Covering Bollywood and the Hindi Cinema

Bollywood is truly on a roll and one of the major reason is the NRI market which has translated into big bucks for the industry. An interesting article appeared on the Hindustan Times where Big Guns like Karan Johar, Yash Chopra and SRK discussed the imporatance of the NRI. Here are some excerpts:

Karan Johar was heard remarking:

"NRI market is as good to us as the market in and is number one for us”.” We do not see NRIs as people who are separate from Indians. They are all Indians and in fact the NRIs are more Indian at heart than any of us in ".

Johar continues: "I make films for Indians, whether they live in New York or Bihar. NRI is a status not an identity. For us they are all Indians.

The ultimate showman, Yash Chopra also gave his two cents and said:

"Veer Zaara was the most important film of my life. It was the most authentic and positive depiction of both countries ( and ). Boundaries are man-made otherwise we are the same people; we have the same language, same family and same emotions."

While many defend the Hindi films format especially when it comes to the length, SRK was pretty pragmatic about it as he feels:

"Filmmakers tend to get emotional about this issue but I am more practical in matters of length. I truly believe we need to make shorter films."