BOOK EXCERPT | How video and music piracy gave Bollywood nightmares in the 1980s: Extract from ‘When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala: The Many Lives of 1980s’ Bombay Cinema’ by Avijit Ghosh
The HinduPublished : May 10, 2023 08:00 IST - 5 MINS READ In Hindi cinema, the 1980s was the decade of the dark and powerful police drama Ardh Satya as well as the kitschy excess of the action comedy Himmatwala. It was a time of furious change beyond the silver screen, too: video cassettes brought cinema to drawing rooms and bedrooms; television and one-day cricket emerged as fierce competition to films; piracy put movie theatres in crisis; film stars were elected to the Indian Parliament in surprising numbers. In When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala: The Many Lives of 1980s’ Bombay Cinema, Avijit Ghosh narrates the fascinating story of perhaps the most eventful, disruptive, and transformative decade of Hindi cinema. It further assessed, ‘One lakh video libraries, one lakh video parlours and theatres, and thousands of hotel and private cable TV connections now provide a ready market for three lakh video cassettes every month. Piracy flourished because watching a film’s video at home gradually became much cheaper and more convenient than going to the movies.
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