Hero, heroine, villain, all from Punjab

Historically, Punjab has had a long, and steadfast, affair with Bollywood. While Punjabis nearly monopolised early Hindi cinema, modernBollywood has held the Punjabi idiom contagious, and continues to draw from the region either in its people as actors or in its underlying ebullient subtext that often themes Hindi movies with Punjab backdrops.

With the illustrious patriarch of the Kapoor family, Prithviraj Kapoor, father of Raj Kapoor, who hailed from pre-Partition Punjab (Lyallpur in Pakistan), setting the tradition for an 80-year-old career of the Kapoors in Hindi cinema, the baton of acting continues to be successfully transferred from generation to generation. And names like Ranbir Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor spearhead the brigade of contemporary superstars in Bollywood. Exemplary at bridging the time between Punjab, in the past and present, in Bollywood, is the Deol family. While Dharmendra is hailed as the true blue Punjab da puttar, his sons Sunny and Bobby have carried forward the legacy into new age Bollywood by remaining not just actors but also by turning producers.

In fact, Punjab's contribution towards Hindi cinema has been a khandani one, even if we were not to discount individual efforts of the likes of Akshay Kumar, Ayushmann Khurrana, Jimmy Sheirgil,Poonam Dhillon, Divya Dutta, Om Puri, Dara Singh who all have roots in the Punjabi heartland.

Families like Rajesh Khanna's, Vinod Khanna's, Raj Babbar's etc have all risen to the acting occasion when and how times of Bollywood have demanded. The state was also a breeding ground for veteran baddies like Prem Chopra, Amrish Puri, Gulshan Grover, Ranjeet, Mangal Dhilllon, Puneet Issar etc.

Punjab is also feeding the economy of Bollywood as many Punjabis like Subhash Ghai, Yash Chopra, Karan Johar, David Dhawan, Satish Kaushik and Harry Baweja turned producers.Punjab's present day enthusiasm needs a stronger support if this story must project into the future. Perhaps the state government's recent initiative to launch its own Pollywood infrastructure would become the first baby step.

yah kiran ...