Newsweek magazine, which proclaims that in Bollywood "sex sells, and saves" would surely hold a different view when it looks at the final year-ending figures.

Since the mid-1990s, some filmmakers have been getting racier to avoid the fate of 75 percent of Indian movies that lose money. Now, there are signs the margin is becoming the majority.

So far this year, nearly two thirds of new Indian films have received an "A" rating for adult content. While these so-called sex flicks still stop short of full nudity, they do show just about anything that can be done with clothes on, from kissing on the mouth to simulated copulation.

Quick bucks are there to be made with titillating films starring starlets who cost less, are bolder and throw less tantrums but they cannot and will not define Bollywood. Says movie producer B. K. Deb, who dropped a project starring Mallika Sherawat: "Sex flicks are a kind of parallel cinema... small-budget productions with low-cost stars. They will always remain off the mainstream."

The new Indian film formula may well be more bombshells, lower pay and more skin but the old vanguards have not been demolished.

Take Shah Rukh Khan for instance. With three consequent blockbusters under his belt, he has re-established himself as the most-successful Khan in the industry. For Shah Rukh Khan, the year 2004 has meant a lot of rest and much-deserved laurels coming his way.

Still on a sabbatical to recover from a potentially fatal back surgery, his films have been breaching box-office records and audience fatigue is nowhere in sight.

The megastar's performance in "Swades" forced even his ardent critics to grudgingly accept that the Khan is a bundle of talent when placed in the right hands. The overseas reports about the film's business have offset its not-so-great performance in the domestic front.

While the Ashutosh Gowarikar film collected Rs. 17.9 million in Mumbai, its distributors claim it has grossed $424,804 (Rs.18.5 million) on 74 screens in the first three days of its release across North America.