Indian Entertainers Reach for the West
By LARA
PELLEGRINELLI<http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=LARA+PELLEGRINELLI&bylinesearch=true>
On Friday at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, A.R. Rahman will kick off "Jai
Ho: The Journey Home," a tour that promises to rival that of any pop
superstar. Re-creating his studio arrangements live, the Academy
Award-winning film composer of "Slumdog Millionaire" will be flanked by
costumed dancers, acrobats from Cirque de Soleil and a Mongolian
contortionist. State-of-the-art 3-D light-mapping technology will conjure
virtual movie sets, offering a spectacle inspired by the music's cinematic
sources.
The question is: Who will come to see it?
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[image: BOLLYWOOD1]
Associated Press
A.R. Rahman, left, and music director John Beasley confer during a rehearsal
for Mr. Rahman's 'Jai Ho' tour.
[image: BOLLYWOOD1]
[image: BOLLYWOOD1]
"Normally, I get a very mixed South Asian audience—Tamil, Telugu, Hindi,
Punjabi and Gujarati people from India; Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and
Bangladeshis," Mr. Rahman, 44, said recently. A native of Chennai (formerly
Madras), he has performed several times in the U.S. since 2000. "Because of
the success of 'Slumdog Millionaire,' we're hoping at least a percentage of
the audience will be new," he added, implying white audiences.
Even before "Slumdog," Mr. Rahman was one of the world's top-selling
recording artists. Now, his aspiration to reach beyond his native fan base
reflects a broader trend in Indian entertainment—especially cinema.
"There's an obsession now with reaching mainstream Americans, with winning
Oscars," said Aseem Chhabra, a New York-based film critic for the Mumbai
Mirror. "If 'Slumdog' can get them, and it was made by a white man who told
an Indian story, then why can't we Indians do it?"
Still, Mr. Chhabra said, the inroads to mainstream America start with
homegrown audiences. "Ninety percent of the audience still has to be people
living in India and Indians living outside of India. That's the bread and
butter of these Bollywood films."
"Kites," a new Bollywood romance shot in New Mexico, has been released in
two versions, one produced expressly for American consumers. The same is
true for "My Name is Khan," whose central character is a Pakistani Muslim
struggling with prejudice in post-9/11 America.
One need only travel as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, to be reminded that
Bollywood has a firm toe-hold on American shores. Close to the 7-train stop
at 74th Street, the numerous Indian video stores tucked among sari shops
offer as much variety as local buffets. They also sell CDs—in keeping with
Bollywood's predilection for musical numbers—and tickets for live events,
including the "Jai Ho" tour. A 12-foot-tall banner of Mr. Rahman in a
dazzling white shalwar kameez is duct-taped to the side of a clothier.
As Mr. Chhabra, a resident of Sunnyside, Queens, noted, "Indians love
Bollywood and Bollywood has followed them."
As early as 1970, Manoj Kumar's "Purab Aur Pachhim" ("East and West") placed
its protagonist in a morally bankrupt Britain of ruffians and provocatively
dressed women. But the breakthrough film that allowed Indian audiences to
identify with Indians living abroad was Aditya Chopra's "Dilwale Dulhania Le
Jayenge" (known as "DDLJ," or "The Brave-Hearted Will Take the Bride") from
1995.
"'DDLJ' was my son Aditya's brainchild," said Yash Chopra, founder of Yash
Raj Films, which produced the movie. "The basic germ is very simple—that of
a young couple who have been brought up in the West but still cherish their
Indian values."
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[image: BOLLYWOOD2]
Everett Collection
Hrithik Roshan in the film 'Kites.'
[image: BOLLYWOOD2]
[image: BOLLYWOOD2]
"DDLJ," which followed its protagonists on a post-graduation trip across
Europe, built on a growing trend to use locations that Indians would
perceive as exotic. Before long, Indian directors were shooting in Germany's
Europa theme park, atop the skyscrapers of Singapore, and on the beaches of
Sydney.
"For an audience sitting in a small town in India, especially in the old
days, nobody could tell what the world outside was like," said director
Shyam Benegal, who is regarded as the father of India's "Middle Cinema," a
realistic alternative to frothy Bollywood. "You go to see a movie. You're in
Sydney, Mexico, Egypt, New York—wherever. The world has truly been opened up
for our own audiences."
New York has figured prominently among these locations in recent years. Six
Indian productions were shot in the city in 2008, four in 2009, and two in
2010 to date. With a new initiative from Yash Raj to make its catalog
available for streaming on NetFlix, and collaborations already in the works
between India's Reliance/Big Pictures and Steven Spielberg, truly global
Indian cinema appears to be just beyond the horizon.
That would be fine with Mr. Rahman, who would like Americans to know more
about the diversity of Indian cinema—and its music. As for the "Jai Ho"
tour, he said he had a new global listener in mind when he assembled the
material.
"We tried to pick out songs that would be universally appealing, to mix
together elements in ways that have never been done before. It's very
exciting."
—Ms. Pellegrinelli is a regular contributor to NPR's "All Things
Considered."
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