WHAT'S THE BIG HUE AND CRY ABOUT?

A leading newspaper recently carried a story that left me amazed. It was a postmortem of how a white director brought the vision of an indian author on global celluloid.Sanjay Gupta (maker of films like Shootout and Kaante), who read Vikas Swarup's book Q&A as soon as it was written in 2005, liked it and decided to make a film based on it. Unfortunately the rights by then had already been sold to the makers of Slumdog.I agreed with Gupta when he stated that this was one of the "biggest losses" of his Bollywood career . But then he went overboard with his victemisque avtaar... "Making the film is one thing and marketing it is another. In Bollywood, we don't have a 20th Century Fox supporting our films, neither do we have the kind of finances they have". I beg to differ on this and I base this on the evolving maturity that Bollywood has witnessed in recent times. We see Indian production houses forging tie ups with global media and entertainment powers corps. Roadside Romeo was backed by Disney, Chandni Chowk to China was made and financed by Warner Bros. (the fact that it was not appreciated is besides the point. Even with 450 galis it made 45 crores in first week).It takes more than the backing of international production houses to make a global success story. Lagaan , TZP. Have proved this maximum. The fact that Boyle's production house Film 4 had "optioned the book" one year before it was even published was the clincher. It shows a finer ear to the ground for opportunities than just financial muscle. Or it could be the 'at the right place at the right time' factor that swung Slumdog into the Boyle kitty.Either ways, its not the end of the world, I hope bollywood becomes more alert in spotting good works of literature rather than crying on spilt milk.