First Person: Bollywood Confidential (The New York Times)

Suketu Mehta's ode to Bollywood in last Sunday's New York Times (he is author of ''Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found"').

This is a very well written piece about the deep and lasting relationship between Indians and Bollywood.

Some notable passages:

Why do I love Bollywood movies? To an Indian, that's like asking why we love our mothers; we don't have a choice. We were born of them. .... They shape the way I conduct my love affairs or think about religion or treat my elders. ... In New York, whenever I get a haircut, I'm confident of getting a discount if the hairdresser is from the former Soviet Union.

...

A couple of weeks after 9/11, 16 of India's biggest stars got on an American airliner; 4 other passengers got off in fear. Anil Kapoor was reading a copy of Time with Osama bin Laden's picture on the cover; his manager advised him to fold the magazine so that the portrait wouldn't be visible. Aamir Khan reached for an orange and a passenger flinched. They were telling me these stories in the locker room of the Trenton hockey arena, one stop on their road show. They were going to tour 20 cities in 40 days, putting on a vaudeville act for their fans, immigrants from all the countries that love Bollywood.

The last couple of paragraphs are the best. He describes how his son is at ease in both - Indian and American - cultures and how the son's school (in Brooklyn) mounted a Bollywood version of "The Ramayana" for the second grade play.

(Previous entry on Suketu Mehta's book)