MOST ACTORS THOUGHT THAT STARRING IN THESE FILMS COULD BE A LADDER TO MAINSTREAM CINEMA
When people in my home town gave me disapproving looks, I told them that what they watched were cheat shots, and that I did not shoot intimate scenes with women.
MANISH AGRAWAL, actor, originally from Shimbhaoli, Uttar Pradesh The films I did had no adverse impact on my relationship with my family. If anything, they made me ‘popular’ back home. The last time I visited home, I was invited as a chief guest to inaugurate a school.
PARI TOMAR, actor, originally from Morena, Madhya Pradesh
makeshift clothes shop, after a family feud left him in penury. “We were just surviving,” says Manish. When he turned 21 and his parents got him married, he realised that if he had to take charge of his life, he had to leave Shimbhaoli.
He was 25 when he left for Ghaziabad to work as a sales executive in a furniture store. One of his roommates told him about a recruitment drive to hire conductors for Uttar Pradesh Roadways. He laughed at them, he thought the job was below his dignity. But eventually, he was the only one among them to get that job.
For Manish, his previous jobs were but halts on his journey to stardom. From the time he was a schoolboy, he used to imitate Amitabh Bachchan. All his life, people told him he was born to act. “Why are you wasting your time here? Go to Mumbai,” passengers on the Noida- Haldwani route told him.
But neighbours gave him disapproving looks when he visited Shimbhaoli the first time after joining the soft porn industry. Everyone had watched his films. At least, that was the impression they gave him. “What kinds of films are these, Manish ji? You didn’t feel ashamed doing this?” people asked him. To them, as well as to his family members – parents and wife – Manish said that those were cheat shots. “Haven’t you seen Seeta Aur Geeta? You think there were two heroines in that film? It is technology,” he would explain, referring to the 1972 Hindi comedy starring Hema Malini in a double role. Manish’ story is intertwined with technological advancements in the entertainment sector that began around two decades ago.
By mid-2000, digital technology replaced film prints in theatres. That proved to be the death knell for morning shows (read adult films), which in turn triggered the rise of the CD film industry. These were low-budget films with a rustic flavour that were not released in cinema halls but distributed in the market as CDS worth ~25 to ~40.
By late 2000, piracy phased out the CD players. The huge workforce of the paralysed CD film industry – as well as outsiders – now shifted to the web. Small-time producers and owners of regional music companies identified the money-making potential of the video streaming platform and started churning out short, digital versions of morning shows.
Subrat Kar, co-founder and CEO of video intelligence company Vidooly, says, “Advertisers just wanted to join the digital bandwagon. They were mass targeting and didn’t care about the web channels on which their ads were displayed.”
Sub-standard acting, poor production quality and wafer-thin plots became the hallmarks of these films. It became a cottage industry of sorts, with films being shot in rented as well as private flats, residences, bungalows, and farmhouses.
Not everyone was impressed with making quick money in this manner. Noidabased Ravi Kasana, director of regional films, recalls being offered ~2 lakh for directing 15 soft porn films. “I was in debt and needed money but I refused because I didn’t want to be that guy who made those kind of films,” says Kasana. He closely tracked the career trajectory of young men and women who joined the industry. “Many girls who started off with these films got work in B-grade full-length feature films. But the men struggled to come out of the Youtube circuit,” says Kasana. In early 2016, Manish found himself stuck in that loop. He began questioning his choices. “There was no way people would consider me for any movie meant for family viewing,” he says. “Sunny Leone and Emraan Hashmi have both acted in extremely bold films. Still, people click selfies with them. But people look at us differently despite the fact that there is far less skin show in our films,” he says.
Manish was also fed up with what he called an “overdose” of erotic films. Boredom started seeping in. He was done with all the kissing, caressing and heaving. Around that time, Youtube’s policies regarding broadcast and content monetisation were getting refined; dumping volumes of softcore porn online was no longer as profitable as it originally was.
Users could flag content – including nudity or sexual content – that Youtube would then take down for violation of community guidelines.
Secondly, copyright infringements were becoming increasingly high. “Within minutes of putting out original content on the channel, others would post it on their channels without permission. It affected the ability to monetise,” says Subrat Kar of Vidooly.
Thirdly, brands became conscious about where their ads were displayed. “They didn’t want to put their ad on unhygienic content,” Kar adds.
And Youtube changed its policies. “Initially, our requirement for enabling ads for a given channel was purely viewership based, where a channel had to reach 10,000 aggregate views to become eligible to monetise,” says a Youtube spokesperson. But the policy was updated in January 2018. “As per the new policy, creators monetising on Youtube will need to have accrued 4,000 hours of watch-time within the past 12 months and have 1,000 subscribers to be eligible to earn revenue from their channels,” he says.
Effectively, it meant diminishing returns on investment. The new arrangement did not suit small-time players. They got weeded out from the industry. Today, the game belongs to big production houses and studios that have been producing films and TV serials for years. Fast forward to mid-april 2018. Manish is back in the Najafgarh farmhouse. This time, it is part of an image makeover.
He has stopped doing sleazy films. “I am happy to have come out of that world,” he says. He has had miss-and-blink appearances in Salman Khan’s blockbuster Tiger Zinda Hai and the Manoj Bajpayee starrer Aiyaary.
Today Manish runs two Youtube channels which broadcast double-meaning comedies and crime shows, apart from directing films in these genres on a freelance basis.
At the farmhouse today, he has to direct 10 short comedies. Only one film has been canned and a power cut brings the shoot to a halt, leaving Manish annoyed.
Just then, a debutant female artiste on the set nervously approaches him for a selfie. Manish combs his hair, takes the girl’s phone and gracefully poses for the picture, displaying the V sign.