Bollywood goes Swahili

India's most successful export: cherubic heroes and Hindi love songs

For Indian and foreign entertainment investors alike, the South Asian diaspora -- some 25 million strong, relatively affluent and passionate about keeping their culture alive -- is a ready-made audience. The United States and Britain, where large populations of South Asians live, account for about 55 per cent of international Bollywood ticket sales. When the love-triangle musical Taal, starring India's megastar and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, opened last summer in the West, it was a top box-office draw in America for six weeks. But Bollywood has millions of non-Indian fans in the Mideast, Africa and Southeast Asia, too.

Romany Gypsies in Eastern Europe tune in to India's Sony Entertainment Television, as do Hindi film fans in Fiji and the Philippines. In Israel, the two-year-old box-office hit Dil to Pagal Hai is playing to packed houses in Tel Aviv as Halev Mistagya (Crazy Heart). In Arab countries, fans opt for Hindi movies over Hollywood ones. Bollywood hits, says Egyptian cinema critic Ahmed Kamal with a shrug, "are now simply part of Arab culture." In Tanzania's capital, open-air theaters screen the latest Indian romances, with interpreters standing in front of screens translating story lines. In Zanzibar, Swahili-speaking schoolgirls skip down the street singing Hindi love songs -- despite not speaking a word of Hindi.

-- Excerpted from the `Newsweek' cover story, February 28

Putin's plutocrat problem
When Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31 of last year, he thrust Vladimir Putin, a relative unknown, into the limelight. Today, just a few months later, it is still too early to determine the extent of the former KGB agent's commitment to democracy and free markets. But if Putin decides to match words with deeds, he will enjoy an encouraging alignment of the political stars. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin can count on the support of the public and of the Duma. He has also built bridges with rival political leaders. For a limited time at least, he can use this support to press ahead with difficult reforms.

To do so, however, he must first rein in a dangerous posse of plutocrats riding roughshod over the country. This is something his predecessor could not, or would not, achieve. On the contrary, these oligarchs Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Fridman and others -- largely co-opted Yeltsin's governments, silencing most opposition to their conduct. As a consequence, they now threaten Russia's transition to democracy and free markets.

The August 1998 financial crisis practically wiped out the plutocrats' financial assets. But those who suggest it undermined their influence are dead wrong. Oil revenues sustained the tycoons' economic and political power, and the oil oligarchs are once again awash with cash, thanks to the ruble devaluation of 1998 (which lowered costs) and the steep climb in oil prices in 1999 (which boosted revenues). Because they remain among the strongest political and economic actors in Russia a major nuclear power whose future is crucial to America the plutocrats merit close scrutiny.

-- From an essay by Lee S. Wolosky in `Foreign Affairs', March/April 2000

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