Reflecting society

This rather acerbic thought of a long-time film reviewer with the New Yorker is true for most - probably every - film industry in the world, and specifically for the Hindi film industry, or Bollywood, as it is popularly called. Bollywood is famous for churning out trite, formulaic films year after year, resulting in a hundred or so variations on a couple of storylines, with the staple Masala (ie ingredients) to satisfy the taste of the average film buff, such as: five songs, three fight sequences, a couple of melodramatic emotional scenes to make you cry and two comic interludes, sometimes bordering on plain buffoonery. This formula has been passed on from generation to generation, since the Hindi film industry began. While there are filmmakers who have made excellent films, the formula remains dominant.

Against this background, it's hard to analyse the representation of disability in Hindi cinema. In this area, Bollywood proves the adage that 'films are merely a reflection of society'. The disabled are marginalised in Indian society, and the same is true in Hindi films. All you're likely to see is a fleeting moment where a crippled beggar extends his begging bowl into the window of a flashy imported car, or the good-hearted protagonist helping a visually impaired person cross the busy city road and receiving heartfelt blessings for it.

There are no more than a handful of films in the history of Hindi cinema in which disabled characters got some decent footage (ie a good length role), or where they have any major role to play.