CROSSOVER: Mira Nair

New York now a rival to London

Until now I have believed London to be the centre of the Indian world. This is the capital of Greater India, where writers, filmmakers, artists and celebrities of one sort or another from India seek recognition.

London is still in the lead but New York is coming up fast on the rails.

Two recent events have encouraged me to think that London’s domination is being challenged by New York. One is Kiran Desai’s Booker Prize and the other is the screening at the London Film Festival of Mira Nair’s inspirational new offering, The Namesake.

Both are New Yorkers.

Only a decade ago I had the feeling that attempts by Indian filmmakers in America to capture the immigrant experience were gauche in character. US Indians were perhaps 20 years behind in their attitudes and thinking when compared with the more established Indian population in the UK. Now even Salman Rushdie has upped and left for New York, though he retains a house in London.

It could be that creative talent is following the money. The children of middle class Indians are no longer “proceeding to UK for Higher Studies”; they take up scholarships in America.

It is also the case that the “Bhangra culture” and the Goodness Gracious Me! type jokes, of which Britain was once inordinately proud, today exude the sense of belonging to the tired 1980s.

It also does not help that “British Asian culture” is being dragged down by the debate over the “Muslim problem”. Should women wear the veil? Why are so many young Britons of Pakistani origin apparently turning to militancy? Should there be a sharia law for British Muslims (some even want this)?

Mira Nair, meanwhile, is going from strength to strength — as is New York.

Last week in London, she revealed her next project: “This is a documentary about The Beatles in India in 1968. They went there and wrote 48 songs.”

CHANGING TIMES: Cover of Bollywood: A History

Reel print

Although in common with millions, I have a lot of affection for Shah Rukh Khan, whom I know a little, even he will have to admit that the new Don — I took the trouble to see it at Cineworld Wandsworth in south London as soon as it opened — does not represent Bollywood’s finest hour.

However, I am quite willing to admit that someone like me who has lived too long in the West doesn’t understand how Bollywood really works.

That is why I am grateful to my friend and colleague, Mihir Bose for sending his new book, Bollywood: A History (Tempus; £20).

Perhaps it would help me to understand Hindi cinema a bit better. Had Mihir, for example, written something about the 1978 Don?

No, he said, his was more a narrative history. But he did have a long chapter on femme fatale Pamella/Pamela Bordes, who accompanied him on an assignment as his photographer when he was sent by the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine to write an article on Bollywood.

When poor Mihir got to Bombay, he found Bollywood stars gave him the run around until they discovered that Pamela was the Pamela. She was offered parts in Bollywood films as she became the story. Sunil Dutt forced Mihir to apologise when the latter casually asked Pamela: “So how do you feel about being the new sex symbol of Bollywood?”

He objected to the word, “sex”, which Mihir found hypocritical.

Mihir has drawn my attention to a welcome change that has occurred in the Hindi film industry. Once Muslims who entered films often had to alter their names to Hindu ones. Despite the rise of Hindu fascism, this happens less often or not at all today.

He quotes director Shyam Benegal: “Both Aamir Khan’s wives have been Hindus. Shah Rukh Khan has a Hindu wife and neither Aamir Khan nor Shah Rukh Khan nor Salman Khan have changed their names. They did not need to. When Dilip Kumar came into films, which was a little before Partition, the polarisation between the communities was becoming very, very strong. Leading up to Partition, those years were particularly bad. If you needed acceptance you couldn’t possibly have a Muslim name.”

Here, in London, I can honestly say we don’t think of Shah Rukh (or any other actor) in religious terms. He is adored in these parts as, well, just Shah Rukh.

ART watch: Photographs by George Nicholson

The third eye

The last time I went to Babu Ghat to witness an immersion during Durga Puja, the heavens opened up. George Nicholson has been luckier.

One of his photographs of an immersion in Calcutta, which he has included in a photographic exhibition, Black & Light, at the Oxo Tower, a landmark by the Thames in London, catches the light in an evocative manner.

Another of Nicholson’s photographs I like is a silhouette of a man holding his towel to the wind with his bicycle propped up near him.

A fish market in Calcutta also caught his eye.

Nicholson, who has been taking pictures for 40 years and been travelling to Calcutta for seven years as chairman of the London River Association, is exhibiting 46 images, including landscapes of the islands of Skye and Anglesey and café and street life in Paris and London.

Calcutta, where Nicholson wants to develop “a new and positive identity for the city through the creation of its waterfront”, is made for black and white photography.

“The interplay between blackness and light goes to the heart of the photographic experience,” he says. “One draws you in, the other radiates energy. Both share an intensity and at the same time a subtlety that challenges the eye.”

Sweet and sour

A friend took me to Kewpie’s Kitchen on Elgin Road a couple of years ago as a special treat and even bought me this famous Calcutta restaurant’s book on authentic Bengali recipes. But when food writer Fay Maschler chaired a discussion on Bengali cuisine at the British Museum recently as part of its “Voice of Bengal” season, she was less than flattering about the restaurant.

There is no accounting for taste, of course, but Maschler had been distinctly underwhelmed by the food.

“Too sweet,” ruled the lady who has been described as “Britain’s most feared and respected restaurant critic”.

“Perhaps you caught it on an off-day,” was the diplomatic comment from Kewpie’s fan Simon Parkes, co-author with top Bengali chef Udit Sarkhel of The Calcutta Kitchen.

Tittle tattle

“Why don’t you write about it?” laughed my wife, as a West Indian called out “Pakistani”, though not in an unfriendly manner, as he staggered past us one night last week. Please note he didn’t call me “Paki”.

As a drunken West Indian, he felt sufficiently integrated into British culture to be able to demonstrate his new found grasp of Islamic affairs. Nor is he the only one.

Time was when I had to spell my first name on the phone. But strangers now display an impressive knowledge of post 7/7 Britain.

“No need to,” they say affably. “I can spell your name — A-h-m-e-d. Ahmed Roy.”