Bollywood is the informal name given to Hindi cinema, currently the largest film producer in the world. The term is a play on the term "Hollywood" and the B in Bollywood comes from the city of Bombay (now known as Mumbai). The term "Bollywood " has made it to the Oxford English Dictionary.

History of Bollywood

Bollywod began in 1899 when the first Indian short film was shown. In 1913, it produced the country's first silent feature film, Raja Harishchandra. By the 1930s, the Indian cinema was producing more than 200 films annually. The first Indian-made sound film, Alam Ara (1931), became a huge hit, showing thet there was a huge market for musicals and talkies.

The 1930s and 1940s, Bollywood was dominated by escapist films, although there were also some films that tackled social issues. Bollywood produced its first color movies in the 1950s. Melodramas and lavish romantic musicals characterized the industry at this time.

In the mid-1970s, gritty and violent gangster films ruled the industry. The trend returned to family-centric romantic musicals in the 1990s. Bollywood is currently popular in many parts of the world.

How big is Bollywood?

Bollywood is massive. It produces nearly 1,000 films every year (although not consistently), twice as many as Hollywood. It has a worldwide audience of 3 billion. In fact, Bollywood has overtaken Hollywood in terms of viewership since 2004. In India, around 14 million people watch Bollywood films everyday. In 2006, the industry made a revenue of $1.75 billion. This is expected to increase to $3.4 Billion in 2010.

Peculiarities of Bollywood films

Bollywood films are full of colors with lots of song-and-dance numbers and costume changes woven into the script. Comedy, love triangles, and dare-devil thrills are all crammed in a three-hour-long extravaganza that includes an intermission.

These are called masala (Hindi for a spice mixture) films. The films usually stick to a boy-meets-girl formula in which the star-crossed lovers struggle for the approval of their families. There is also always a hero, heroine, comedy sidekick, and a vamp.

Musicals are an important part of people's lives in India and if they are not satisfied with the music in a film, it becomes an instant flop. Bollywood producers release the film's soundtrack before the movie release, hoping that the music will attract the people to watch the movie.

Bollywood's big stars

Aspiring actors - beauty contestants, models, TV and theater actors, and even common people - dream for a break in the industry and to become a star, but very few succeed. One of the biggest Bollywood stars is Amitabh Bhachan, who has been in the industry for more than 30 years and is considered India's Robert De Niro. Other popular actors include Salman Khan, Arjun Rampal, Aishwarya Rai, Dharmendra, and Shahrukh Khan.