प्रियंका, वंशाली और विश्व

Priyanka Chopra set to produce a Nepalese-Sikkimese film titled Paua 

PC is not the only or even the first Bollywood biggie with her own production house but her foray into regional movies does stand out, and I have watched it with interest. Bhojpuri and now Nepali. I am conversant in both! I attended high school in Kathmandu after all.

Diversity is a good thing. It is like would you rather have one giant paddy field where the Amazon is, or do you like the forest better? That is not even a question.

Technology is fast catching up with diversity. It is only a matter of time before Artificial Intelligence will be able to translate from every language to every other language. Which means your first language spoken by only 10 million people will be as good as English for science and commerce. Is that big? I think so. The point is the languages are not going away and that's a good thing.

Another disruption is digital technology. Why does a movie have to be two or three hours? Why can't it be 20 or 30 minutes? Why do you need a movie theater? Why can't movies have online releases only? When you start asking those questions you realize there can be a movie industry in every town in India. The costs go down drastically. So you make a Bhojpuri mini movie and post it online and next thing you know you have a global audience. There are tiny pockets of Bhojpuri speakers all over the world. The YouTube ad revenue might not be enough though, a pay per view model might work better. One dollar per movie? How about 10 cents?

Perhaps PPP (Purple Pebble Pictures) ought to build that platform. It would be like the Apple app store. It is pay per view, it is global, the platform has strict editorial guidelines, the revenue split is 30-70, something like that.

I look at Sanjay Leela Banshali and I think, this is a global level talent, but his heart is still colonized. Why could he not cast someone like Priyanka Chopra and make a movie in English for the mainstream American audience? एक मानसिक दासता है जिसे उतार फेंकने की जरूरत है।

There is no dearth of story writers. You fish for stories in the global exploding literature market. And you buy movie making rights and you adapt.

इन्डिया में कहते हैं, अरे देखो प्रियंका तो अमेरिका चली गई। किधर अमेरिका चली गई? हॉलीवुड उन्हें वापस इन्डियन मार्केट में ला रही है। सारे दुनिया ले जा रहे हैं और पैसे छाप रहे हैं।

बाजिराव मस्तानी वुडी एलेन की वैसी ही कहानी वाली विकी क्रिस्टीना वार्सिलोना से बेहतर है। तो टैलेंट तो है। लेकिन मानसिक दासता भी तो है।