After almost three years of contemplating Swarovski-encrusted navels on increasingly flat abs, the Mumbai film industry is on a discovery of India and itself. With budgets of over Rs 30 crore each, four soon-to-be-released movies by premier directors are exploring the idea of who we are and redefining who the other is. It is a fundamental question which the bling bling, glam-sham and dishum-dishum tends to avoid. It is also a question which binds an audience when the lights dim and the projector rolls: as a nation, who are we? As a people, where are we going?

PICTURE SPEAK

KISNA 1947 Told in flashback, the film is about Kisna, son of a stablemaster, who falls in love with a British girl as India burns in the Partition fires. STARCAST: Vivek Oberoi, Antonia Bernath DIRECTED BY: Subhash Ghai

The Germans coined a word for it, zeitgeist, which perhaps Yash Chopra would not care to pronounce. But at 72, he remains the person who can best capture it. After being the first to project the diasporic Indian onscreen in Lamhe in 1991, he has returned to his roots in a new movie, Veer-Zaara, set in 1986, where Pakistan, the traditional other, the part that got away, is the lover and the saviour. In Subhash Ghai's Kisna, set in 1947, the other is the Englishwoman. She is not a memsahib, but a mehbooba. In Ketan Mehta's The Rising, the East India Englishman is not the evil oppressor of countless cardboard characterisations, which span the spectrum from Jewel in the Crown to Kranti, but an honourable friend. And in Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades: We, The People, the NRI is the lost other, a NASA scientist who returns to his impoverished village thinking he can just whisk his godmother away from it all. This is Manoj Kumar's desh ki dharti with a difference: there is culture, not contentious politics; balle balle, not bombs; no dooriyan (distance), only nazdeekiyan (closeness).

THE FOREIGN HANDS

"I can't dance, can I," says Kisna's Antonia Bernath as she struggles to keep pace with Shiamak Davar. Subhash Ghai gets up and performs for her benefit. The result is as ludicrous as it is endearing. Expect to see a lot of matkas-jhatkas from goris and goras this winter. In Bride and Prejudice from Martin Henderson and in 1857: The Rising from Carol Beed-not to be confused with Rachel Shelly of Lagaan.

all four films are heralding a new hero and heroine. The new hero is fallible and vulnerable, committed to his dharma, but also not afraid of failure-less of a boy and more of a man. He even has a grown up name: Veer Pratap Singh in Veer-Zaara and Mohan Bhargav in Swades. The new heroine is not a babe, but often a bebe, dressed in traditional Punjabi clothes, often with the stereotypical body type as well, as in Bride and Prejudice, Gurinder Chadha's $18 million, 80-day, three-continent extended homage to Bollywood's wedding videos. Explains Chadha: "After her accident, Aishwarya (Rai) had put on some weight. I just asked her to keep it on. She had to look like a hatta-katta (healthy) Punjabi girl from Amritsar."

PICTURE SPEAK

VEER-ZAARA 1986 Indian Veer falls in love with Pakistani Zaara who is engaged to Manoj Bajpai. He is jailed in Pakistan till a gutsy woman lawyer gives him his life and love back. STARCAST: Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee Directed by: Yash Choprai

Partly inspired by Lagaan's critical acclaim in 2001 and partly prompted by the possibility of expanding its audience beyond the NRIs, Bollywood is now looking beyond the obvious themes and the jaded rhetoric-though this season also sees the ambitious Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyo, based on the 1971 India-Pakistan war. In the process, identities are shifting rapidly. Take Chopra, the king of chiffon romances on Lake Geneva and the patron saint of Denmark's horticulture industry. Seven years after he made the sleek designer Dil To Pagal Hai, which was as much Manhattan loft as La-La-land, he is now waxing eloquent about the amazing flowers in a forest reserve in Sangrur (near Chandigarh), the snows of Rohtang Pass near Manali, the Purana Qila in Delhi which had to stand in for Lahore when the Pakistan High Commission dragged its feet on visas, and the hospitality of Punjab villages where he shot his movie.

Chopra was all set to make a "mature" love story partly set in the West, when his son Aditya (who directed Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, 1995) told him to make an "Indian" movie. Chopra is part of the Punjabi parivars who founded modern Bollywood and is not "embarrassed about his culture and his food". But even though he lived through the Partition and witnessed several riots in Punjab, he has little interest in it as a political issue-he did, however, visit the theme over 40 years ago in Dharamputra (1961). Nor does he see Islam as a religion as much as a way of life which spawned Urdu, the language of his beloved poetry. Says his biographer Rachel Dwyer: "I'm sure Veer-Zaara is about the culture of the Punjab rather than a directly political film, promoting his belief that human values are the most important."

