But Lagaan is an exception to the rule: we do not generally send our best movies to compete at the Oscars. Our last entry was Paheli: even for Indian audiences, it was a confused mess of genres and acting styles. It is one thing for scholars of Indian cinema to debate over the marriage of middle-of-the-roader Amol Palekar, and mainstream badshah Shah Rukh Khan; it is quite another for it to make sense to viewers in the West.

There’s long been the contention that the West still doesn’t understand the way we make our movies, and that the song-and-dance which is so integral to the form is looked upon with either befuddlement or distaste. Yes, there is that barrier. Our movies make money in NRI boroughs; they do not routinely play on main street theatres. Even those who ought to know better (the people who short-list movies for awards all over the world are supposed to be cinema-literate) turn away from our films just because they either can’t or won’t find a way into them.

All the talk of ‘cross-over cinema’ is still just that, talk. We still don’t have, in our roster, a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon which makes the kind of money that makes global studio giants salivate. And creates the kind of buzz which makes director Ang Lee a power-luncher in Hollywood board-rooms. He won the Oscar with Brokeback Mountain, didn’t he?

Till we make that elusive film, the Oscars will continue to elude us.