Hum aap ke saath saath hai kuch mukhya mantri film industry ke seva mein, kuch sapne aur kuch vaade lekar ...

Ali Peter John

After months of hurting and humiliation faced by the film Industry which is now increasingly being called Bollywood, there seems to be an attempt being made by some chief ministers to ease the pains and miseries the industry has gone through with the kind of courage and calm that it is generally known for.

It is in these circumstances that one feels happy to know about how some chief ministers are offering sops to the ailing industry.

It was only on November 5 when the world was engrossed in the battle between Trump and Joe Biden that Mr Udhav Thackeray, the chief minister of Maharashtra found time off from all the politicking and politicking going on in the name of Covid19 and Arnab Goswami, to announce his government"s plans to give a new lease of life to it.

He said his government would take steps to build more theatres. multiplexes and centres where the latest technology would be offered to filmmakers involved in the making of feature films, short films, web series and other forms of films.

He said that theatres which have remained closed during the pandemic would be opened in phases and with all the instructions to be followed during the pandemic and the conditions would be further eased when the Covid situation in Maharatshtra improved Mr Thackeray went on to ask filmmaker to present him with their plans to have a better film industry in every department and that he would make all out efforts to have one of the best film Industries not only in the country but anywhere else Mr Thackeray had a big at Mr Yogi, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh who some weeks ago had promised to build a film city on the outskirts of Delhi and Noida and asked Mr Yogi to go ahead and build the film city of his dreams and even said that Mr Yogi could take the Film City of Mumbai to wherever he wanted and make it successful.

In his meeting with industry leaders, he thanked the film industry for its help during all times of crisis, man made and nature created.

He said Maharatshtra was the janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi of the film industry and also said that Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema was a Maharashtrian and that the Marathi maanoos had always played an important part In the growth of the industry. He recalled the close relationship between his father, Baalasaheb Thackeray (who had started life as a painter of show cards for films) had with the industry and how he had some of his best friends in legends like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna, Mohammad Rafi and Manna Dey among many others ,( I wonder how he forgot to mention the names of Lata Mangeshkar and Pran ).

Chief Ministers have kept making promises to the film industry and most of them have done nothing to keep their dream promises and the industry has got used to taking their promises with a pinch of salt .......

The first C M to make such promises to the industry was Mulayam Singh Yadav who was guided in making the promises to the industry by the late Amar Singh who was then very close to Amitabh Bachchan and other big names in industry. But very little of his promises turned to reality. Mulayam Singh went into another round of promises and there were plans to give producers who shot most of their films in Uttar Pradesh huge discounts and other facilities to make shooting anywhere In U P easy and feasible. There were several filmmakers from Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and even other countries who took advantage of these incentives, but nothing great has been done for a long time even though the incentives are still operative.

On an earlier occasion, the then cheif minister Mayawati offered a slew of schemes, but all that was remembered about her and her schemes for the industry was the expensive saaris she wore to meet filmmakers and stars who were dazzled even the most glamorous female stars.

Right now, there are several film units from Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad shooting on locations all over Uttrakhand, and Himachal Pradesh and the governments in these places are going all out to offer them all the facilities in what seems to be an attempt to attract more filmmakers. The most.sought after location these days is Manali where the "Rani of controversy" lives and rules. And Goa is not far behind.

There is a ray of hope in the industry even in these very dark times, the kind of darkness the industry has never experienced before. Will the promises made by the cheif ministers give the industry the kind of boost the industry desperately needs today more than at any other time.