Mani Ratnam’s Thalapathi (1991) was a frustrating watch. The VHS tape was scratchy, there were no subtitles and the only Tamil I knew was ‘Vanakkam’ and a couple of cuss words. The gorgeous Shobana, a superlative performance by Rajnikanth, Mani Ratnam’s reputation, and all the articles raving about the film helped me hang on for 157 minutes. Throughout the Nineties that is how I watched a range of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films — on eye-wateringly bad, possibly pirated VHS tapes rented from the local cablewallah, without any dubbing or subtitling. Clearly he had enough of a market in Mumbai (Bombay then). And it was not limited to Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam speaking homes – ours certainly wasn’t.
That market, for Indians wanting to watch Indian cinema, has now asserted itself nationally. The rise and rise of the domestic crossover or the pan-Indian film is proof.
Regional or ‘Indian’?
The biggest hit of 2023, Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan was made by Tamil director Atlee, known for hits such as Nanban (2012) and Mersal (2017). It had a cast and crew drawn, largely, from Tamil cinema. It was released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. Jawan collected a gross of Rs. 1,160 crore at the box-office – that is the total value of the tickets people bought to watch Jawan. Of this, over Rs. 400 crore came from the overseas market and Rs. 760 crore from within India. From the tickets sold in India, roughly Rs. 200 crore was from ticket sales in non-Hindi markets.