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How to write a history of Bollywood

Buy copies of all the biographies, autobiographies and resources on Indian cinema available in the market. ( Sample: Kishore Valicha’s Kishore Kumar, Raju Bharatan’s Lata Mangeshkar ). Read and take copious notes of the interesting bits.

Read and memorise all the anecdotes in So Many Cinemas by BD Garga.

Ask Shyam Benegal to write short paragraphs on topics like Amitabh Bachhan, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt.

Optional: Hire a proofwriter who knows about the placement of commas in your sentences.

Optional: Get some knowledge of what it is you are writing about. Have editors who know the facts you are talking about and have basic knowledge of Hindi.

Optional: Don’t contradict yourself on two consecutive pages. ( Page 250: “He had set up Navketan and asked Guru Dutt to direct Navketan’s second production Baazi. The success of the film established Guru Dutt as a director.” Page 251: “In his early years, Dutt made crime thrillers but, after the failure of Baazi, a costume drama set on the high seas, which was panned by the critics and hated by the masses, he decided to make different kinds of movies.” )

If you are a Bengali writer writing aforementioned History, feel free to go on a trip down memory lane whenever Bengali actors, directors or composers are mentioned. Objectivity shmobjectivity.

Make sure you write a long introduction about some random adventure while writing your book which has no bearing on your book whatsoever other than driving home the fact that Indians are prudish about sex and yet like their fallen women. Make sure your account Bordes everyone to tears.

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