A wounded bollywood wages war against a wild media

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By Team Bollyy
New Update
bollywood

Ali Peter John

As a man who has spent more than 50 years of his life in the so-called Bollywood, a word which I disdain, and who has seen this so-called Bollywood in all its glory, I was pained to see how it was being humiliated, ridiculed, punctured and even destroyed on various channels and generally in the media, and how it was taking all this with stoic silence and not making any attempt to defend itself.

These vicious and malicious attacks started on the second day after the young actor, Sushant Singh Rajput, was found hanging in his apartment, and they have continued even up to the time of writing.

Ali Peter John

But yesterday (or is it today?) these silent men and women seem to have found their courage and self-respect in a way I could not imagine after seeing them being flogged by a section of the media that seemed to derive a vicarious pleasure in calling them "stench", "druggies" and "the most dirty industry in the country".

There was one anchor who forgot all the other ills of the country and focused all his energy and his screams and shouts to defame the industry in the worst way he could - even at the cost of flogging all the codes and principles of journalism.

amitabh bachachan

He not only called the industry all kinds of names, but went crazy, standing up in his anchor space and challenging stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan like a hoodlum, rolling up his sleeves and flexing his non-existent muscles, which screamed more than he could scream. There were other anchors, both men and women, who didn't lose the opportunity to lash out at the film industry for its alleged sins, past and present, most of which couldn't stand the test of truth.

I felt even more outraged when some do paise ke anchors called out the names of Amitabh Bachchan, Karan Johar, Salman Khan, Aaditya Chopra, and actresses like Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan, Rakul Preet Singh and whatever other star names came to their wagging tongues.

salman khan

The allegations grew wilder as stories of stars doing drugs began making the headlines, creating a sensation all over the country. A pervasive scare blanketed the industry which began to look like one big family of men and women huddled in their house, fearful of whose names would appear next in the relentless attacks.

Now, finally, 34 of the major film production companies have approached the Delhi High Court seeking a ban on irresponsible reporting by two major channels, Republic and Times Now. These are mostly companies owned by stars like Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar and his sister Zoya, Yashraj Films, Ashutosh Gowarikar Productions, Nadiadwala Grandsons Productions, Vishal Bharadwaj, Reliance and Dharma Productions.

karan johar

I congratulate my friends from this world of films for having found their guts and realising that they too are like any other major industry, that they too have made their contribution to the country's coffers, both in terms of being the largest tax-paying industry in the country, and in terms of generating crores of investment money, both from within the country and even from abroad.

I, as a well-wisher, would like to see my friends win their war and regain the reputation that they were in constant fear of losing over the last six months.

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