• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Shubhra Gupta

A little over a decade ago, Bollywood producers shifted location shooting from Switzerland to the UK and the trend continues.

Picture: A still from the film, `Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge'.

As we roll down the hill, I can see the purple gorse, of which there was such profusion in the Victorian novels of my English Literature course, recede. I am leaving behind Bronte country where the 18th-century literary sisters, Charlotte and Emily, wove their Gothic romances. A hundred years on, technology has transplanted the striking wilderness in front of me, onto celluloid.

This is where Wuthering Heights was shot, immortalising on screen the tempestuous romance between the gypsy Heathcliff and the well-bred Catherine. The Hollywood production turned the place, till then imagined only as a literary landscape, into a movie location. I am in the UK, location-hopping on the British Tourist Authority's (BTA) Movie Map. I have already been to the barn, where some crucial scenes from Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd were canned, and the overgrown railway tracks of E Nesbit's Railway Children. And the quaint shops of Covent Garden in Central London, where Eliza Dolittle bewitched the English Professor in My Fair Lady. And the promontory where Meryl Streep stood, black cowl framing her wistful face, looking out over the sea in The French Lieutenant's Woman.

My tryst with the BTA movie map happened in 1991, when it was a brand-new concept. At the time, the only outsiders who turned up in the UK to shoot movies were the Americans. At about the same time, mainstream Bollywood was still rooted in Holland and Switzerland.

In the decade that followed, more and more producers turned their attention towards the UK, especially after Yash Chopra's 1991 Lamhe, in which Anil Kapoor and Sridevi eschewed Dutch tulips in favour of English daffodils. And Aditya Chopra's 1995 Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ), in which London forms a major backdrop to Kajol's and Shah Rukh's screen antics.

The huge successes of Karan Johar's 1998 Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH — the title song was shot in scenic Scotland), Aditya Chopra's 2000 Mohabattein, and Karan Johar's 2001 opus Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (both of which filmed large portions on scenic locations) have helped cement Britain's status as the most favoured nation in Bollywood. It has also prompted the BTA to come up with a Bollywood Movie Map.

Prem Subramaniam, head of BTA operations in India, who facilitated my trip all those years ago, updates me about Bollywood's course in the UK during the last 10 years. He's self-effacing about his involvement in the process, but he has undoubtedly been the man who pointed Yash Chopra in Britain's direction, right from the early days of Lamhe to his latest movie, Mujhse Dosti Karoge, starring Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor, a major schedule of which has just wrapped. Get him started on his long Bollywood outing, and Subramanium is a fund of stories, amusing sidebars, and trade-wise insights, on movies and their impetus to tourism.

"Scotland is a great substitute for Switzerland, which had grown stale," he says, "and this was quickly discovered by most of the A-grade producers." An abortive first foray by Yash Johar to the rugged Scottish Highlands, after a cancelled shoot in Czhecoslovakia for his Duplicate, turned lucky for the spectacular Eilean Donan Castle, close to the Isle of Skye. The evenings are a riot of colour, the like of which you can see only in Assam in India, and it is light till 9-10 p.m: Yash's son Karan showcased it with Rani Mukherji in KKHH, Rahul Rawail paired it with Kajol for Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi, and Rajiv Menon did the same with Aishwarya Rai for Kandukondain Kandukondain: some filmmakers from the South, clearly, have also been captivated by the charms of the UK.

Subramaniam cites four reasons why the UK scores, as opposed to Europe and the South Asian countries, which have also been vying for business from Bollywood; the easy availability of `right-looking' extras, and familiar food, and the accessibility to the English language and a ready-made viewing audience. The popularity of the Chopra-Johar movies, redolent of a forgotten past, was the perfect hook for nostalgia-hungry NRI audiences. Post DDLJ, Bollywood started figuring in the Top Ten movies in the UK. Mani Ratnam's Dil Se, though not strictly Bollywood but made with big stars Shah Rukh and Manisha Koirala, flopped in India but made good in the UK. Subhash Ghai's Yaadein, too, somewhat offset its disastrous showing in the domestic circuits with its earnings in the UK.

A visit by the various film commissions from the UK, as well as from the nodal British Film Commission (BFC), which met with leading producers from Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai, is evidence of the growing business opportunities in this sector. Old ties and new interest have made Bollywood a win-win proposition for Britain.

Currently, Selfridges' Bollywood extravanganza is drawing full houses and curious shoppers. Andrew Lloyd Webber is all set to storm Broadway with A.R. Rahman's Bombay Dreams. Eleven top movie makers have just finished being hosted by the BFC, to see how business can be expanded, and to address the concerns of those who go from India in search of the perfect location and get stymied by the strict work culture (Subhash Ghai was refused permission to shoot for an extra day in London for a Yaadein song.)

Film units in the UK translate into big bucks. A unit of about 70 people, shooting at stretch of three months, like the Mohabbatein team, for example, would end up fetching in a business equivalent to the summer collections of a Thomas Cook, says Subramaniam. The locations fetch in visitors, they become part of the Bollywood movie map, and add to the mystique and appeal of the place.

Ancillary tourism, brought on by the interest in the movie, which finally hits the marquee, brings in more moolah, and that's how the cycle goes. "Our association with Bollywood has been extremely profitable", says BTA chief executive Jeff Hamblin, big cricket buff, whose recent introduction to Bollywood has turned into rapid liking "after all, cricket and movies are prime movers in both countries."

The author can be reached at Shubhrag@vsnl.com

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
As unique as you

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line