India Inc.: Viewpoint: Hooray for Bollywood

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The key to every seesaw is balance. My latest film is based on The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri's novel of migration and displacement, which is itself a seesaw between two great cities, New York and Calcutta. The film will premiere simultaneously in both cities in November, with a sophisticated marketing strategy and no horse carriages in sight. For my next film, Gangsta M.D., Hollywood will, for the first time, pay good money to buy rights from Bollywood, transplanting to Harlem the beloved story of a Bombay gangster, Munnabhai, who pretends to be a doctor when his parents visit.

The brilliant thing is that there's room for all of us--for our four-hour Bollywood extravaganzas and for my independent work--because we come from a place whose heart is as big as the ocean. And to those who worry about us filmmakers becoming more international than Indian, I say this: It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

Indian director Mira Nair lives in New York City. Her latest film, The Namesake, will be released in November