Back to Where It All Began

The star of Adarsh Gourav's Superboys of Malegaon is the Maharashtrian city that celebrates 90s' Bollywood with all its quirks and clichés

- PUJA TALWAR

Mumbai is the home of Bollywood, as well as its inspiration that can be found in the dusty streets of Malegaon where Hindi cinema finds its grandest canvas. In 2008, Faiza Ahmed Khan produced the documentary Supermen of Malegaon, capturing Mumbai's unique spirit by following rookie director Nasir Sheikh and his friends setting out to make their Superman spoof. Their passion for cinema gave them, and the place they were raised in, a new lease of life.

Sixteen years later, director Reema Kagti has taken the inspirational story of Nasir and his band of fledgling filmmakers, and turned it into a theatrical film, titled Superboys of Malegaon. White Tiger actor Adarsh Gourav plays Nasir, the wedding videographer and owner of a video parlour, who loves movies and is a die-hard fan of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

4 "Malegaon remains a city frozen in time. Even though there have been modern changes, culturally it is still trapped in the Bollywood of the '90s.