2010 The Year Of Monstrous Disappointments

R you kidding? The letter 'R' kept recurring in 2010. The biggest letdown of the year Raavan and one of the biggest hits of the year Raajneeti shared the 'R' factor. No doubt Ranbir Kapoor was the star of the year while Rahman, the maestro from Chennai lost some of his sheen with unpardonable delays and mediocre scores like Raavan and Jhootha Hi Sahi.

The biggest chartbuster of the year came from the the low profile Lalit Pandit whose Munni badnaam hui instantly joined the ranks of the ritiziest item songs in Bollywood, on a par with Kajra re and Beedi jalay le…It also catapulted the sizzling Malaika Arora to dizzying heights of glory. Malaika will now dance only for her husband producer Arbaaz Khan's films and will of course endorse the brand of balm that the song so seductively talks about.

Brand endorsement and Bollywood became inextricably bonded in 2010. When stars were not shooting feature films (and many of the leading ladies were not) they were shooting ads. And when they weren't shooting ads they were shooting their mouths off to the media. Otherwise there was always the stage performances.

Besides A R Rahman's world tour there were no major world-concert tours from Bollywood in 2010. 2011 will see Ranbir Kapoor take off for his first ever live performance all over the world.

If A-lister stars were not heading to the stage they took off for television. Priyanka Chopra displayed some delectable derringdo on Fear Factor. The Big B and Salman Khan decided to helm Kaun Banega Crorepati and Bigg Boss, respectively. Akshay Kumar opted to do a cookery show The Master Chef which sadly did not turn out to be finger-licking good.

In 2010 Ranbir lent his cool clout quotient to Prakash Jha's blockbuster political drama Raajneeti.Later during the year came the unexpected clanger Anjaana Anjaani which boasted of the virgin Ranbir-Priyanka pair. (Maybe the fault lay with the word Anjaana. No films with that title Anjaana, Do Anjaane, Anjaan Rahein has ever done well).

Audiences preferred the tried and tested Ranbir-Katrina jodi. That real-life jodis don't work on screen was again proven this year with the debacle of Raavan bringing the hot-and-coveted real-life jodi of Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.