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Bollywood’s ghost journey has had many stops. Madhubala was the quintessential wandering spirit in Mahal in 1949; Vyjanthimala was Dilip Kumar’s past in his earlier life in Madhumati (1958). The ghostly era of eerie mansions with tragic pasts was followed by the age of films such as Jaani Dushman (1979) in which Sanjeev Kumar was a werewolf attacking young brides dressed in the traditional red wedding robes.
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nce ghosts in Bollywood wore white sarees and walked softly to the sound of anklets tinkling. Now they float in the air or are brand-conscious apparitions that can do rap. Vishnupriya Sengupta tracks the evolution of the ghost in Bollywood Vivek Sharma remembers those days when there was no one around him, but he could feel a refrigerator being softly opened. His 24year-old cousin had died, and his aunt always kept some food for him in the fridge so that he wouldn’t ever go hungry. On some days, Sharma could see the inside light of the refrigerator; on other days, the bed sheets on his late cousin’s bed got crumpled without any reason. “I have experienced the supernatural,” says Sharma, whose debut film Bhoothnath, starring Amitabh Bachchan, is all set for release on ALL RIGHTS
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May 9. His cousin’s spirit, he says, continued to visit their house for eight or nine years — stopping only after a prayer was conducted there for another cousin’s wedding. It’s easier to spook others when you believe in the spooky business. But the idea of a film based on the friendship between a ghost and a child evolved out of a discussion with a friend, recalls Sharma. “We were discussing why people were so God fearing, and somehow the conversation turned to how love could transform even a ghost into an angel.” Sharma’s film is going to add to a genre of Hindi films — spanning the Ramsay Brothers’ lurid productions to the ear-piercing Ram Gopal Varma variety — that has found its eager takers among moviegoers. Indian cinema has often been accused of being a bit hamhanded when it comes to dealing with the