Mihir Bose - Bollywood: A History

Mihir Bose was born in 1947, just before Indian independence, and grew up in Bombay. He went to England in 1969 to study and qualified as a chartered accountant. Almost immediately he took to his first love of journalism and writing. He has written for all the major newspapers in Britain, including the Sunday Times for twenty years and the Daily Telegraph since 1995. Having concentrated on business journalism in his early years he now specialises in investigative sports reporting, particularly the growing field of sports business and politics. He has won several awards for his newspaper writing, including Business Columnist of the Year, Sports Reporter of the Year and Sports Story of the Year. His History of Indian Cricket was the first book by an Indian writer to win the prestigious Cricket Society Literary Award in 1990. His study of sports and apartheid Sporting Colours was runner-up in the 1994 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He has so far written twenty-one books ranging from histories and biographies to books on business, cricket and football. He lives with his wife in west London.

To Caroline,

withouth whose love, dedication, heroic support

and encouragement this book would never have been possible.

She has played the sort of role a Bollywood actress

would love to play but never be able to emulate.

Lotus Collection

Mihir Bose, 2006

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

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without the prior permission of the publisher.

The right of Mihir Bose to be identified as the Author

of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in UK 2006

by Tempus Publishing Limited

The Mill, Brimscombe Port,

stround, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QC

First edition published in India in hardback in 2007

Paperback edition 2008

The Lotus Collection

An imprint of

Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.

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ISBN: 978-81-7436-653-5

Mihir Bose was born in 1947, just before Indian independence, and grew up in Bombay. He went to England in 1969 to study and qualified as a chartered accountant. Almost immediately, he took to his first love of journalism and writing. He has written for all the major papers in Britain, having worked for The Sunday Times for twenty years before moving to The Daily Telegraph in 1995. Having concentrated on business journalism in his early years, he now specialises in investigative sports reporting, particularly the growing field of sports business and politics. He has won several awards for his newspaper writing, including Business Columnist of the Year, Sports Reporter of the Year and Sports Story of the Year. His books have been controversial and have also won awards. His History of Indian Cricket was the first book by an Indian writer to win the prestigious Cricket Society Literary Award in 1990. His study of sports and apartheid, Sporting Colours, was runner-up in the 1994 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He has so far written twenty-one books, ranging from histories and biographies, to books on business, cricket and football. He lives with his wife in West London.

A journey of a thousand miles begins, say the Chinese, with a single step.

Back in 1992 when Nick Gordon, quite the most marvellous editor I have worked for, suggested I write about Bollywood, with Pamela Bordes as my photographer, I did not know I had taken the first step. But so it has proved.

This book has come a long way since then and I am grateful to so many people across so many lands and countries that, while I would like to thank them all, I just cannot.

I must thank David Davidar, then of Penguin India, for suggesting my name to Tempus in the first place.

Having grown up in Bombay, when it was called Bombay, and Bollywood was just Hindi cinema, I have always followed it, and the people in this book, whose lives I chronicle, were people who were part of my daily life as a child. My childhood was dominated by the making of Mughal-e Azam, and Hindi film songs were part of the surrounding sound of our life in Bombay, blaring forth from transistors, as we called them, and from every paan-shop.