When Harvard professor Joseph Nye talked of soft power, he didn't realise that India would acquire such expertise in the art of show and sell. There is just no escaping the Indian metaphor these days. It could be Mira Nair reworking diasporic fiction to create an international film with an Indian heart. It could be Bibhu Mohapatra bringing the drape of sari to a red carpet show-stopper. Or it could be Indian authors, writing on Mumbai or mathematics, making bestsellerdom a habit. From East End curry houses to Birmingham's bhangra ghettos, from freelance filmmakers with laptops to fashion designers with multiculturalism on their minds, the Indian invasion is upon the world.

PICTURE SPEAK

IN THE CROSSHAIRS: Nair (centre) at work on The Namesake

Truly, if the world is a stage, India is no longer content with being a mute spectator. Ask Nair. When she was flying to India last year to shoot for Vanity Fair, she bumped into a feisty fan. "Vanity Fair is all right, but what about a movie for us?" he demanded. On the same flight Nair read Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and decided to bid for its film rights. It is probably the first time that Indian writing and filmmaking are collaborating on their vision of contemporary India-the second is Paul (husband of Gurinder Chadha) Berges' movie adaptation of Chitra Banerjee Divakurni's The Mistress of Spices. Expectedly, the subject in both the movies, given India's new global ambitions, is the diaspora.

For Deepa Mehta, the canvas is period India. Her new movie, Water, stalled in 2000 and now set to open the Toronto Film Festival, is an Indian story told by a Canadian-Indian director with Indian actors. Jag Mundhra's Provoked is the story of an Indian woman killing her brutal husband in England. The film has an American scriptwriter, an Indian cinematographer, a Los Angeles-based casting agent, Indian and English actors, and A.R. Rahman's music. Or take the desi Mangal Pandey-The Rising, which opened the film festival at Locarno, in a country famous for being used as a backdrop for Yash Chopra movies.

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DESI DESIGNS: Mohapatra takes his fashion cues from the country of his birth

The creative compulsions, seemingly collective, are disarmingly individual. For Nair, it is about never doing the same thing twice. "Keep growing and taking risks. That is the key. It is an aspiration to a newer style or a deeper way of thinking," she says on phone from her home in Kampala, Uganda, where she is set to launch Maisha, a filmmakers' laboratory for east Africans and south Asians. No matter what the project, Nair does not hesitate to employ her intrinsic Indian flourish. Even if it is in the US version of Munnabhai MBBS. "It will be called Gangsta MD. I am giving it an African-American twist. But the desi quotient is definitely huge," she adds. And as far as global cinema is concerned, it is getting bigger every hour.

India is on Bibhu Mohapatra's mind as well. At home in his office at French fashion house J. Mendel in Manhattan, the 32-year-old design director says, "India is hot and getting hotter. This summer every store on Fifth Avenue has featured India-inspired fashion. This is not a passing interest." In a week, the place will be buzzing with preparations for the Spring 2006 fashion week to be held in September. Mohapatra will draw inspiration from the country of his birth, using bead-and-sequin work he has outsourced from India.

Ashish Gupta also uses sequins and embroidery in his work. The London-based designer not only generated a buzz at the recent London Fashion Week, but has an enviable client list, including Sharon Stone and Sarah Jessica Parker.

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IN FASHION: Gupta with an Indian creation

In fact, in the past two seasons, top-end US designers, who have sporadically sought inspiration from India, have embraced the eastern look. In the Spring 2005 showings in New York, designers ranging from Oscar de la Renta to Zac Posen drew liberally from India. In Milan, Armani's Emporio range also had an Indian influence. But is this influence just a fad? No, says Meera Gandhi, the New York-based fashion consultant. "It's here to stay. The best indication is Roberto Cavalli's collection which is inspired by India."

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, 27, is also continually inspired by the country of his birth. the Last Song of the Dusk is his first novel-and it could not have been more melodious. Pitchforked into the global literary whirl after he won the prestigious Betty Trask Award, the Gujarati boy from Kapole Society, Juhu, Mumbai, is being followed around by international documentary crews. He is also starring in reading sessions as far as Italy, Australia, Hong Kong and San Francisco.

For someone who has been heralded as the new star of Indian literature and featured in a BBC documentary Desi DNA in March, Shanghvi is nonchalant about the media frenzy: "I'm not concerned about how the West perceives me. Your barometer has to be internal. We spend too much time trying to live up to someone else's standards and not enough setting our own."

For now he is "enjoying being a part of young India, experiencing a culture that is inherently Indian". That his debut novel has got international attention is taking time to sink in. "I feel like I have trespassed in someone else's life," he says. From young French booklovers to a journalist in Italy and an Oxford researcher, a motley group of page-turners has followed Shanghvi's individualistic colonial caper with Anuradha, Vardhmaan and Nandini. "Stories," he says, "don't have nationalities. Even macabre stories shine a light over the spectrum of humanity. And humanity is timeless and boundless."

