Ticket to Hollywood <br/>

These B-Town denizens had a shot at Western cinema

FOR years, Indian actors have been but faint blips on the Hollywood radar. As a viewer, I have repeatedly got all excited on seeing a Kabir or a Persis in a foreign film only to have them disappear from the screen before I can mentally add their surnames, Bedi or Khambatta. Till today, there has been no cultural big bang propelling desi actors into the vanguard abroad, but they are now a looming international presence.

Let's take a dekko at what we have in store for us in the months of January and February. Even as the Slumdog Millionaire hysteria ratchets up to high amperage levels, Aishwarya Rai's first truly Hollywood film, Pink Panther 2, is slated for release in the US on February 6. And though I am pragmatic enough not to expect an Oscar-winning role for Ash, it will be gratifying to see Made-in-India glamour lighting up a mainstream Hollywood studio film, with a bona-fide Hollywood star, Steve Martin.

And of course, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan and Freida Pinto (the last has set buzz alerts ringing in internet search engines) can delight in the fact that their Slumdog Millionaire has crossed the jaw-dropping $44 million mark last week that's already about 10 times what a totally indigenous blockbuster like Om Shanti Om has netted in the US. Moreover, the film (a high-bred hybrid with a climactic Bollywood style song-and-dance number) is still gathering steam and additional screens.

And the Oscar ceremony scheduled on February 22 could send some more equations into a tizzy. With an astounding 10 nominations Slumdog is tipped to continue its sensational Golden Globe success streak. With three Oscar nominations in his bag, Rahman's chances of a win seem bright.

The West is hopefully honing its ability to see Bollywood as something beyond the burlesque. Brave westerners, skipping and stumbling over the vowels, are learning to pronounce Aishwarya Rai and Anil Kapoor.

I remember Om Puri telling me: "At the Telluride Film Festival, each time I stopped at a restaurant for a cup of coffee, the owners would greet me warmly and say, 'We loved you in East is East, My Son The Fanatic and City of Joy.' I was overwhelmed by the heartening response."

The current surge is the synthesis of so many efforts; the culmination of so many crossover dreams. It brings to mind all the B town actors who have tried to wing it to the west.

The constant fascination with the foreign goes back to the 1930s when some of us pronounced foreign as phoren. Indian cinema was still young. Himanshu Rai produced several foreign collaborations and memorably teamed up with a British company to make the 1933 English-Hindi bilingual Karma (it had the sensational kissing scene between him and his wife, the beauteous Devika Rani). The film was premiered at London's Marble Arch Pavillion. High praise was lavished upon Devika Rani. The Star, London, eulogised: "You will never see a lovelier voice or diction. Or see a lovelier face."

An unlikely Indian success in the West was Sabu. He was an unknown boy from Mysore when he was picked up to star in Alexander Kodra's hit, The Elephant Boy (1937). He stayed on in the UK first, and then in America, to enjoy decade-long international stardom courtesy adventure films such as Jungle Book and Song Of India.
My earliest memory of seeing an Indian actor onscreen is famous comedian-director I S Johar suddenly springing up in the classic Lawrence of Arabia, trudging without water in the sands of the desert for what seemed an eternity.

For most Indian actors trying to show their johar in the West, it was like trying to embark on that unforgiving trudge in the desert.

Raj Kapoor was immensely popular in Russia but, strangely, he never tried going international. Neither did Dilip Kumar. Ever the trail-blazer, Dev Anand acted in the Tad Danielowski-directed English version of Guide. Released a year before the classic Hindi version, the film unfortunately failed to help Dev become a Hollywood matinee idol.

Shashi Kapoor was probably the best-known Indian actor abroad for years thanks to the art films made by his friends the internationally renowned multiple-awards-winning team of Merchant-Ivory. He helped give form to their artistic vision from the 1960s to the 1980s by playing the lead in Bombay Talkie, The Householder, Pretty Polly and Heat And Dust. Most of these films had an Indian feel and milieu, albeit in an alien language.

