Eyes on India

This week's Indian Film Festival at St James Cavalier, in Valletta, brought together a string of films that are not hinged on Bollywood. Whether the celluloid rolled out through Eastern or Western eyes, each rivet into the magma of contrasts and conflicts searing at India's core - the subcontinent where the exotic homogeneity of Indian myths and traditions cross the current of politics underpinned by nuclear weapons.

The sad division between Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan also points to the legacy of the fragmented nature of native states as well as to British colonialism. Anyone who is into or wants to discover more about India's heart and soul definitely had quite a treat watching the films on show.

Beyond this festival, it is truly fascinating to see how Indian culture is thriving in the clash between aspirations for a modern state as global player and the sense of betrayal that many feel as a consequence. Bollywood churns out about 1,000 lavish three- or four-hour epics per year.

That's double Hollywood's annual output. It's also in Bollywood that you will find a 10-year-old prodigy, Kishan Kanth, directing his own screenplay to project the plight of a poor child in Bangalore.

Despite their opulence, Bollywood films cost a tiny fraction of what it takes to produce and market a tinseltown flick. Though it is increasingly setting its sights on the world, Bollywood is not dependent on global audiences since the bulk of its productions entertain a domestic market that cannot get enough of lavish sets, lush locales, high octane song and dance and glamorous home-grown icons, led by Aishwarya Rai who lifted the Miss World crown in 1994 and would do so for many years to come, if given half the chance.

If Ms Rai's name does not click, surely film titles like Monsoon Wedding, Devdas, Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice ring more than a faint bell. Now if you've watched the uplifting Monsoon Wedding, you surely cannot forget the effervescent music score and dance sequences that make it impossible for anyone to sit still in one's seat and walk out with an irresistible swing of the hips. Mira Nair's global success featured Fabric, a track by the dynamic Delhi duo, MIDIval PunditZ, whose hybrid style is a fizz of soulful Indian raga and contemporary club numbers.

Fabric was in fact inspired by the classical love song ghazal (a classical based hit), which Heera Devi Misra sung in the 1950s. Performing with the vibes of flowers, custom visuals and wafting incense, MIDIval PunditZ belt out propulsive rhythms of bansusi flute and santur melodies; slithering through crushing beats and insistent refrains.

It's no surprise that they are India's leading exponents of electronica.

The duo's dreamy vision also makes them the perfect complement to the London-based Angika Dance Company's striving towards developing the intricacies of classical Bharata Natyam dance from the south of India for the modern stage even though they shun dance fusion. Angika is one of the several Indian dance groups that are thrilling theatre goers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, Bollywood fever has toned down a little. Andrew Lloyd Weber's Bombay Dreams is no longer hogging the headlines, nor are tonnes of sequins, beads and smouldering kohl still the rage on fashion runways. Yet, India's hot, spicy colours and sensuous layers of the finest fabrics are still wowing the world of haute couture. And if you take a close look at French and Italian fashion powerhouses, you will trace the mesmerising grip of India's vast plurality in collections that go back decades.

Now there's much more than a whiff of curry and saffron on the catwalks. With an uncanny flair to respond to the different needs of both Indian and Western buyers, high flying Indian fashion designers like Ritu Beri, Pria Kataria, David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore today enjoy international acclaim. They are not the only ones. Plus the Fashion Design Council of India set up in Delhi to promote rising stars around the globe paved the way for the annual hosting of India Fashion Week in Mumbai.

Not all designers binge on every known type of embroidery or folksy pattern, so that a good number of signatures come with the hallmarks of clean cuts and emphasis on different weaves of natural fibres.

This may be interpreted as a deliberate move away from stereotypical images, meaning the bottom line is more of a bridging between Western and Eastern ideals once the aim is to make it on the world map. You can see it in the way "crossovers" mark Indian fashion, make-up, music and movies.

Viewing India from the haze of Bollywood's feel-good fantasies or hippie smoke or even the Raj will inevitably give a distorted view of whether India can retain its flavoursome essence or lose her identity in the swamp of globalisation.