Someone asked me last night, how I will sum up the year for Bollywood, I didn’t have more than one word “Sad”. One of the biggest film industries of the world, which churns out around 200 films a year hasn’t had a noteworthy film in 2008; moreover recession and terror attacks in Mumbai took its toll.

But industry had few moments of optimism in-between, where trade analyst thought that industry will rise; that turned out to be short lived. As a whole, out of 200 films released in the year only 20 have done well at the box office and the rest 90% fell flat on the ticket window.

The year started on a bad note when Yash Raj Films multi-starrer ‘Tashan’ [Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor] after much hype failed to live up-to the expectations. 2008 was a bad year for big budget projects, they faired badly, and were not even able to retrieve their costs, mid-year saw some small budget films surprise everyone with good business and critic’s appreciation- Rock On, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Aamir, A Wednesday and most prominent of all Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.

The later half of the year has seen films like ‘Drona’ a 90 crore film about a superhero starring Abhishek Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra was brought down from theaters within a week of its release. Not only this, the nasal singer ‘Himesh Reshamiya’ ardent to make in the list of Khans fall flatly on the grounds- not able to save his nose, with ‘Karzzz’.

‘Karzzz’ a remake of Subhash Ghai’s 1985 super-hit of the same name [but this time it has two extra Z] about re-incarnation didn’t able to bring audiences to theaters after a strong promotion.

Though ‘Karzzz’ didn’t do well, it was left to the showman himself to create the magic with his story-telling skills in ‘Yuvvraaj’. Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan starrer Ghai’s magnum-opus or lift-up from ‘Rain Man’ washed away. Even Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif’s real life romance didn’t make any impact on-screen to bring the crowd to theaters.

But there were films which had saved Bollywood from going back to dark ages. Debutant director Abbas Tyrewala’s ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na’ based on friendship and youth love touched chords with audiences. Debutant actor Imran Khan [nephew of Aamir Khan] brought back the times of ‘Qayamat se Qayamat Tak’ and became a hot cake with its success. But it wasn’t enough for the industry that was weeping blood with the failure of big films.

With ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’, Shyam Benegal once again showed a way to the industry that small budget films with good story line can do well on the box-office. Benegal has a reputation of bringing the black out of the closet, true to his repute he made an imaginary village and displayed his abilities with aplomb with a dark comedy- satire on Indian political system. It was his first attempt with comedy and he succeeded. If Benegal’s political satire was a treat to watch, the Neeraj Pandey’s was not far. The only difference was, the debutant director Neeraj took up the issue of terrorism and projected it so well that it left everyone moved.

Few good and a lot bad films came and went through 2008, but Bollywood suffered most from the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai. Everything came to a halt, it looked as if 2008 will end as it started- bad, soon after a fortnight of the attack Shahrukh Khan and Aditya Chopra’s bonhomie came to rescue the bleeding industry with ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’. Not only this to end the year on a good note, Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan’s ‘Ghajini’ washed away all the tears which industry was shedding for past 12 months.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Ghajini has set the clock ticking, with films like Chandni Chowk to China, Billu Barber, 3 Idiots, Delhi 6 and Kambakht Ishq releasing in 2009, the industry is hopeful to begin the New Year with bounty at the box-office.