Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

When NAYA DAUR is re-released on 3 August 2007, it would once again bring into relief the struggle that is presently going on between the urban India and the Rural India on the issues related to development and would underline the importance that cinema had been giving to the relevant social issues of the times, when it was made originally, and which it has abdicated off-late.

It would also be of interest to observe whether the BPO generation and the cyber cafe aficionados, who throng the multiplexes, would be able to find a point of connect with this film. One thing is for sure that the foot tapping music of O P Nayyar, which was one of the hi-points of the film, would again be an interesting point of comparison to the techno-synthetic music that is ruling the roost today.

For quite some time no film has been made that could cater to more than fifty percent of the audience that continues to live in the rural areas and as such the success that NAYA DAUR may achieve would be kind of an affirmation to the film fraternity that more and more films of such nature are required. This is because of the fact that the urbanization of the Indian cinema has led to a situation where the rural masses are not able to relate to the urban heroes, and as such have found new icons in the shape of emerging Bhojpuri film heroes. A deconstruction of the topics on which films are being made can then be the outcome.

NAYA DAUR ultimately is the triumph of collective labour juxtaposed against the capitalist Machiavellian tactics. This film also is an epochal film in the sense that in this film media has played the role as one of the watch dogs of democracy, and may be after the release of the film the media of the yore could have a re-look into their role and move away from sensationalism to serene and responsible effort to highlight the issues of development. This was the film, which had set the trend of struggle of labour against the capitalist, and this was the film which had enamored and endeared first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru to declare Dilip Kumar as one of his heroes.

The moot point here however could be whether the films which were mile stones during the Black and White era would be able to create the same magic when they have been re-released in colour, as it is by injecting colour into the film that it is being released once again. MUGHAL-E-AAZAM could not make the mark inspite of the fact that it had legendry performances of Prithvi Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar when it was released in colour. Interestingly MUGHAL-E-AAZAM made money when was released into new international arenas, which were not available earlier. The same may happen with NAYA DAUR also. There is a whole generation of viewers of NAYA DAUR who migrated during the time when the film was released originally, to different countries, and for them it would be a renewal of contact with the past, but this renewal would be coloured, which would add a rainbow like hue to their memories.