The parade of flops that Bollywood is currently in the midst of isn't unusual. The industry has learnt to live with lean patches over the years. But rarely has an avalanche of box office duds been quite as big and debilitating as the one that the commercial Hindi cinema is now grappling with.
Over the past two weeks, panic-stricken Bollywood distributors have offloaded nearly a dozen nondescript films on the market, with neither of them showing any signs of reversing the one-way traffic of commercial failures.
Last week, as many as four Mumbai films arrived virtually unheralded - Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Madhoshi, Dobara and the Om Puri-starrer, King of Bollywood. This week it is the turn of films like Popcorn Khao Mast Ho Jao, Let's Enjoy, Satya Bol, Tauba Tauba and Pamela Rooks' National Award-winning Dance Like a Man.
The multiplexes are suddenly spoilt for choice. Sadly, the audience isn't quite going gaga.
What does this desperate glut of releases portend? It is a sure sign that the industry has lost its nerves and is seeking safety in numbers. September-October is a period that is usually seen as a low phase for Bollywood as the market readies itself for the onslaught of the biggies in the festival season spread across about ten weeks or so starting end-October.
It is the time of the year that films that do not find ready takers make it easily to the idle chains of theatres in the hope of finding a few fortuitous openings.
Over the past four weeks, the only Hindi film that has done reasonable business is Sanjay Gadhvi's Hollywood-inspired biker flick Dhoom, a sleeper from the Yashraj Films stable, but its success has not extended beyond the urban pockets. Since then, it has been a steady slide. Dhoom is yet to be dislodged from the top of the box office charts.