Recently Kannada actor Sudeep spoke disillusioned with Bollywood complaining that actors from Karnataka and Kerala are “totally sidelined by Hindi filmgoers”. He also said Tamil and Telugu actors have an upper hand.

On looking at the face of the comment you may feel sympathizing with him and his clan. But the truth is even his counterparts are not as cozy in Bolllywood as he feels.

Bollywood has never embraced the males as much as it did females. This has been the case even in the 40s and 50s when some south Indian actors tried a few Hindi films. The only time when South Indian male stars got a fairly level field in Hindi films was when people like SS Vasan, LV Prasad and AVM were making bilingual and tri lingual films.

‘Chandralekha’ Ranjan, and ‘Nishan’ MK Radha were some early actors from Tamil who were popular in Hindi. Later Gemini Ganesan did some films like Miss Mary and Raj Tilak. Both were remakes of his Tamil films Missiyamma and Vanjikottai Vaaliban respectively. All the films were super successes. But the heroines of these films like Padmini and Vaijanthimala climbed up the ladder in popularity leaving behind their male co-stars.

Sivaji Ganesan did a Hindi film ‘Dharti’ which was a remake of his Tamil film ‘Sivanthmann’ directed by Sridhar. By the time even a Nadigar Thilagam wasn’t enough to break through into Bollywood. In ‘Dharti’ Sivaji could play only the second lead played by Muthuraman in the original Tamil version.

Things did not change for years until Kamala Haasan created a sensation with ‘Ek Duje Ke Liye’ in 1981. This super duper success of this cult love story renewed the interest for South Indian heroes. Kamal did string of Hindi films mostly an adaptation of his successful Tamil films before he opted out of the race owing to secret resistance from Bollywood. But Kamal signed off in style with the super hit ‘Sagar’ in 1985 which also won him Filmfare Best Actor Award.

Soon after Kamal got into the big league with his first Hindi film itself there happened the dramatic entry of Rajinikanth in 1983. Unlike Kamal Haasan Rajinikanth did not enter Bollywood as a solo hero. Rajinikanth’s first Hindi film ‘Andha Kanoon’ also had the then reigning super star Amitabh Bachan in a pivotal role. It also had top stars like Hema Malini, Reena Roy in the cast. So the films success was not attributed to the Tamil super star alone.

After Andha Kanoon even Rajinikanth who is a demi God down south could not survive in Bollywood. Rajini was forced to accept the reality of Bollywood and started doing second leads and character roles in Hindi before bowing out.

During the brief encounter with Bollywood most of the films of the two southern super stars were produced by banners from south India. The two greats could never find favours from hardcore Hindi producers or big banners.

After the two greats no actor really tried hard to make it in Bollywood. There were occasional half hearted attempts but nothing happened. Even Prashant did a film ’I Love You’ in 1991 which was a remake of ‘Vaikasi Poranthachu’.

If actors from Tamil could not be a force the case is very much similar for stars from Telugu and Malayalam as well.

From Telugu it was only Nagarjuna who was some body for some period. His huge female fans held him for some time. Nagrjuna never wanted to be the first hero and his charm worked well as second lead. Films like ‘Shiva’ and ‘Khuda Gawah’ got him a large female fan following. In 1993 Venkatesh was introduced by his producer father in ‘Anari’ which was a remake of Chinnathambi. ‘Anari’ was a hit but the films that followed were not encouraged to put Venkatesh on top.

Malayalam Super Star Mammootty ventured as full fledged hero with ‘Dhartiputra’ in 1993 but the Hindi audience could not understand the power of Mammootty. In 2002, Ram Gopal Varma introduced Mohanlal to a wider Hindi audience in his film ‘Company’. But he also did the worst ever Hindi film till date ‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag’.

So until now even the super stars with superior talent cold not get their deserved places in the hearts of Hindi film goers. But times have changed. Now more and more south Indian heroes are being taken to Bollywood by top notch directors. The present generation stars like Madhavan and Sidharth are notable faces in Hindi but they never try to overcome local biggies. They are more than content in doing supportive roles.

Vikram with Raavan by Mani Ratnam, Suriya with ‘Raktha Charithra’ by Ram Gopal Varma will be some biggies from south who will be trying for a place in Bollywood in the coming years.

But……. The Bollywood is lovely dark and deep but they need promises to be kept.

While coming back to the disenchantment of Sudeep it is better to have understood the fact that Kannada film industry has shown signs of growing only in the past few years. But Sudeep is already into his third film in Hindi after debuting in ‘Phoonk’. He has already rubbed the rubbed shoulders with the likes of Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Rann’. He is doing his third Hindi film ‘Raktha Charithra’ now.

But do the male stars really feel doing Hindi films only will improve their status and give them the place in cinema history? Why don’t some of them answer us?