INTERVIEW: YASH CHOPRA

"Love can never go out of fashion" Downstairs, a Mercedes is waiting, Yash Chopra's gift to didi, Lata Mangeshkar. In his award-studded office, the pasha of posh romance is wearing a brand new linen shirt, exactly the shade of the mustard fields he so loves. The director of 21 movies (including Deewaar and Kabhi Kabhie) speaks about his work, love and the forthcoming Veer-Zaara: Q. Why did you not make a film for seven years? A. Well, I didn't get a subject. When I got one, Adi (his elder son) didn't let me make it. He gave me two scenes instead. I got excited by them. It is a purely Indian film with no western music or dance or sensibility. Q. Why did you use music from the late Madan Mohan? A. Well I had heard a lot of music directors. Magar mazaa nahin aaya. Then Sanjeev Kohli, our CEO, told me he had hundreds of his father's tunes. I thought no harm in listening to them. We used nine songs, without changing even one note. It gives me goosepimples. It is Hindustani sur, Hindustani emotion and Hindustani sangeet, set to today's words. Q. Why have you launched your own music label? A. Well, if even Dhoom, which Adi produced, did not make money, then there had to be something wrong. Yet my boys say they hear the Dhoom song in pubs and clubs. I also didn't want so much exposure of the film. Music companies force you to do promos. There is no mystery left. Q. So is this your best film yet? A. When I make a movie, I forget my other films. Veer-Zaara has no violence, no action, not even raised voices, only pure emotion. Love can never go out of fashion.

Indeed, in a duet that Preity Zinta, the Pakistani girl, sings with Shah Rukh Khan, she says as much: "Yahan bhi wahi shaam hai/wahi savera/aisa hi des hai mera/jaisa des hain tera." It is a statement that finds an echo even in Chopra's increasingly politically aware lead star: Shah Rukh feels very strongly about the demonisation of Muslims in movies and it is no accident that the villain in his home production Main Hoon Na was a Hindu fanatic.

PICTURE SPEAK

1857: THE RISING 1857 Ten years in the making, a sweeping canvas befitting India's first war of independence in Aamir Khan's carefully chosen return. STARCAST: Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens, Rani Mukherjee DIRECTED BY: Ketan Mehta

For Subhash Ghai, perched on a chair in his editing suite, Kisna was a long road trip through the eyes of a pre-Partition Englishwoman. It took him from Devprayag, where the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda originate, to Ranikhet, to Hardwar, to Nashik, to Pune, to Delhi. For Ghai, the movie, which he started in January last year, was a deeply spiritual experience-never mind that he is now digitally colouring the Ganga blue because in reality it is so polluted. "Kisna reminded me that no matter what the cosmetic uplift, in the end India does live in its villages. Everything else is a lie." He tries to capture that innocence in the spirit of Kisna, the warrior-poet played by Vivek Oberoi (having a very bad hair day). Shooting done, the actor is in Ghai's office, getting photographed for promotional posters, wig, make-up and Neeta Lulla clothes in place.

The story, written in collaboration with Farrukh Dhondy and script doctor Margaret Glover, was also an opportunity for cross-casting. "That automatically gives the movie global appeal," says Ghai, gushing over his 19-year-old English heroine, Antonia Bernath, who has been picked up for the lead in Alice in Wonderland. He has shot two versions, an English one that runs for two hours, 15 minutes and a Hindi version which extends to three hours.

PUNJABI BAROQUE

UBER EXUBERANCE: A still from Bride and Prejudice There is a song, Marriage Has Come to Town, where people on the street join in. That's her Raj Kapoor homage. There is the heroine running down the staircase. That's her Yash Chopra tribute. Then there's Ashanti singing on a beach in Goa, wearing precious little. That's her item song. For Gurinder Chadha, Bride and Prejudice-which opens with a shot of Golden Temple dissolving from moonlight to early morning sun-is an unending love affair with India, as it is and as it is imagined by Bollywood. It is the India that Chadha saw many moons ago when she came to Amritsar as an exchange student for two months and lived with a family of three daughters and a son. "Pinky and Guttu Uppal were feisty. One of them would keep beer bottles under the bed. The other would curse in Punjabi. It was a rude awakening to India," she says. It is that clash of civilisations which occupies much of Chadha's new movie. It is a film Karan Johar would be proud of.

The two-language theory is at work in another East-West conflict, which producer Bobby Bedi hopes will be the first international film out of India in a Bollywood idiom. It certainly seems melodramatic enough. "You lied to me. I thought you were my friend," screams Aamir Khan, his now-famous moustache quivering with anger, to Toby Stephens, an actor known best for his villanous turn as James Bond's arch rival in Die Another Day. Even more astounding than the carefully mussed-up Indian widow lurking in the background (clearly, she and Stephens have had a heavy breathing session) is that Aamir's Mangal Pandey, the 34th Bengal sepoy who sparked India's First War of Independence, is friends with Stephens' fictional Commander William Gordon. They share a lot, from a wrestle in the mud to bhang at Holi to an adda at a courtesan's kothi.

