Did Masaan need Aamir Khan or Karan Johar for Bollywood to take notice of it?

Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan is simply the best Hindi film to come out in years and you don't need the attestation of its twin wins at Cannes to realise as much. It is also one of the smallest films released by Bollywood in 2015 so far, one that saw little or no publicity before release (you would be hard-pressed to catch even a promo on telly).

Not surprisingly too, Masaan has drawn cold response from most of B-Town's mighty set. The Bollywood swish set has had no time for the small film with no star power, awards at the Cannes be damned.

The lack of industry interest in Masaan brings back to mind Ship of Theseus and The Lunchbox, brilliant efforts that, along with Ghaywan's film, comprise the three finest films art house gems to have emerged from Bollywood lately. The difference is these films were better received by the industry. Why did Masaan fail to excite the Bollywood lot in the way Ship of Theseus or The Lunchbox did? Simple: The first was promoted by Aamir Khan while the second saw Karan Johar throw in his weight. The two brand names were enough to make Bollywood suddenly wake up to the aesthetics of cinema.

This time around, Aamir is too busy tackling tears at buddy Salman Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan screening. KJo, after his Bombay Velvet misadventure, is probably not getting anywhere near anything that comes with the Anurag Kashyap label (Masaan happens to be co-produced by Kashyap).

So, while the recent success party of ABCD 2 saw practically the whole of Bollywood turn up to gush about Next Big Thing Varun Dhawan, it was left to the likes of Aditi Rao Hydari and Neil Nitin Mukesh to attend a pre-screening of Masaan.

The scenario above hardly surprises unless you consider an awful truth. Everyone in the industry talks of the need for quality cinema these days. In interviews as well as social media spiel, every actor, director and producer is talking about how much solid content really matters, beyond star power. They rue the lack of original writers and scripts that may translate to good cinema.

Masaan is that instance of good cinema, yet you could be in for a shock if you tried finding out how many in the industry have even heard of Varun Grover (for the record, he is the film's co-writer).

Industry apathy to a film as brilliant as Ghaywan's also hampers its ability to reach out to the audience. Masaan talks of contemporary India, specifically small town problems related to caste, class and gender exploitation. It talks of the conflict of young ambition and staunch tradition. The film successfully realises its intention of painting a real picture of the real India.

Yet that intention is lost. As in the case of most offbeat, message-driven films Bollywood makes, Masaan will hardly reach out to the audience that actually needs to see the film, owing to a lack of proper marketing. A few B-Town big ticket celebs being spotted at the film's pre-screening could perhaps have done the trick.