No running around trees

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No one’s missing them — those infamous dances around the trees. Indeed, the once high-profile director Indra Kumar would infallibly organise a love duet between Madhuri Dixit and whoever her hero was, around a “lucky” conifer in Ootacamund. Similarly Subhash Ghai would return to a legendary oak tree, a zippy drive away from Mysore, to locate a boogie woogie around its bark.
Instead of trees, today’s hotsteppers pirouette around desert dunes (on the outskirts of Jaisalmer or Dubai) or around studio-created discotheques. Anybody can dance, saala... er salsa, anywhere.
Indeed, quite a few of the essentials of the good ole Bollypur entertainers have evaporated with the wind. These may have been utterly predictable — cliches, so to speak — but I for one, miss them, because the formulaic fare now is somewhat like French fries without ketchup.
So for this Sunday, here are some salient features which have been discarded from the menu. If not, they’ve been altered beyond recognition, kicking off with…
MOTHER BOLLYWOOD: Once, she would sew away on a tailoring machine furiously, starve herself to death, cough raucously, but light up like an X’mas tree when the overaged hero touched her feet to announce, “Ma, main first class first mein pass ho gaya.” Mom would even suffer in silence, waiting for vendetta to be wreaked for her murdered husband. Nirupa Roy was the ultimate receptacle of life’s cruelty.
In lieu of her, today Zarina Wahab’s allotted far less footage and close-ups, and the audience doesn’t always connect with her. No one seemed to care a fig if she was tormented in Himmatwala and I, Me aur Main. Tsk.
DADDY BOLLYWOOD: Senior gents, with trembling chins, no longer get the audience’s tear-ducts flowing. The last Big Daddy of them all, Alok Nath, is no longer on the scene. Sure, Anupam Kher shows up as dad occasionally, but prefers to do leading roles even if there are none going in the senior bracket dominated by Amitabh Bachchan.

RAHIM CHACHA: The aged Muslim domestic servant rests in peace. For that enforced secular element, likes of the wonder cricket moppet in Kai Po Che or Imraan, one of the three buddies in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, have stepped in. Clever.
DAI MA: Or Farida Jalal. The benevolent nanny who was a hundred Agony Aunts rolled into one, has been exiled. That’s why Freddy Aunty (as she is called by the industrywallas, young and ancient) seems to be spending more time in Bangalore than Bollyore. She’s being missed but only by the over-30s generation. Youngies are fine with a random scene or two by the benign Tanvi Azmi in Yeh Jawaani Yeh Deewani.
SUPER CANINES and BIRDS: The pet dog, endowed with more grey cells than a nuclear scientist, would rescue a mismatched wedding, bark lethally at the baddies, and wag its tail rhythmically. After Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! Sooraj Barjatya shifted his alliance from a canine to a parakeet in Main Prem ki Diwani Hoon, besides giving up on pigeons carrying love letters. Hopefully, a wonder pug or a kool kabootar will return to the officially announced sequel to Maine Pyar Kiya. Nowadays, all you get is a camera-unfriendly orangutan in Yamla Pagla Deewana 2. Ooof.
So see, all these mandatory elements for the masala matinees are going, going, gone. And I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or just console myself — that all good — and outdated— things must come to an end.