Unwritten Rules of Bollywood

India is Bollywood, even if critics may carp that Bollywood is anything but India. Love it, hate it, but it’s there. Like the sun. Or the moon and stars. Almost like the formulaic regularity with which the sun rises in the east and the North Star takes its designated place in the night sky, Bollywood is formula at its delicious, delirious best. See if you get tickled by some of the rules that govern movie-making in India’s tinsel town. You can also spend some quality time with your family adding or modifying to this potentially endless list. Enjoy!

The Quad Rule – If a movie has four male heroes, they will make sure they walk towards you four abreast, in slow motion, at least 4 times in the movie, one of which will be just before the interval.

The Bimbette Rule – The female side-kick will be a black-belt in kick-boxing or karate, since this naturally requires a dress code that keeps her legs free from sartorial entanglements (read skirts that are more than 6 inches in length).

The Duet Rule – 90% of songs will be sung by the hero and heroine, alternating stanzas between them and climaxing in the final stanza sung by both. 60% of the duets will have 20 couples, all dressed alike, matching the hero and heroine on every dance step. The other 40% will have passersby around the couple looking on tolerantly, smiling and cheering them on their journey of love.

The Car Chase Rule – The hero’s car will be the latest model of Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche in shining red, while the goons chasing him will be in an open-top Maruti Gypsy or such like; both will topple 3 vegetable vendor carts each, almost run over 10 villager types buying and selling things and will cross at least one railway track, with the train invariably whooshing past after the hero has just crossed.

The Item Song Rule – The item song will be the first scene shot for the movie, irrespective of its story line or plot. It will cost half or more of the movie’s budget. The number of supporting dancers gyrating around the curvy “item” could vary from 100 to 200, but the total amount of cloth used to make their dresses shall not exceed 10 metres. The number of drooling, panting and leering males trying to get up, close and personal with the “item” will vary from 50 to 100, but they will be dressed to the gills. Every ten seconds, the camera will zoom in on the item and do a systematic analysis of her asset allocations.

The Fight Scene Rule – No fight scene shall end under 10 minutes; no hero will be attacked by less than 10 goondas simultaneously; nobody shall resort to the use of any weapon that is likely to kill instantaneously (for the sake of the first sub-rule above); no tables or chairs will be left standing undamaged; the comedian sidekick shall fool at least two goondas into hitting each other rather than him; the heroine, if present, will participate in the last 15 seconds, saving the hero from an unexpected blow from the desperately losing villain. Cops shall arrive fashionably late, after the hero has vanquished the goons.

The Mommy Rule – The hero will have a mom. The hero’s mother will be an abandoned/neglected/overworked/penniless/ /stoic/sad (choose one or more) woman, clad in a white sari, most of the time. The only other person in the movie lower on the sob-scale shall be the heroine’s mother, if she exists.

The Daddy Rule – Heroines will have a dad. Daddies will have the smallest role in the movie and will be either tycoons who make money by bulldozing slums and building sky rises in their places, or bumbling, dim-witted idiots who are masters at social gaffes, irritating the hell out of their domineering wives. The former type will be dressed in 3-piece suits and found in boardrooms or race courses, while the latter type will be dressed in safari suits and found in the kitchen or the garden, making a mess of things. Despite these differences, they will have one thing in common. Both types of daddies will fail to recognize the hero when he comes to the heroine’s house in a disguise consisting of a large pair of glasses, a wig and a falsetto voice.

The Sister Rule – The hero will have a sister. She will be perfect in her studies, cook like a chef, dance and sing like a professional and be a paragon of virtue, thus attracting the villain’s eye. She will be dressed modestly till the time the villain decides modesty is not a virtue and attempts to get fresh with her. She will stagger home in disarrayed clothing and be seen till the hero has made public his resolve to exterminate the villain. She will not be seen thereafter in the movie.

The Brother Rule – The heroine will have a brother. The role of the brother will compete for brevity with the Daddy’s role (See The Daddy Rule above). If the heroine is unmarried and in love, the brother will be a smart, caring and protective brother who keeps her admiring male college mates at bay. Any upcoming hunk of a male model will fit the bill here. If the heroine is married, the brother will be a good-for-nothing, stay-at-home-and-come-in-the-way type Saala to his perennially annoyed and harassed Jeejaji. If he is available, Johnny Lever will play this role. If not, the producer will wait.

The Teacher Rule – The female teacher in a school or college will be an ex Miss World or Miss Universe and will have serious designs on the hero, who would be, but not look anything like, a student. The male teacher will be a fat comedian who invariably falls into the class every time he enters. He will try his best to impress the said female teacher, who will spurn all his advances with a carefully cultivated throw of her head and hair back.

The Student Rule – The hero will be a student almost all his adult life – topping his BA class in the old movies, being the best-dressed student of his MBA class in recent ones – and shall attend no more than 2 classes in a year. He will be found in the canteen, at the college square, on the library steps or jiving in the Cultural Festival Dance competition at all times that he is not on his motorbike. He shall never lose a dance competition, unless the heroine is on the other side.