Another striking year for Bollywood, with so many films which caught our eye then, and are still in conversation now. Farah Khan arrived with a bang, coasting on her love for the rollicking masala of the 70s. Ashutosh Gowariker and Vishal Bharadwaj gave their leading men films that would stay on top of their filmographies: SRK with Swades and Irrfan with Maqbool.With Main Hoon Na, a film that channelled the madcap movie of Manmohan Desai, sprinkled with a little Prakash Mehra, debutant director Farah Khan proved she was as adept at assembling a big-budget movie as she was with creating crackling choreography. Shah Rukh Khan plays an action star in it, years before he did Pathaan and Jawaan, but it is his goofy romantic bits with the chiffon-clad Sushmita Sen which still brings a smile to the face.Rajkumar Santoshi’s cop-and-crime saga Khakhee, is for my money, his best film, with the sharply feminist Lajja coming a close second. It should also be high on the CV of Akshay Kumar, in which the star proved he could do grey even better than vanilla. Bachchan has a great role in it (ah that opening scene in which he is caught, literally, napping), as does, surprise, Tusshar Kapoor. Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Main Hoon Na.2004 can also be called the Year of Yashraj. I’ve termed Dhoom India’s first item film: the whole thing is constructed with itemized sequences and songs, perfecting the mix in its second, Dhoom 2, which took the enterprise to a whole new level. Bikes, babes and flashy fun on the side is what the film promises, and that’s exactly what you get, nothing less, nothing more.Also read | 25 Years of Indian Cinema | 2003 was the year Irrfan Khan broke out with Haasil amid Baghban, Munna Bhai MBBS, Koi Mil GayaThen there was Veer Zaara, a film that revolved around a star-crossed romance between an Indian naujawaan (SRK as Veer) and a Pakistani haseena (Preity as Zaara) with Amitabh and Hema continuing their senior-citizen successful jodi as Veer’s supportive parents, a theme that no one can dream of in today’s polarised India, what with Pakistan reigning supreme in the enemy stakes.Another Yashraj film, Kunal Kohli’s Hum Tum, was India’s first proper rom com (no lisping bachchas, no kabootars, no dadaji and dadiji, no buas and masis) featuring Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji as the lovers who meet and part, meet and part, in true Harry Met Sally style. Nice songs, nice perfs, foot-tapping music, make this a film that has lasted.I will split the best of 2004 between two films. Maqbool, Vishal Bharadwaj’s magnificent Macbeth rendition, starred Irrfan as the lead paired opposite Tabu, with Pankaj Kapur, Naseer and Om Puri and a terrific supporting cast. After Haasil and Maqbool, Irrfan firmly placed himself on the audience’s radar, and every discerning filmmaker who wanted to work with a real actor, started writing scripts with Irrfan in mind.Story continues below this adAlso Read | 2002 was the year of Devdas and Company: Bhansali baroque vs RGV’s grit Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Swades.Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades was patriotic in the way it felt natural before 2014. Its patriotism didn’t have to beat the drums and wave the flag : it was a part of the hero’s DNA. SRK’s Mohan Bhargava leaves a lucrative job at NASA and returns to India because he wants to give back. I still don’t like the long-drawn climax– where SRK’s Everyman hero, in checked shirt and regular trousers, becomes too heroic for his own good, and many of the conversations between the reluctant villagers and Mohan feels rehearsed and simplistic, but SRK is solid, in his devotion to his quasi-mother and motherland.And that fabulous scene, with Mohan in a boat, surrounded by ordinary Indian faces, says so much without a single dialogue. As does the theme song: ‘yuh his chala chal,’ an evergreen song of the road and the rahi.