After so many vaporous Bollywood sites - the ones that started a download mania, threatening to overheat modems with steamy images of Pooja Bhatt and Urmila Matondkar - it's nice to find one that is about something: www.kareeb.com, the brave exploration of cyberspace by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and brother Vir.For Vinod, cyberspace must be a painfully slow-moving environment; a hostile, sprawling expanse that doesn't exactly nurture a filmmaker's grand vision in Cinemascope and Dolby sound. "I can't believe it," says Vinod. "My brother woke me up one night and made me listen to some whistling sounds on his computer. He seemed %*#@$ excited by it." It's his movie so he is free to swear the way he wants. But for Vir, who manages his brother's movie business, that whistle, a melody from Vinod's soon-to-be-released movie, Kareeb, makes sound business sense: its getting into thousands of Indian homes wired to the Net. These Indians will soon start to whistle it. That's where Vinod's prodigious talent ends and Vir's wishful thinking begins. Can these dudes, who now have a song on their lips, be persuaded to queue up outside theatres showing Kareeb?A number of Indian filmmakers have set up websites over the last 18 months or so. Rajshri Productions (www.rajshri.com) from the Barjatya camp, ABCL Online (www.abclonline.com) from Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited and Yash Raj Films (www.yashrajfilms.com) from Yash Chopra of Dil To Pagal Hai fame, are just the tip of the cheeseball. Thousands of Indians (and this is no exaggeration) maintain Bollywood-related pages on the Net with cheesybeefy pictures of Bollywood stars as the main attraction. Many of these sites are excessive and unmindful of copyright and defamation laws.However, I am told that a site like rajshri.com, which has a time-warp appeal about it, with the big features being Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Maine Pyar Kiya, spell good business for the Barjatyas. The site has extensive details about the English and Spanish versions of Maine Pyar Kiya (When Love Calls and Te Amo), reviews from the Los Angeles Times and a chance to discuss theatrical distribution, satellite and cable rights to the Rajshri films. To assist the prospective buyer, the site has hundreds of sound clips, reviews and profiles.ABCL Online, which is undergoing a tony revamp in keeping with current aesthetic codes on the Net, appears to be morphing into an entertainment webzine with nuggets of cinema gossip, interviews with stars, book reviews and the like. The exercise is a tricky one, and needs an expert in portion-control. Too much of one thing or too little of the other can squeeze the byte-blood of a site. On the other hand, people just can't seem to have enough of Hindi cinema on the Net. Vir knows this..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Published By: AtMigration Published On: May 18, 1998--- ENDS ---
