Not very long ago, watching a Hindi film would predominantly mean watching a three hour long melodrama unfold, with every other movie being woven around stereotypical themes of romance amidst resentful parents and love triangles or family sagas with generous amount of martyrs and long-lost siblings, peppering the plot.

A film, somehow, seemed to be fractional without a hero, a heroine and not to forget, a much needed crafty villain.

However, everyone seemed to appreciate them as they allowed one to dwell on simple entertainment and leisurely relish the experience of watching a movie. In fact, even today we fondly remember those movies as well as our "heroes", "heroines" and "villains".

Fortunately or unfortunately, since then, there has been a marked shift in Hindi cinema, Bollywood to put it more precisely. From cinematography to choreography, acting to animation, production to promotion, each section involved in filmmaking has undergone a tremendous melioration. Although that's not the central pillar of discussion here, it would be worthwhile to note this trend.

Leaving aside all that, another emerging pillar which has captured the attention of many avid cinemagoers and readers is the blossoming trend among our moviemakers to make films based on ‘real life' stories or incidents.

From rape murders and mayhem to the trigger happy dons and from power hungry politicians to controversial characters and criminals, all have sauntered into the celluloid with equal ease and surprisingly left the cash register clinking.

Be it a political thriller on the atrocious murder of Delhi based model Jessica Lall and her sister's inexorable struggle to get justice for her slain sister or a biopic on sensuous south Indian actress ‘Silk Smitha', the big screen offers it all.

From Anurag Kashyap's ‘Black Friday' centered on 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and Jag Mundhra's ‘Shoot on Sight' based on Operation Kratos, the police "shoot-to-kill" policy applied to suspected suicide-bombers after the 2005 London bombings, to Apoorva Lakhia's ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala' which was based upon the 1991 Lokhandwala Complex shootout, a real-life gun battle between gangsters and Mumbai Police, one can safely presume that terrorist attacks seems to be the ‘blue-eyed boy' of Bollywood Directors.

Even the underworld hasn't been relinquished with movies like ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai' echoing the lives of the real gangsters Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim. The film, very skillfully, depicts the evolution of the Mumbai underworld, from felony and smuggling in its early stages to its connection with international terrorism in recent times.

Apart from them, we had ‘Not A Love Story' inspired by the grisly murder of Neeraj Grover that led to the arrest of Emile Jerome, Maria Susairaj; and Dibakar Banerjee's ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye' on real life tomfoolery of infamous Bunty chor.

But question that might click many is whether the trend is desirable or deplorable?

Well, Terri Windling, the famous American editor, artist, essayist, and author of books for both children and adults, said ‘Filmmaking can be a fine art'. Indeed. Even people from the Indian film fraternity have, very often, placed on records that making movies is more of an artist's work, a craft for museums than merely being a task of combining cast and crew together.

In this cinematic age, where the focus is rapidly shifting from the work of pure fiction to visual adaptations of contended happenings and characters, it will not be incorrect to say that filmmaking as an art of unleashing creativity has lost its allure.

Artists drawing inspiration from real people and events is scarcely a new phenomenon but when the entire film is made as a replica, somehow, originality loses its justification because down the line, true art strives for more.

Moviemakers jumping on the bandwagon of this genre of realistic cinema must realize that the audience at large, due to the lack of cinematic knowledge, tags more importance to story than style. This rhetorical way of fact-based story telling is just like a second-hand story well told.

Ashima Gujral, who works in street play society of one of the colleges of Delhi University, says, "When I go to the theatre and pay 150 rupees for a movie ticket, I would prefer watching a movie that is a complete entertainment, not necessarily replete with laughter, but surely a light one to uplift my mood."

In a way, the concept also seems to blend more with the role of media than filmmaking because what has already been staged by news channels several times is dramatized on the big screen again.

Besides, it also vigorously influences people to form the same sort of opinions as that of the director and sometimes, that might create, if not confusion, than a general notion, good or bad, about the subject for sure.

Another student from Delhi, Tanvi Gupta says, "I do not go to watch reality or news. That is something I read every morning in the newspaper and can watch 24x7 on news channels. When I already live in reality, why would I burn my pocket to watch the same hefty stuff?"

Sometimes it is also expedient for the director to make such movies because it seems to gather a prominent amount of publicity by landing in controversies, with some relative of the ‘real-life protagonist', claiming to be offended.

Pawan Kripalani's ‘Ragini MMS', reportedly, based on a 22-year-old Delhi girl Deepika's story about what happened to her one night when she went out with her boyfriend made quite a lot of fuss, even before releasing, with the girl claiming to be ‘upset' over the movie.

At the same time, there is no denying of the fact that such movies, at least some of them, have worked very well at the box office and have been admired even by the critics.

One of the prime reasons for them to do well at the box office could be the curiosity factor about ‘the whole truth'. People find it worthy enough to spend a few bucks to relive the moment with expectations to find something more or simply dig a fresh perspective into the case.