Thursday, 11th July 07:00 PM IST

With changing times there are always new emerging trends in Bollywood. Stars used to be employed by studios in 50's when they were paid monthly salary. 70's saw emergence of director - actor jodis (Amitabh - Manmohan Desai) and 90's saw powerful stars (read three Khans).

With the turn of century, corporate studios (UTV and Viacom 18) mushroomed and producer became once again powerful like 40's and 50's. But post 2010 we saw new weird trend emerging which is getting stronger day by day. That is barter system among directors!

Tigmanshu Dhulia is director par excellence and no one would doubt that. But he made his acting debut in Anurag Kashyap's "Gangs Of Wasseypur" which proved to be an excellent award winning performance. But do you remember that Anurag acted in Tigmanshu's lesser known Nana Patekar starrer "Shaagird". Uncanny coincidence, isn't it!

Kalki appeared in Zoya Akhtar's "Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara" and then Zoya directed "Bombay Talkies" with Anurag Kashyap. If that was not enough, Karan Johar's YJHD had Kalki in pivotal role and now Karan Johar will play baddie in Ranbir starrer Anurag Kashyap's "Bombay Velvet".

Star sons already giving tough time to outsiders and now directors turning actors within their gang which makes competition tougher. There will be a trend sooner than later when producer will cast his buddy and direct the film too.

Anurag announced that he might not cast his wife Kalki in future ventures post disastrous "That Girl In Yellow Boots" (she might be opted out after watching that!) but still she works frequently with close friends' films, Dibakar's "Shnaghai", Zoya's ZNMD and KJO's YJHD.

This is new face of new age cinema, welcome to the world of torchbearers of modern cinema where not only chamchas and relatives but all strugglers equal chance. Who needs casting couch when you have relative/friend breathing down your neck. "Gangs of Bollywood directors" - zindabaad, ouch!