While Bollywood’s mainstream "A-grade" cinema focused on high-budget family dramas and urban romances, a parallel universe of B-grade cinema

Shot rapidly in just a few weeks to minimize costs.

began incorporating once-taboo themes into big-budget "A-grade" films like , bridging the gap between the two worlds.

: Producers often included "spicy" dance numbers or suggestive scenes to ensure ticket sales, a tactic that eventually led to these films being labeled "Canti" or "B-grade." Production and Economy

While horror dominated the night, the 90s saw the rise of the . This era gave us Kanti Shah’s Gunda (1998)—a film so bizarre, so rhythmically narrated in rhyming couplets, that it has transcended its "bad movie" status to become a cult masterpiece.

Here is why the Venn diagram of low-budget cult schlock and mainstream Hindi film has more overlap than you ever imagined.