New Year’s Cheer: Then and Now — Have Bollywood Stars Faded from New Year Celebrations?

By Sharad Rai

There was a time when people would start sending New Year greeting cards a full fortnight in advance. There was genuine excitement in the air. The New Year was celebrated as a grand festival. It still is a festival, but the sparkle and enthusiasm of earlier times seem to have faded. On New Year’s Eve, from makeshift street pavilions to the corridors of five-star hotels, all eyes appeared to soak in the glamorous presence of Bollywood actresses.

New Year Bollywood celebrations lose filmi touch

Today, neither do “Happy New Year” greeting cards arrive, nor are there those persistent PR calls insisting, “You must come.” There is no longer the same enthusiasm among today’s stars to personally invite big producers and journalists to their shows. Undoubtedly, Bollywood’s city—Mumbai—still decks itself up in all its finery to welcome the New Year. But the filmi flavour is missing. Hotels, bars, entertainment venues, theatres, clubs, auditoriums and cinema halls do create a festive atmosphere, yet the New Year’s Eve nights no longer see late-night (post-midnight extra-time) dance, music and comedy shows in cinemas with stars being specially booked. Even if programmes do take place, the filmi punch is absent. We old film folks feel as if we have stepped into a completely new world.

There was a time when glamorous Bollywood actresses and dance performers truly had a field day. Rakhi Sawant, Sambhavna Seth, Jai Shri T., Meena T., Huma Khan, Jazbel, Leena Das, and Raksha Mehta —these women were the “welcome girls” of New Year shows. For many of these dancers, the year’s earnings would begin with New Year shows; some would even manage to cover an entire year’s expenses from these events alone.

Then suddenly, the wave of grand late-night entertainment shows began to decline. Greeting cards were replaced by WhatsApp messages. Group wishes started getting copy-pasted on Facebook and Instagram. People forgot that New Year’s Eve shows once existed in the heart of Bollywood.

With the rise of the new online system, the buzz of New Year’s Eve celebrations began to blur, as if the pulsating start of entertainment had been curbed. From Christmas through the entire New Year fortnight, the once-intoxicating parties came under a cloud of fear. An atmosphere of anxiety began to engulf New Year’s Eve itself.

In between, there was also a boom phase for Bollywood. Glamorous stars were being sought after as welcome girls at exorbitant prices. Five-star hotels offered them crores of rupees for a single entry, and many stars turned down these offers. In the years before COVID, there were talks of Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone being paid one to two crore rupees for a single dance move. Today, all of them are married, some are mothers, and it is unlikely that anyone would dare to offer them a New Year’s Eve 2026 dance performance.

In such a scenario, attention turns to names like Sunny Leone, Mallika Sherawat, Meghna Naidu, Rakhi Sawant and Sambhavna Seth—are they ready to add sparkle to this New Year’s celebrations? When asked where they would be lighting up New Year’s Eve parties, the answer is the same from all: “Oh, where? There are no shows now, and no security either. It’s not like before.” Many film stars are choosing to party at home or at select private venues. People prefer not to talk about the pleasures of private parties.

Indeed, times have truly changed.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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