The Rise of Indian Independent and Crossover Cinema
By Rachel Astarte Piccione

I am having an in-depth conversation with my New York cab driver, Vijay, about the quality of music on the soundtrack to "Dil Chahta Hai." It is December 2002. I have just broken my right foot, and he is driving me to the hospital. My swollen stump is wrapped in a makeshift bandage and shoved into a bedroom slipper, its persistent throbbing forgotten as I lean forward on the back of his seat, chin on folded arms. His critique is of utmost importance to me. I wonder what his take is on this hip new Bollywood film that's gotten a lot of desi buzz.

"I like the title track," my cabbie says, as he turns onto Nineteenth Street.

"Me, too," I concur.

"But after that..." he shakes his head." I don't get it. Too much going on. I like things simple."

"Interesting," I say quietly, and lean back in my seat.

"How did you break your foot?" he asks.

"Dancing at a party," I say off-handedly, still lost in thought, "to Bollywood music."

"Is it?" my cab driver asks, a broad smile on his face.

"Yeah," I tell him. "Never dance Bollywood in high heels." I look at him in the rearview mirror. He is still smiling. "Let me ask you something. Do you like Bollywood films?"

My cab driver shifts his deep brown eyes to the mirror and regards me a moment. "Of course. Yash Chopra's are the best. You know him?"
Did I know him? I had only recently begun my research into Hindi cinema, but even then I knew Yash Chopra was to Bollywood love stories what Steven Spielberg was to Hollywood Action/Sci-Fi blockbusters.

The previous fall, I had experienced the death of my father, followed shortly thereafter by the end of a three-and-a-half year relationship. I moved into my own apartment in Gramercy, bought a huge television, digital cable, and a couch. One sleepless night, after a thirty-minute meditation on what had gone wrong with my life while standing in the kitchen eating fistfuls of organic coco-puffs out of the box and staring at the magnets on my fridge, I decided to watch some late-night cable.

Trancelike, remote in hand, I channel-surfed, landing eventually on a small village of brightly-dressed people singing hopefully to the sky in anticipation of rain. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but there were subtitles and the music was intoxicating. So was the dancing. In fact, never in my life had I seen so many straight men moving their hips so...well. An hour or so later -- at about two in the morning -- I realized the remote was still poised to flip over yet I had not...and the film showed no signs of ending. I was entranced. I made a note of the film's name, and the next day launched into voracious research that opened the entire world of Bollywood to me.

Right, so. Where was I? Ah, yes. A busted foot.

I spent the next three months at home in a cast, with nothing to do but watch Hindi musicals and Indie films on IFC. At some point, in a Vicodin-induced haze -- caught somewhere between the spectacles of colormusicdancing and angst-ridden thirty-somethings trying to make sense of their lives on High-Definition Video -- I had an epiphany.

There should be a whole new movement in Indian cinema. The films of this movement would marry the majesty and traditions of Bollywood (the archetypical symbols in nearly every film: good/evil, masculine/feminine, spirit/body) with modern and authentic situations happening to real people in both India and NRIs in the States and elsewhere. No more stock characters and cliché story lines. Just the way Hollywood has its "Indie" movement, I figured it was high time for Bollywood to have the same.

It could be called "Bindiewood."

Yeah, well.

Maybe it was the Vicodin -- which, admittedly, I had been mixing with red wine out of sheer depression at being incapacitated -- but it seemed like a fantastic possibility.

In fact, at that time, no one was really doing crossover films. Remember, this was late 2002. "Bend it Like Beckham," the film that is considered to be the pinnacle of the Indian crossover craze of late -- had not yet been released in the US. ("Monsoon Wedding had been released in February, but it did not receive the exposure "...Beckham" did.) Only three years ago, it seemed the closest thing we had to Indian crossover cinema were the Hanif Kureishi-Stephen Frears films like, "My Beautiful Launderette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid."

Things have changed. Radically.

But Bindiewood is in its infancy. In India, the concept of broadening its scope to include kissing scenes, sexy scenarios, and even a bit of nudity, has resulted in many Hindi films becoming akin to soft porn. "Jism" was an early example. And recently we got treated to Jackie Shroff getting a blow job under his desk in "Boom." Once Indian filmmakers get this sensationalism out of their system and begin to handle sexuality as well as other serious issues more honestly in film -- in other words, merge it with the values of Indian culture in a healthy way -- real progress will occur. It has already begun in small doses, and there are indications of an impending wave of Indian releases in "Hinglish" with cross-cultural themes.

Here in the States, the UK, and Europe, the Indian crossovers are already addressing topics that speak to the lives of NRIs in a real way. Some of the films, like "The Guru," "Bend it Like Beckham," and "Bride & Prejudice," are wide-release, potential international box office smash hits. Some are small, like "Flavors" and "Indian Fish in American Waters" from the US, and the UK's recent "Chicken Tikka Masala."

That's the nature of Bindiewood: Some musicals, some crossovers, but truth within the fantasy of film. It's a perfect combination, and if it's handled correctly, the universal themes of these films will speak to us all -- from villagers in rural India to the urban cab drivers of Manhattan...and everyone in between.