Bollywood has often managed to capture the moods of change well before anybody else. Featured here are the 10 movies that mirrored India down the decades.

SHREE 420 (1955)
Sometimes a man's life tells the story of a nation. Few Bollywood characters encapsulate the moral dilemmas of a generation as Raju, the protagonist of this Raj  Kapoor  movie. Raju’s predicament — the easy, immoral way or the  honest, hard path — was a dilemma for many in Nehruvian India as  post- Independence hopes slowly gave way to disillusionment. Corruption  was already creeping into public life. In the movie, an unscrupulous  capitalist gets Raju embroiled in a housing scam. In the end, Raju  forsakes Nadira (aptly named Maya or illusory wealth) and finally returns  to  Nargis (named Vidya or learning). You decide what happened to the  generation.
MOTHER INDIA (1957)
Mehboob Khan’s Mother India is the story of 1950s’ India Invisible: of impoverished honest farmers, of mounting debts and the lifelong struggle to stay afloat. In a country where farmers’ suicides continue to dominate Page 13, who would say that this tribute to rural India is outdated? Sometimes a woman’s life also tells the story of a nation.
JUNGLEE (1961)
One primeval scream — Yaaahooo! — by Shammi Kapoor from the snowy slopes of Kashmir changed the texture of Bollywood love and got hardwired into young consciousness. Coming at a time when the youth was tiring of sermons, Junglee’s mindless fun became its strength. The hero offers no perspective on life; he has no cause barring Saira Banu (admittedly a decent cause), yet he is cast as a rebel. The new hero also wanted to enjoy life to the full. And a generation attaining adulthood in early Sixties India couldn’t agree more.
WAQT (1965)
Three brothers grow up separately: one is a criminal, another a lawyer, the third ends up as a driver. Their life stories are representative capsules of India growing up and going in different directions. Waqt is also unapologetic about affluence. The flashy cars, the plush interiors, the private parties — even the on-screen crooner of Aage bhi jaane na tu is phoren — offer a peepshow to the good life. As Bollywood academic Rachael Dwyer writes, “The film set the style for a whole new look for Hindi films, away from the drama of feudal riches to upwardly socially mobile groups.” The Waqt landscape dominates Hindi films today; its attainment a middle-class goal.
DEEWAR (1975)
At the time when Deewar was released, Rising unemployment and corruption had left the youth frustrated. Deewar captured this angst against the unfair system. In his dialogues with cop brother Ravi (Shashi Kapoor), one finds Vijay(Amitabh Bachchan) redefining right and wrong. That the audience clapped for him, not for his righteous sibling, showed he had found affirmative echoes in their hearts. Released 20 years after Shree 420, Deewar showed how dramatically we had changed as a people. The wrong way had become the right way.
HIMMATWALA (1983)
Until Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) kickstarted the reversal, movie halls were the domain of the underclass. Himmatwala was one of the first movies that internalised this change to suit the new audience. The crass dialogues, the thunder thighs, the asinine lyrics —became the prototype for many other Jeetendra, Mithun and Govinda movies that frontbenchers patronised. Himmatwala could actually sixth-sense the changing social equation in a way politicians couldn’t. It was the revenge of the underclass.
HUM AAPKE HAI KAUN(1994)
Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Koun both reinvented and celebrated the great Indian family. Weddings were never the same again. The film also shows how the early fruits of globalisation were creating a happy upper middle class that had a sense of laughter. But the film also fed on nostalgia. It told us the way we were. Many of us continue to be like that.
DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE(1995)
This Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol starrer from the Yash Chopra stable anticipated the future. It brought the diaspora into our consciousness. The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and dual citizenship for NRIs followed in the coming years. As an idea, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge sold the illusion of breaking new ground in the celluloid love game. But it was actually making an old plea. The film also looks at NRIs as the repositories of tradition, rather than those who abandon it. A comforting thought for desis abroad.
DIL CHAHTA HAI(2001)
Farhan Akhtar’s debut film came at a time when India was in the midst of the call centre revolution. With pocket money plentiful, attitude became everything. Smart, slick and with-it, Dil Chahta Hai touched the pulse of this cool-talking generation and stole its heart. The film’s triumph though lay in its storytelling. By 2001, new millennium trend watchers had already pronounced that friends are the new family. In the end, the young guys take the conventional option. Attitude, and that includes the haircut and the goatee, is only skin-deep. Many would say that Gen-Next is exactly like that. Whatever it pretends to be, it is ultimately conservative at heart.
RANG DE BASANTI(2006)
Where political science lectures and student unions failed, Rang De Basanti succeeded: it introduced political imagination as an idea into the heads of an apolitical generation. Cool dudes too care for their country was the message. Even if it meant gunning down the home minister and getting shot in return. Aamir Khan’s RDB was fantasy fulfilment for an entire generation. The film had spontaneous cool. In real life, RDB keeps showing up in candlelight protests, online blogs and the spunk to face water cannons.