'Slumdog Millionaire' opens a new passage to all things IndianPosted 24m ago
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[image: Dev Patel and Freida Pinto find their footing and true love in the
finale dance number in best-picture Oscar winner Slumdog
Millionaire.]<javascript:;>[image:
Enlarge image] <javascript:;> Enlarge <javascript:;>By Ishika Mohan, Fox
SearchlightDev Patel and Freida Pinto find their footing and true love in
the finale dance number in best-picture Oscar winner *Slumdog Millionaire*.
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By Maria Puente<http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/reporter.aspx?id=408>,
USA TODAY
Hurray for ... Bollywood?
Not exactly, but there's no doubt the success of India-set *Slumdog
Millionaire *— eight Academy Awards and more than $100 million at the box
office — has magnified India's profile and accelerated the mingling of
American and South Asian cultures.
Who knows? Just as salsa came to rival ketchup as America's top-selling
relish with the diffusion of Latino culture, maybe *Slumdog *is a sign more
Americans will be consuming even spicier fare.
So pass the chutney.
"Now you can find Indian food even in mainstream grocery stores," jokes Vin
Bhat, the American-born co-founder of Saavn, a New York-based company that,
as the largest digital distributor of Bollywood movies, music, videos and
ringtones, is benefiting from the success of *Slumdog*.
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*Music to more and more ears*
"We're seeing a tremendous impact," Bhat says. "We're already seeing record
downloads on iTunes and other major carriers; we're seeing a lot of people
purchasing tracks and albums by (*Slumdog* composer/musician) A.R. Rahman."
In fact, the soundtrack is top the album on iTunes and vaulted 26 spots to
No. 22 on the *Billboard *chart in the days after the Oscars.
"People are buying *Slumdog*— it's an access point for people to explore
other movie and musical content from India," which is easier to do nowadays,
thanks to the Internet, Bhat says.
Indians in America, long concentrated in the tech industry, say it's about
time. (Indians are the largest ethnic group among the South Asian
population.)
"Perhaps it took something as spectacular as the *Slumdog *sweep to confirm
our 'arrival' as a cultural, and not just professional, force," says Ragini
Tharoor Srinivasan, editor of the American monthly *India Currents*.
The India-is-cool trend has waxed and waned for decades. "It goes back to
The Beatles, Ravi Shankar, the Maharishi — look at how yoga is mainstream
now," says frequent visitor Dan Storper, founder and CEO of Putamayo World
Music, which expects its first, just-released all-Indian music CD, *India*,
and coffee-table book,*India: A Cultural Journey*, to be best sellers in
part thanks to *Slumdog*.
"There has been a curiosity about the region for a long time, but it always
takes one big thing to take it to another level," Storper says. "The stage
is now set."
Hollywood might be more willing to gamble on Indian-themed movies and other
East-West collaborations now that *Slumdog *has established audience
interest, says Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the Indian-born American novelist
and author of *The Mistress of Spices *and just-published *The Palace of
Illusions*.
"We're kind of on the cusp, and *Slumdog *might tip us over," she says.
"Fiction touches the imagination, and the impact lives on long after the
facts of non-fiction have faded."
More and more, Bollywood and Hollywood are hooking up. Aussie singer Kylie
Minogue is making her Bollywood debut in Indian superstar Akshay Kumar's
upcoming film, *Blue*, and has already recorded two songs for it, including
the title track by Rahman.
Sylvester Stallone is appearing in an Indian film co-starring Kumar,
*Incredible
Love*, made in Hollywood and due out this year. Warner Bros. released the
Hollywood-made *Chandni Chowk to China*, a Bollywood-style martial arts
movie aimed at the world market, also starring Kumar, last month. Will
Smith, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise,
Bruce Willis — all are said to be working out deals with Indian
entertainment companies.
"There's all sorts of people going to work" in India, *Slumdog *director
Danny Boyle told reporters backstage after winning his Oscar. "The world's
shrinking a little bit."
But don't expect pure Bollywood down at the local multiplex. The genre is
not really most Americans' cup of tea: no sex, not even kissing, and lots of
over-the-top song-and-dance numbers. Five years ago, *Bride and Prejudice*,
a Hollywood-Bollywood version of Jane Austen's *Pride and Prejudice*,
flopped at the U.S. box office.
"The people who go to see *Paul Blart: Mall Cop *aren't going to start
watching Bollywood films," says box-office analyst Gitesh Pandya, editor of
BoxOfficeGuru.com. "But the exposure opens up more eyes."
*Slumdog* itself isn't very Bollywoodish: There's only one musical number.
It's a British production with a British director, a British-Indian male
lead and a Dickensian story of a Mumbai slum-dweller's rags-to-riches
romance.
Nor is it the first India-themed movie to sweep the Oscars: *Gandhi*, a
British production with a British cast and crew, took home eight top awards
in 1982 but had almost no effect on U.S. culture.
*Increased familiarity*
By contrast, *Slumdog* lands in the American consciousness just as South
Asian names, faces and accents are being heard more, thanks to immigration
and population growth.
Nowadays, many Americans have Indian doctors — in fact, Indian American
Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN correspondent, is being considered for
U.S. surgeon general.
"For years, Indians complained about TV hospital shows that had no Indian
doctors — it was completely unrealistic," Pandya says. "Then (British
actress) Parminder Nagra was cast in *ER*, and everyone celebrated. This
second generation born and raised in the U.S. wants to be represented" on
TV.
And in politics. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who delivered the GOP response
to President Obama's address last week, is the first Indian-American ever
elected to a statewide office — and the first Indian-American politician to
address the nation on national television.
South Asian names and faces are becoming more familiar in screen credits
(director M. Night Shayamalan, *The**Sixth **Sense*); on TV (Kal Penn in *
House*, Naveen Andrews in *Lost*, Sanjaya Malakar and Anoop Desai on*American
Idol*, Aasif Mandvi on *The Daily Show*, even Apu on *The Simpsons*); on the
news (Martin Bashir on*Nightline*, and Ali Velshi and Fareed Zakaria on
CNN); and advertising (Indian-American Ajay Mehta stars in Fiber One cereal
ads).
In music, Western pop stars such as Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z and Britney Spears,
hook up with Indian stars and make hits. Singer M.I.A. is a London-born Sri
Lankan; No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal is a London-born Indian.
Golf fans follow Vijay Singh, lifestyle junkies follow Deepak Chopra, and
readers snatch up books by the likes of Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and
Jhumpa Lahiri.
"We're trying to bridge the gap between East and West, and there's a natural
musical and creative synergy between Western music and classic Indian
music," especially the rhythmic Bhangra genre that blends well with hip-hop,
says Ted Chung, chairman of the Cashmere Agency, a Los Angeles company that
brought Snoop Dogg together with Akshay Kumar to make the title track of *Singh
Is Kinng*, a hit in India last year.
"The passion that drives us is to show each other's culture and expose
people to new things, so they're not so ignorant or afraid of something they
don't know," Chung says.
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