Bombay Talkie even had Helen-Shashi prancing on a studio-made, gigantic, red typewriter's keys singing (you've got to see the song to believe it), 'Typewriter tip tip tip karta hai". The Conrad Rooks-directed Siddhartha saw Shashi paired opposite Simi Garewal. But the picture of a topless Simi created more of a furore than the film itself.

In the 70s, Persis Khambatta (who had acted in the low-budget Bombay Raat Ki Bahon Mein) created a hullabaloo when she went bald for a role in the mega-budgeted Hollywood sci-fi flick Star Trek. Persis got her 15 minutes of fame. I remember reading an Archie comic book in which Betty (or was it Veronica?) went bald for the Persis look. But after Nighthawks and The Wilby Conspiracy, Persis' Hollywood trek lost its track.

Kabir Bedi flew on his personal expense to Italy and got selected to play the title role in Sandokan. The TV mini-series made him more popular than pizza in Italy but his sporadic appearances in Hollywood films, like his cameo as a taxi driver in the Bond film, Octopussy, made you wish he had been more fussy.

Mainstream stars Zeenat-Dharmendra made a pitch for the West when they starred in Krishna Shah's English-Hindi bilingual Shalimar alongside faded-but-true-blue Hollywood names like Rex Harrison and Gina Lollobrigida. But Shalimar was a disaster

Amrish Puri, on the other hand, starred in a blockbuster Steven Spielberg's rollicking adventure saga, Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom as the main villain. Puri, who was very good at being very bad, was scary as a murderous cultist. He served monkey heads for a meal in the film and put me off desserts for a while.

Nostalgia for the days of the British Raj has proved to be the genesis of many an Indian actor's international ambitions. David Lean's well-received Passage To India proved to be Victor Banerjee's passage to the west. Subsequently, Victor turned down a chance to play the main villain in a Bond film which went on to be a major success but did some interesting roles for Merchant Ivory (Hullabaloo over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures), and made a "just-to-work-with-Polanski" appearance in Bitter Moon.

Om Puri too started off with Raj nostalgia in TV's The Jewel In The Crown ("It was thanks to Jennifer Kapoor") and has since found regular work in international films: Gandhi, City of Joy, Mystic Masseur, East Is East, My Son The Fanatic, Wolf and made pals with major names ("After the shot, when I was heading back to my chair, Jack Nicholson casually asked me if I wanted to join him for a smoke.")

Fellow art film great, Naseeruddin Shah recently starred in an un-extraordinary role in The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman alongside Sean Connery. Shabana Azmi has acted in Madame Sousatzka with Shirley MacLaine but the latter had the more flamboyant title role. Azmi has also worked in City Of Joy, Son of Pink Panther et al but is yet to find an international vehicle worthy of her.u00a0u00a0

Thanks to the rise of the NRI filmmakers like Mira Nair and Gurinder Chadha who are drawn to making films on their roots and the diaspora. Tabu and Irrfan made an international name for themselves with Nair's The Namesake; as did Naseer in The Monsoon Wedding and Anupam Kher in Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham.

In the 2003-2004 phase, much was made of Aishwarya Rai's devoting her time to Hollywood with Bride And Prejudice and Mistress of Spices but the results were unspectacular. Mallika Sherawat had a running role in Jackie Chan's The Myth u2014 she ran for a few scenes and then ran out of the frame. And Salman Khan starred in Willard Carroll's Marigold but the film didn't come out smelling of roses, or marigolds.u00a0u00a0

Yes, no actor has been hugely successful at 'looking local and going global' as yet. But in the Internet age, falling boundaries in every sphere of life have led to an increasingly laissez faire attitude and the old cultural barricades are falling. Star appeal can easily transcend national lines today. There are German language magazines on Hindi cinema with a thirst for incessant dope on Shah Rukh Khan. A friend from Cairo, Sam, tells me Amitabh has been hugely popular in Egypt for decades. Unfortunately for Bachchan, his two international projects Deepa Mehta's Kamagatu Maru and Mira Nair's Shantaram are on hold for now.

In Lawrence Of Arabia, Omar Sharif confidently asserts to Peter O'Toole that I S Johar's death can't be averted because "it is written." But O'Toole rescues Johar and disproves him. Our actors could well do the same and disprove Mark Twain's writ: "East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet."

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