They came, they saw, they stumbled!

Bollywood is a cruel place. It does not give success to the most talented. There are so many talented young actors who arrive, sometimes they get noticed too but they just don’t make the mark. Forone reason lady luck refuses to smile at them. You feel bad for them and sometimes with them, the Jinx is so acute that even when some of the A-lister makers work with them they end up delivering only failures. 

Even crueller is the fact that in some cases they end up shining as the next big thing. Like a dazzling comet, they appear on the Bollywood horizon only to disappear in a jiffy. This probably would hurt someone more to be a king once and then nobody needs you or even remembers you anymore. Probably to fail from the beginning is much better a situation to be in. 

Here are some suchnames who had shone and then went without glow. Ameesha Patel: She practically exploded on the Bollywood scene in 2000 with ‘Kaho Naa Pyar Hai, yes a fair amount of the frenzy went to the screen god called Hrithik but she did hold her own and win many fans in that one movie. She was the next cute thing and then came ‘Gadar’, a movie which wrote box office history again. 

The record of footfalls that this one created stood for years till Salman’s ‘Bajrangi Bhaijan’ broke the record. Ameesha’s good luck continued with hits like ‘Humraaz’. She could do nothing wrong. Then came the fall. Failed relationships. Failed movies. Today you will have to scratch your head hard to recall when you saw her last on the screen. She is visible more on social media party pictures.

Bhagyashree: She was the queen of Bollywood after just one release, the iconic ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. Such was her charm and adulation that no one was willing to give Salman any credit for the success of the movie. InS alman’s own words his career despite a huge box office hit remained at a standstill for a long time because Bhagyashree announced retirement immediately after the movie because she fell in love. 

Then the lady came back and insisted she will act only if her husband is the hero. A desperate Bollywood tried them out in about four movies. All were flops. Bhagyashree is today seen in even Bhojpuri movies but the aura of that December in 1989 is now a distant fading memory.

Manoj Bajpayee: If ‘Satya’ is the Bible of all gangster classics from Bollywood then Bajpayee was its Moses. The RGV directed saga was to be Chakravarthy's ride to Bollywood, Bajpayee’sBhiku Mhatre just stole the ride. Every youngster of that era secretly wanted to be Bhiku for one day. Then came critically acclaimed ‘Shool’ and suddenly Bajpayee was a big darling of the purists. 

An unfortunate fight with his mentor RGV and then the failure of the much awaited ‘Aks’ with Amitabh Bachchan threw Bajpayee on a downward journey. Yes, he has revived himself but the “Mumbai ka king…” days of Bhiku never returned.

Kumar Gaurav – Post the box office smash hit called ‘Love Story’ we were told that he is the next Rajesh Khanna. His box office charm was nowhere near the legendary “Kaka” though. Post ‘Love Story’ almost anything that he was a part of bombed at the box office. He was a part of the rocking hit called ‘Naam’ much later and to his credit, he delivered a solid act in that one, only he ran into Sanjay Dutt the biggest actor star of the 1980s who had decided that with ‘Naam’ he will make Bollywood his own. Kumar Gaurav just could not stand in the limelight that went to Dutt. Today he is remembered more for a brief role in ‘Kaante’ than ‘Love Story’. Public memory can be cruel.

Saif Ali Khan – Yes you will find this name in this list tad debatable but ask yourself the man who was once hailed as probably the fourth Khan ask yourself today that after almost three decades where does Saif stand in comparison to the other three. Probably not even at half the distance. Yes, somehow his movies keep coming every year. Most of the times theydisappear every year. Most of his memorable hits are where either a Shahrukh or a Aamir or an Akshay have shouldered the burdenof getting in the crowds.