It’s not just Slumdog Millionaire, either. Chandni Chowk to China managed to break out of the foreign-film ghetto in its own small way, playing in suburban theatres, benefiting from Slumdog’s buzz. Who knows, maybe even Salman Rushdie will start selling again.

My colleague Jay Nordlinger reports a recent brush with the biggest Indian star of them all, and it is illuminating: “On my way from Zurich to London, I see [Amitabh Bachchan] in the airport. In fact, he is on my flight. I approach him and say, ‘Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if I could trouble you for a photo.’ He says, ‘How do you know me?’ I say, ‘Who doesn’t?’ Amitabh grins. But what he has asked me is very, very telling. He must not be used to being recognised by non-Indians. He has a strange existence of 100 per cent name and face recognition in India — a nation of more than a billion — and virtual anonymity everywhere else.” He further reports that the Big B was flying coach. In truth, Bachchan isn’t entirely anonymous in the US — within the past year, I’ve heard “Eer Bir Phatte” played at an American nightclub. (Yes, “Jai Ho” was the next song.) Never mind that the tune is a decade out of date, some things never go out of style. Yeh hai America, meri jaan.

Nordlinger, who has spent time in India, also makes a more serious observation: It’s important for Americans not to romanticise India. (More important, of course, for Indians not to romanticise India, but that’s another discussion.) But as India asserts itself in the American consciousness, this is worth keeping in mind: There are only two countries in Asia that matter to Americans right now — India and China. The future used to speak Japanese, but now the future gives you grief about saying “Bombay” instead of “Mumbai.” Bombay has all but displaced Tokyo in the American imagination, and Kim Jong Il’s North Korea is as much a punchline as a menace. But India and China are no joke. There’s a Good Asia and a Bad Asia in American thought. Perhaps there should be room for more Asia than that, but Beijing remains uncontested as the capital of Bad Asia, a 21st-century expression of the “Oriental despotism” of popular lore and anxiety. The capital of Good Asia is not Delhi but somewhere between Bombay and Bangalore; Manmohan Singh may be the most highly regarded Asian statesman in the US, but India’s clout remains primarily cultural and commercial rather than political.

... contd.