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FRAMED: Newer artists like Maity are gaining global recognition

He doesn't believe in "schmooze-athons" and admits he doesn't have the skills to write a Bollywood script. His current obsession is his next novel in which "modern India features with all its dazzling malice: urban infidelity, aids, celebrity excesses, the sexual self. I want to build a story on these keys". Stories is something Simon Singh, 40, understands. But the London-based writer's narrative spins around the supposedly arid subjects of science and maths-which is why he has been quick to acquire the tag of science writing's poster boy. While his Big Bang shot into New York Times' bestseller list, Fermat's Last Theorem became the first book on maths to be Britain's No.1.

An author, journalist and TV producer rolled into one, Singh's writing has won over critics from New York to London and fans across colleges and old-age homes. Writing was his way to keep in touch with his childhood dream, which his parents let him pursue once they moved to England. "My older brothers and sisters got educated to get a job, but my parents let me pursue education for its own sake," he says, adding with pride, "There are more maths graduates in India than in Europe." That alone is reason for being optimistic about India.

9.8 crore rupees is the advance writer Vikram Seth got for two lives, his forthcoming work of non-fiction. 1.8 crore practitioners of yoga generate as much as Rs 11,18,800 crore in revenue annually. 1,760 crore tickets for Bollywood films were sold in India in 2004. They routinely figure in US/UK top 10. 30 record labels from India peddle music online as bhangra beats play in London, New York and Moscow.

Indian aesthetics had another triumph when six Indian artists-Atul Dodiya, Anita Dube, Nataraj Sharma, Ranbir Kaleka, Nalini Malani, and Raqs Media Collective-presented their work in the spectacular 13th century convent on the island of Giudecca, in the south of Venice. The event was the Venice Biennale, the marquee exhibition of global contemporary art, and was put together by the US-based Lucas Artists Programs at Montalvo Arts in partnership with independent curators Peter Nagy and Julie Evans.

According to Gordon Knox, director, Lucas Artists Programs, international contemporary art was "diminished by the absence for over 25 years of artists who have emerged through a personal engagement with the intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic world of the Indian subcontinent". Not a stray remark if one looks at the gold rush for artists ranging from the masters to the Generation Next. Take the July auction of Sotheby's in London. An M.F. Husain was sold for Rs 93.08 lakh, while a 1998 painting by not-so-well-known Anju Dodiya went for Rs 39.09 lakh.

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NUMBERS GAME: Simon Singh lends magic to maths

In December last year, Saffron Art, an online auction house, saw 175 bidders from 15 countries rack up $2.9 million for paintings by the masters as well as a rash of new artists. In the process, it topped the $2.4 million raised through sales at Christie's auction last year. And, as at the Christie's, it was the contemporary artists who proved to be the surprise package. In September 2004, the auctions at Christie's as well as at Sotheby saw the inclusion of several new names, ranging from Bhupen Khakhar to Paresh Maity.

Whether it is Anish Kapoor's design for the British Memorial Garden, Unity, which has been selected over those of 11 other artists, or Sacha Jafri, the Indian-Russian portrait painter who has become the darling of the Sloane set, Indian culture's global reach is spreading beyond kitsch and chicken tikka masala.

And beyond bhangra. Later this month, Nonesuch Records will release an album by Asha Bhosle sung with the celebrated Kronos Quartet. A tribute to the late R.D. Burman, the album will be for sale all over America. "Kronos has explored the marriage of music and films for many years," says David Harrington, violinist and artistic director of Kronos Quartet, adding, "so, immersing ourselves in the music of Burman's Bollywood was natural."

It is not just the Bollywood genre that has hooked global audiences in general and Americans in particular. While hip-hop wonders like Jay-Z use lyrics from Hindi films-he co-produced Mundiyan ton bach ke with Panjabi MC-the spread of yoga has popularised Indian classical music too. The trend got a fillip with the shift to online music, and the pruning of costs meant Indian record labels could market music to mass audiences in the US. A year ago, only Saregama was hawking its wares at online music sites like itunes and emusic. Today, 30 Indian record labels are in the market.

Besides, new portals targeting the South Asian diaspora in the US have come up, while other platforms are being promoted by Real Player, Napster and the desi portal, Crimson Bay. Napster has even launched an Internet radio station featuring Bollywood music. At the same time, ring-tone download sites in the US have begun to offer tunes inspired by South Asian music.

Manu Kaushish, CEO, Divine Arts, and an investor in Crimson Bay, says, "Earlier, Indian music was inaccessible to the non-Indian audience. This has changed due to the sales that digital download services provide. The classical and fusion segment appeal most to non-Indians." It should feel like music for all Indians waiting to cash in on the trend.

-with Ishara Bhasi

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