Hypocrites of Bollywood? Hindi stars speak loud for Lakshadweep, but prefer Maldives and faraway lands

There should be a new proverb for Bollywood to match the times: Put your money where your tweets are.

After a couple of days of raging controversies involving politicians close to the new regime in the Maldives, visibly close to the Chinese establishment, Lakshadweep is the hot new term for India's movie stars because some elite Maldivians disparaged Indiansdays after Prime Minister Narendra Modi was clicked snorkelling at the Indian archipelago.

But there's a catch somewhere, as we shall see.

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Everybody and his uncle in Bollywood rallied to tell the world, which essentially meant eager Indian beach lovers and out-of-the-box honeymooners thinking beyond Goa, that they should ditch the arrogant Maldivians for our desi version, Lakshadweep.

As a schoolboy, I worked hard to get brownie points for remembering things like how the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindvi Islands were elegantly and Sanskritisingly renamed as Lakshadweep. But like many things south of the Vindhyas, this falls in the "Madrasi" category for affluent northerners -- something remembered vaguely and forgotten quickly.

In the same 1970s that Lakshadweep got its current name, there was a famous catchphrase to explain an Indian fascination for overseas thingies: "craze for phoren". It was natural therefore that the Maldives became a preferred alternative for honeymooners and sundry beach vacationers.

When not in the news for political tumult or sob stories about its vulnerability to climate change, the archipelago made merry as an attractive destination for Indian vacationers.

With silver beaches, pristine waters and blue skies, Lakshadweep matches up to the Maldives, though we shall not debate infrastructure and other stuff like costs that we shall leave to the touristy analysts. But, in terms of distance, Lakshadweep, 400 km off the Kerala coast from Kochi, stands at half the 800 km you would need to fly to reach the Maldives.

But there are 325 international flights every weekconnecting the Maldives, whose biggest chunk of tourists comes from India, compared with barely one flight a day from India to Lakshadweep (No direct flights from anywhere except Kochi, thank you!).

Watch |India-Maldives Row: Maldives faces heat over anti-India comments, proposes Muizzu's visit to India

Presumably, it is a heady cocktail of the "craze for phoren" (visa-free at that) and great marketing by the Maldivians (and a poor counter from our own union territory) that keeps Lakshadweep a poor cousin.

Suddenly, we have Bollywood's A-graders firing from their X/Twitter-loaded smartphone guns that Indians should ditch the Maldives for Lakshadweep. A casual Google search (Lakshadweep + Bollywood) assaults us with stories from the past two days listing everyonefrom Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan to lesser mortals extolling the virtues of Lakshadweep.

Here's where the catch is. Where were Hindi cinema's famous crews all these years? Switzerland, New Zealand and god knows who else has been wooing Bollywooders to shoot in their exotic locales. We have had movies like Agent Vinod (Morocco), Chalte Chalte (Greece), and Tamasha (Corsica) joining less enchanting locales. But try finding Lakshadweep as I did, and you are likely to draw a blank unless you are a compulsive trivia collector or extra deep researcher.

But where Bollywood failed, Mollywood, Kerala's own thriving film industry, has had its scenic Malayalam shots at Lakshadweep. Flush (2023), Anarkali (2015) and Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal (2014) were joined in 2018 by Sinjar, made in Lakshadweep's own Jasari language.

The Maldivians are a lot luckier with Bollywood.

Apart from several international movies, including one based on Salman Rushdie's Booker-winning novel 'Midnight's Children', the Maldives has witnessed location shooting for at least four Hindi commercial movies including Samundar (1986), Ek Villian (2014), Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya (2005) and the Akshay Kumar flop Ram Setu (2022).

So, Mollywood went to Lakshadweep, and Bollywood went to the Maldives. Get the picture?

Perhaps it is time to tell Bollywooders: Put your money where your tweets are, and not in distant destinations.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)