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ICE is the name of the game once more. After the dotcom bust a few years ago, information, communications and entertainment (ICE) took a slide     on the economic scenario around the world. But the     world loves to sing and dance—as perhaps never before. The people love to live in a dream world. If you cannot have what you want in the real harsh world, you can at least fantasise about it. Fantasy is what entertainment is all about. Hollywood was in the days bygone or rather decades gone by the Mecca of love stories full of dance, music, comedy and what have you. Charlie Chaplin was one man who was at the peak of fun, dreams, love, a tramp though he was. Most of the people around the world were poor but even the rich loved him. Language was no barrier. His fun started with silent movies, with a beauty to dream about or to live with. His little innocent follies were the stuff that made the whole world laugh. Even when he graduated to talking cinema, language was no barrier. His gestures, mimicking, mobile face and limbs said it all. He became a legend in his lifetime. He crossed all boundaries, east or west.

In India quite a few actors tried to copy Charlie Chaplin, but Raj Kapoor was the most successful and he played a tramp and an incorrigible lover in quite a few films he made himself or in the productions of others. He was at his best in his Chaplinesque hat, crumpled trousers and torn jackets in films like Anari, Shri 420 or Awara and he sang tunefully, courtesy Mukesh, Awara Hoon---a tune which became popular in many lands. There were some other good comedians but the most memorable in Indian cinema has been Johnny Walker. There would be some of course in the regional cinema. Then Hollywood and Europe took to steamy love stories—Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing, The King and I and Cleopatra which saw Elizabeth Taylor as perhaps the most beautiful woman of her time and who epitomised the Shakespearean quote:

After that arrived another stupendous beauty on the scene: Marilyn Monroe. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes said it all about her. She won hearts all over, right into the Presidential bedroom in the White House and the junior Kennedy, Robert. She proved deadly for herself and the President, such was her lustre and lure. From head to toe, she was one of the greatest sex symbols of all time. Her mini skirts, her squeaky voice, the sheer innocence, mobile hands and face and legs caused male egos to flounder and feel very weak in the knees. Between Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, there was a battery of great stars and women of stunning beauty and ample measure and vital statistics. To name just a few, Susan Hayward, Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamaar (Samson and Delilah), Audrey Hepburn, Betty Davis, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Catherine Hepburn and a host of others. There are plenty of belles on the scene and Julia Roberts, Pamela Anderson are two names of today that instantly come to mind.

But Hollywood seems to be bidding goodbye to its musical and romantic stories besides the great classical extravaganzas like The Ten Commandments and other epics of historic Greek and Roman wars with great romances thrown in. Hollywood is today obsessed with horror and science fiction as never before. It is in the syndrome of invasion of earth by other planetary creatures. It is obsessed with terror. This obsession appears to have come up because of excessive prosperity and a feeling of security in an isolated land far beyond, at the end of the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific at the other. So Hollywood must imagine horror of different kinds. If it is not external, it must be invented in the mind and psychopathy is a disease of the super rich, which Hollywood is cashing in on in a big way by feeding on the fears of the fat cats. That often makes the cash registers ring with dollars. Huge creatures that can demolish whole cities are another dimension of the Hollywood horror thinking. But east is east and west is west. Indians and Asians, and for that matter, the Africans are not yet fully taken in by the horror game. They still love the steamy romances, full of lilting music which the dream merchants of Bollywood are the best exponents of. That is why Mumbai churns out musical and dancing extravaganzas and not far behind is the regional Indian cinema whether it is in Kerala, Chennai, Hyderabad or Bangalore.

These tales of romance have takers not only in India but around the world, even in the West, not just the Indian expatriates, but some Americans and Europeans as well. This has been apparent from the success of Subhash Ghai’s Taal and Aamir Khan’s Lagaan, just to mention two films. But Indian film makers are shooting everywhere in the world, not just to show Indians the beauty spots around the globe but to also tell the world that they have the financial muscle to present the western or eastern locales in their splendour. It goes without saying that this scenic splendour is accompanied by prancing young boys and girls by the beach or monumental sites, be they in America, Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand or anywhere in Asia.