In Anil Sharma’s TheHero (2003) terrorism unfolded like a spy thriller with Sunny Deol trying tosave India from the Pak nuke. The film played on the animus against Pakistan.ISI harbours terrorists, Pakistan engages in such trivial pursuits like makingthe Islamic bomb--that was the wisdom gained from watching the film. In recenttimes Kunal Kohli’s Fanaa (2006) presented terrorism with huge lashingsof romance and melodrama and anticipated the increasing sophistication andglobalisation of terrorist operations that we read of in the news pages. Awayfrom the mainstream Santosh Sivan’s The Terrorist (1999) portrayed theconflicts and dilemmas of a young suicide bomber and Anurag Kashyap’s BlackFriday focused on Bombay’s underworld-aided bomb blasts of 1993 tracingtheir roots back to politics of hatred.
The mainstream Hindi terror films of 2008 are seemingly more acute and sharp;whether they are truly so is the subject for another debate. But these films docome with a bigger sense of immediacy, perhaps because the frequency of terrorattacks in the country too has increased manifold. "Every three months thereis a big blast, terror has become part of reality, it has crept into our livesso we have grown more sensitive towards it," says Raj Kumar Gupta, director ofAamir.
To put it crudely, terrorism has arrived in Bollywood much the same way as itdid in the West after 9/11. "Our responses to the issue are getting clearer.We are writing differently, talking differently, looking differently," saysPandey.
In the last couple of decades terrorism has also arrived in the heart of urbanIndia—in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore--than remaining confined out there—inKashmir or Punjab. Its victims are people like us, on a night out for dinner ora day out for shopping. No wonder the films are also tackling the issue from anurban, middle class point of view. "It is affecting people like us sittingright here in the cities," says Gupta.