January 4, 1999
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Heroes,
Villains and Zeroes '98 KUCHH
KUCHH HOTA HAI Riding the 90s wave of trendy, feel-good movies with a traditional core, the year's biggest hit wowed audiences at home and abroad.
It was almost as if the Bollywood Badshahs were going around with black bands, mourning a year in which the biggies fell like nine-pins and a winner seemed as elusive as fat, bright stars on a smoggy Delhi winter night. Cans of unsold films piled up, Eldorado had shifted home. Then came Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, starting out as a bit of a breeze and then working itself up into such a storm that by the end of the year Bollywood was still counting the rake in. The jackpot film by Karan Johar, an unknown 26-year-old, was the box-office hit of the year. This sixer, however, didn't come out of nowhere. The cherubic director sensed the mood of the country better than most pollsters. The need of the hour was a feel-good film with an Indian core. So he served a core as traditional as desi ghee wrapped in cotton candy. Johar had also done his homework well: his film is a clever homage to Sooraj Barjatya and Yash Chopra who with Hum Apke Hain Kaun, Dil To Pagal Hain and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge had rewritten cinematic history this past decade.
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