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It's all part of a newfound professionalism in Bollywood that is evident both artistically and financially. On the set of Lakshya, at Film City studios outside Bombay, this new regimen is in full effect. Director Farhan Akhtar and producers UTV have fixed a budget of $7 million (large by Bollywood standards), issued contracts to crew and actors, insisted on a finished script, insured the set and laid out a meticulously detailed schedule for months of continuous shooting in Bombay and Ladakh. Such black-and-white commitments may be rudimentary in the West but are almost unprecedented in an industry in which a quiet word or a handshake have long sealed deals and in which films were shot piecemeal over a number of years.
Likewise, the financing of Bollywood movies has become far less murky. In the 1990s, a series of scandals broke about the links between Bombay's movie world and the underworld. Producers were the target of repeated police investigations into how deeply Mob money had penetrated the movies, and top actors who were called to testify often sensationally refused. Indeed, just last month, Devdas producer Bharat ("King of Bollywood") Shah was sentenced to a year in jail (but released due to time served) for concealing the underworld's involvement in his 2000 movie Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke (On the Quiet, Hush Hush). In the past, such attachment to Mob money and the conditions that came with it—flying stars to Dubai, Pakistan or South Africa to indulge gangsters' egos—proved a major deterrent to Western investors. But today, even Bombay's police admit the connection with the underworld is weakening—a transformation that began in October 2000, when India's bureaucrats finally lifted outdated restrictions on Bollywood's access to banks and private investors. As legitimate funds poured in from respectable backers, so a new culture of legal and transparent business practices swept the industry.
New Bollywood is not there yet. Director Nair estimates that it will be "two or three years" before its movies attain what she calls Western-style "craft and rigor," and UTV's founder, Ronnie Screwvala, adds that it will take "three to five years" before Western business practices become standard. In the meantime, maybe the greatest danger of Bollywood's invasion of the West is that the West might invade right back. Director Varma's urbanized zeal for Hollywood—"anyone who doesn't follow the West is gone"—carries with it the danger that, in less-skilled hands, Indian film could become little more than exotic imitation. Although he admits to enjoying how well the world received Lagaan and although he welcomes New Bollywood's energy, actor Aamir Khan warns that a wholesale rejection of song and dance might kill the "color, fire and innocence" that defines Indian cinema. "Of course, Bollywood can be quite ghastly," he says. "But at its best, it's a wonderful form. There's a level of passion and excitement and a heightening of emotions which can be momentous. It'd be awful to lose it."
With Rai as India's standard bearer, there is little immediate danger of that. She may position herself as New Bollywood in terms of roles, but in person Rai embodies the Indian middle-class—and very Old Bollywood—ideal: a modern girl with traditional values. For someone emerging as a 21st century film star, there are few people less likely to turn into a Western-style sex kitten. Asked about her image as every Indian man's dream girl, she replied: "I'm just being the girl I was brought up to be." In fact, it is because Rai is such a paragon of age-old, dutiful Indian femininity, says producer Nayar, that she was so right for the headstrong but obedient Elizabeth Bennett character, Lalita. "That's her appeal," says Bride and Prejudice co-star Martin Henderson. "When Hollywood women are so exposed—when you see ass cheeks hanging out on MTV, for God's sake—there's something wonderful about a woman who is sensible and refined, mysterious and sensual."
In an age of terror, perhaps it makes sense for audiences to yearn for a more innocent time. Rai agrees that although New Bollywood may represent a welcome reinvigoration of a tired industry, the reason she is suddenly attracting a global audience is the same reason that Bollywood has always drawn adulation from millions of Indians. "It's the chance to be transported from the toil and the worry," she says, "the chance to feel good about life again." Whatever the innovations of the new Indian wave, the true essence of Bollywood, she says, will always be "a world of hope and color and positivity, the innocent, beautiful fairy tale." So is this the beginning of a storybook adventure for her and Indian cinema? Why not? As she says, "In Bollywood, it's always a happy ending."