Underdog Dreams

Every serious Bollywood fan must do the ‘pilgrimage’ at least once.

- Meenakshi Shedde

Till now, this was usually reserved for the affluent, who went to Switzerland, danced the steps in the same locations as Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and other stars did in countless movies in Hindi and other Indian languages. No wonder, Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps not only has a Restaurant Bollywood with Punjabi dishes and Hindi- speaking wait staff, it also offers a ‘Yash Chopra Train’ and a hotel with a ‘Yash Chopra Suite’ with silk cushions, Veer-Zaara posters, and a stunning view of the snowline.

Before Switzerland, though, there were modest trips to Ooty or Kashmir, two popular film locations. But as the Indian economy muscled up, and foreign film commissions and tourism departments combined to attract Bollywood song shoots, fan pilgrimages have trailed locations in Scotland, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, overseeing a rise in tourist traffic. Funny, that in the midst of all this, small-town, non-U, Karmala taluka in Solapur district, Maharashtra, should suddenly become the new hotspot for film fans, who flock there after watching Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat, as that was where the film was shot.