Bollywood’s Oscars come to the UK

The Bollywood 'Oscars' ceremony being held in Yorkshire this weekend marks an important moment in the history of what is now the biggest movie industry in the world. It means Bollywood is finally getting the recognition in the west that it has long enjoyed in the rest of the world.

For almost half a century, Bollywood movies - the Hindi-language films made in Mumbai, formerly Bombay - have been an essential part of the entertainment industry, not only in India but in much of the Middle East, eastern Europe, north and other parts of Africa and even south America.

Indeed, such has been the appeal of Bollywood that it has extended to Russia; Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward included a reference to a famous Bollywood movie. President Yeltsin, like many Russians, liked what are called the Bollywood masala films.

Last year in Britain, 16 per cent of the new films released were made in Mumbai - only 13 per cent were made in the UK.

The great Indian film director Shyam Benegal once explained to me that a Bollywood movie is like an Indian meal. The west, he said, broke up everything: this is drama, this is comedy, and this is tragedy. Indians do not believe in such distinctions.

Just as in food, where the western divide between starters and main course does not apply, so Indian films have to have everything in them. The same film has both pathos and humour, crime and goodness. Indians do not like a film unless it includes a bit of everything.

It was fashionable at one time to say Bollywood movies were the Indian version of Hollywood's Busby Berkeley musicals. Nothing could be further from the truth.