PICTURE SPEAK

SWADES 2004 A NASA scientist who has it all returns to his village for a vacation before the launch of the weather satellite he is working on. He stays for good. STARCAST: Shah Rukh Khan, newcomer Gayatri Joshi Directed by: Ashutosh Gowariker

For Bedi, slumped on his seat after the "most gruelling six months of my life", The Rising has a certain resonance today: whether it is the conversions ("What do you think the British were doing by greasing the cartridges with pig fat? Trying to make Hindus lose their caste, and hence religion.") or the idea that large corporate/government takeovers could end up disturbing the social fabric of the nation. The Rs 35 crore movie, which seems to have been riddled with problems (see box), is on a vast scale. The scene where Mangal Pandey is hanged needed 1,000 extras, all dressed alike over several days. "For a mela scene in Satara, the crew would meet at three in the morning to start shooting by 11 a.m.," says Bedi. The attention to detail is evident even in Swades, where the funeral scene featuring Shah Rukh weeping over the body of the village's beloved teacher ("he taught me to play dead," says director Lekh Tandon, who played Masterji) required 800 extras. It stretched over four days, and each day the assistants on the set (among them Kiran Rao, now better known as Aamir's girlfriend) made sure everyone was sitting exactly where they had the previous day. "We all started shooting at 4 a.m.," adds Tandon, whose dying words are poignant: "Bijli aa gayee na (We've got electricity, haven't we)?"

PICTURE SPEAK
A POSSIBLE INDIA: Torn from his roots, the NRI undertakes a long journey into the sunlight in Swades

For Gowariker, Swades is a movie he had been trying to make since before the Oscar-nominated Lagaan. It is a movie, he says, "about what India is today". Shah Rukh, the diwana inexorably drawn to his des, thinks he can fix the problems in his village: bridging its caste divide (by integrating the Dalits), its power problems (by erecting a mini hydro-electric station) and its ignorance, by saving the only school from an aggressive panchayat hell-bent on closing it. It is a mould Raj Kapoor created 45 years ago in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai. Lyricist Javed Akhtar says it is a more sophisticated patriotism for a more complex era: where the enemy is starvation, disease and deprivation, not Pakistan. For co-producer and UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala, Swades' fibre is essentially eastern: the sense of alienation in pardes is not something Westerners identify with.

Sociologist Shiv Viswanathan thinks it is a most exciting time for Bollywood, which is fashioning a whole new definition of unity in diversity. This is not a homogenous one size-fits-all straitjacket, forcing linguistic, religious or even social conformity on its people. This is an identity that is emerging, balancing call centres and cows on the street, India's confidence and Pakistan's fears, the Raj's legacy and independent India's aspirations.

RISING PROBLEMS

Ketan Mehta started the shooting on January 6 and finished on July 7 this year. But not before: Aishwarya Rai backed out of the movie, saying she was being offered less than promised. Sahara Entertainment withdrew investment in Manmohan Shetty's Entertainment One, on the grounds that the company was funding The Rising. Shetty then pulled out, having invested Rs 5 crore. Now Mangal Pandey's descendants are crying foul.

This new, confident India in search of itself is evident in the new mise en scene. Gone is the club dance and Barista date, the karva chauth and the wedding. In its place is the mujra (Sushmita Sen in a smashing sequence in Kisna which took five days of Saroj Khan's hysterics), the qawwali, the mela, the Ramlila (Swades has a song around it) and hitherto-unexplored festivals (Lohri in Veer-Zaara). The touchdown-to-mustard fields transition of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge is now the prolonged interior travelogue. In Swades, to establish the journey into the soul of India by his US-based hero, Gowariker has him sitting in a plane, on a train, in a bus, on a boat, on a scooter, sandwiched between two villagers, and then even in a trailer van, underlining the anti-India Shining political consciousness of the day. In Kisna, Oberoi carries his beloved through fire and hellwater in a tempo, on horseback and on foot.

Yet Chopra is nervous because Veer-Zaara is intense and earthy, almost "carrying the fragrance of Indian soil", light years away from all the "exposure" he sees on screen these days. Chopra may have had his late best friend Sahir Ludhianvi's anti-war poem, Parchhaiyan, at the back of his mind when he directed Veer-Zaara. But the story, screenplay and dialogues are written by Aditya, whom he says he "discovered" when he saw DDLJ. "I had no idea this boy knew so much of our customs and traditions."

So is Bollywood dreaming of a new global self? Is it ready for a new template? Is it time to bid goodbye to the Raj/Rahul era of swadeshi love in videshi labels? Will we see less of the desh as the corrupt state oppressing the helpless individual? Perhaps. It is also time to expand the overseas audience beyond the transnational. Veer-Zaara promos will play in 150 of the 450 theatres in the UK which will be releasing Bride and Prejudice next month. Swades promos will play in 80. Says Chadha: "It will give western audiences a taste of what my film is paying tribute to."

We are growing up, yes, and we want to show the world that purab can do one better than paschim. Or maybe we are just having a corny Manoj Kumar moment. Like Om Puri in the recent King of Bollywood, who looks the camera in the eye and asks pertinently: "What is a Bollywood climax without a patriotic speech?" So what if there's no enemy?

Index