bhojpuri films were produced to tentatively make up an industry. Films such as Mai ("Mom", 1989, directed by Rajkumar Sharma) and Hamar Bhauji ("My Elder Brother's Wife", 1983, directed by Kalpataru) continued to have at least sporadic success at the box office. Nadiya Ke Paar is a 1982 Hindi-Bhojpuri blockbuster directed by Govind Moonis and starring Sachin, Sadhana Singh, Inder Thakur, Mitali, Savita Bajaj, Sheela David, Leela Mishra and Soni Rathod. However, this trend faded out by the end of the decade. By 1990, the nascent industry seemed to be completely finished.[10] Between, 1977 to 2001, the industry produced about 150 films with an average of 6 films per year.[9]
The industry took off again in 2001 with the Silver Jubilee hit Saiyyan Hamar ("My Sweetheart", directed by Mohan Prasad), which shot its hero, Ravi Kishan, to superstardom.[11] This was quickly followed by several other remarkably successful films, including Panditji Batai Na Biyah Kab Hoi ("Priest, tell me when I will marry", 2005, directed by Mohan Prasad) and Sasura Bada Paisa Wala ("My father-in-law, the rich guy", 2005). In a measure of the Bhojpuri film industry's rise, both of these did much better business in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand than mainstream Bollywood hits at the time. Both films, made on extremely tight budgets, earned back more than ten times their production costs.[12]Sasura Bada Paisa Wala introduced Manoj Tiwari, formerly a well-loved folk singer, to the wider audiences of Bhojpuri cinema. In 2008, he and Ravi Kissan were the leading actors of Bhojpuri films, and their fees increase with their fame. The extremely rapid success of their films has led to dramatic increases in Bhojpuri cinema's visibility, and the industry now supports an awards show[13] and a trade magazine, Bhojpuri City,[14] which chronicles the production and release of what are now over 100 films per year.
Bhojpuri poet Manoj Bhawuk has written a history of Bhojpuri cinema.[19]
In February 2011, a three-day film and cultural festival in Patna marking 50 years of Bhojpuri cinema, opened Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo the first Bhojpuri film. The first Bhojpuri Reality Film "Dhokha" is under production under banner Om Kaushik Films is about to be nominated and screened in different International Film Festivals under direction Of Rashmi Raj Kaushik Vicky and Renu Chaudhary.[20]
The industry's modern resurgence from 2001 onwards was driven by significant social and economic shifts. Its commercial success was built upon a new core audience of upwardly mobile lower and middle castes, as well as a large migrant labor population. This shift in audience demographics has been linked to the broader social and political empowerment of these caste groups in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh since the 1990s.
Themes and Asthetics
A recurrent theme in modern Bhojpuri movies is the struggle between rural and urban values. This narrative focus echoes with the experiences of its main migrant viewers. In these pictures, the village is frequently portrayed as a source of heroic, humane, and traditional values, while the city is recurrently portrayed as a landscape of greediness, impersonality, and ethical corruption. Bhojpuri cinema's aesthetic is deeply influenced by old folk theater style of the region, such as Nautanki. This influence is apparent in the high number of song anddance sequences, which often surpass that of Bollywood movies, and a filmic style that occasionally employs slower, more static camera work, simulating a theatrical experience for the viewer.[4]
Audience and Critical Reception
Bhojpuri cinema is often complained in mainstream media for its alleged vulgarity and obscenity. This criticism is repeatedly quoted as an pointer of a cultural split between the traditional, sophisticated middle class and the films' mass watchers, which is largely composed of semi-literate and lower-caste viewers. This same middle-class demographic often expresses nostalgia for the Bhojpuri films of the 1960s–80s, which were informed by a different cultural spirit.
In spite of a repute for vulgar lyrics and dialogues with twofold connotations, an examination of the films advocates they are often more visually nonaggressive in their depiction of sexuality and physical revelation when equated to current typical Bollywood cinema. Together with the mainstream theatrical film industry, there exists a substantial parallel industry making low-budget films and albums straight for the CD market. This largely informal sector, catering to the same migrant audience, is often considered more bawdy than its big-screen counterpart.[4]
↑ Mesthrie, Rajend (1991). Language in Indenture: A Sociolinguistic History of Bhojpuri-Hindi in South Africa. London: Routledge. pp.19–32. ISBN0-415-06404-X.
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