The sensibility paradox

CEO of Yash Raj films to consultancy company - "I want insights into the indian film industry".

Consultant - Mines data for three weeks, sees his wife only for four days out of the 21 days , gets a brilliant ppt made in Microsoft Vista (his laptop battery draining out several times in the process) and of course - adds lots of sparkling insights gathered by his firm over the years.

His presentation had the following insights about the behavioural patterns of the customers of bollywood -

Characteristics of Indian film market: Women need clean eyes, girls have low sugar, guys are low in cortesone, the kids get high parental care, Cultural bondage is high with ones parents!
(In other words - women want to cry, girls want lot of sugary romance, guys like lot of skin and action, the kids are forced to see family movies, and oldies dont have the right to choose the movies!)

Luckily Yashraj is a progressive organization unlike the congress party, and the below market segmentation was taken well by them -
Market classification: Women-20%, guys-50%, girls-14%, kids-10%, oldies-5% , Untellables -1%

And so the new project was taken up accordingly -

Two old actors Aamir Khan and Kajol were taken in mainly for advertising effectiveness.
"Jarring music by two warring brothers" again sounded like a good ad-gimmick - and was green flagged. To compensate for the holes in the script, a good lyricist was hired - he is asked to fill in stuff (shaayari) into the movie. A brilliant cinematographer is brought in to hide the aging actors' wrinkles. And the result is ....

Tere Dil mein meri saanson ko panaah mil jaaye,
Tere ishq mein meri jaan, fanaa ho jaaye!

But here is the catch - these insights are enough to make the film a hit , not a super hit. But yashraj knows the "X" factor to take it to the next level which succeeds many a time....Increase the melodrama and cut the sensibility at crucial junctures of the movie.
Anybody remember the climax of a movie called Chandni? yucky but successful. The same stuff faltered in Mujse Dosti Karoge (remember the kumkum flying off and falling on Rani's forehead, just because Currynaah woke up late on wedding day!).

The trick works for fanaa....

If ur still going to watch the movie, prime yourself into ultra low expectations like i did - u might just enjoy the movie!