By Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

Movies like KABUL EXPRESS apart from presenting a different genre of film making for the Indian audience also bring to limelight, the countries like Afghanistan that seems to have dropped out of the radar of the world map and there references are more in a negative connotation.

This is a healthy trend and the directors like Kabir Khan need to be appreciated for nothing else but this daredevilry and chutzpah on their part to shoot in places like these. Kabul Express has also one another uniqueness that a Pakistani actor Salman Shahid has figured in the movie. And there has been no jingoistic portrayal of a Pakistani character, which otherwise is the norm for the industry. Only a Yash Raj banner could have done coming as did Kabul Express after VEER ZAARA the bonhomie of Indo-Pak relations had to have a logical extension that was shrugged of the parochial characterizations and instead was seeped in human reality.

Manoj Kumar started this trend of bringing in Pakistani actors and giving them Indian characterizations in his film Clerk. This trend later caught on in the industry, and off and on one or the other characters were coming and participating in the film making process in Mumbai. Mahesh Bhatt in his film NAAM had commented upon the futility of maintaining different identities outside Asia for an Indian and Pakistani, however, as the atmosphere of the time was vitiated the message did not deliver. Probably Mahesh Bhatt should pick up this thread from NAAM and develop into a full-fledged movie. However, so far, an Indian actor has not been given this opportunity to go to Pakistan and shoot for a Pakistani film, even for a guest appearance.

This trend started by Kabir Khan follows in the illustrious footsteps of Dev Anand when he went to Nepal and made HARE RAMA HARE KRISHNA and brought Nepal into limelight as far as its discovery as a tourist destination for the Asians and Asian immigrants was concerned. He had done the same for Sikkim, before its integration into India, when he went and shot JEWEL THIEF there. After that Nepal has been a regular feature in Indian movies, but the sudden penchant for Europe and USA has dropped Nepal out of the radar of Indian filmmakers. As the big brother to the country, and to develop good will it is a challenge for the filmmakers of the country to once again step into Nepal as it is going through a lot of internal strife and to inform to the world that all is now right with that part of the world. Then Bhutan is another country within the Asian sub-continent that beckons the Indian film fraternity. Nepal and Afghanistan could be the Mexico for the Indian film industry if its potential is tapped in a sustained manner.