What is Bollywood?

Even if you’ve never actually seen a film from India, the word Bollywood immediately conjures up images of sumptuous, brightly colored productions shot in exotic locales featuring beautiful stars partaking in impressively choreographed song and dance numbers. But what is the history of India’s national cinema, and how did it grow to become one of the country’s most powerful and financially lucrative industries, and the world leader in both the number of films produced each year as well as audience attendance? 

Origins 

 The word Bollywood is (obviously) a play on Hollywood, with the B coming from Bombay (now known as Mumbai), the center of the film world. The word was coined in the 1970s by the writer of a magazine gossip column, though there is disagreement as to which journalist was the first to use it. However, Indian cinema dates all the way back to 1913 and the silent film Raja Harishchandra, the first-ever Indian feature film. Its producer, Dadasaheb Phalke, was Indian cinema’s first mogul, and he oversaw the production of twenty-three films between 1913-1918.