It’s all about money, honey

Foreign celebs go beyond ‘slum tourism’. They now want a piece of the desi pie.

British actress-model Elizabeth Hurley is planning to buy a home in India. Liz, along with her Indian husband Arun Nayar will spend Christmas holidays house-hunting in Rajasthan.

“This year we’re spending the whole holiday period in India. We are looking for some properties to buy in Rajasthan... We love it out there in the desert,” the actress told a British magazine. “All our friends have already bagged bedrooms and booked holidays with us, so fingers crossed we close a deal somewhere,” she added. It’s no longer just about looking for exotica in our slums and backwaters. International celebs now also want to be a part of the ‘curry culture’.

While Hurley scouts for a perfect desi desert retreat, British thespian Sir Ben Kingsley gets ready with his Hindi film debut in Teen Patti. “It’s interesting to mix cultures in a film to see how different people from different backgrounds can be so synchronised,” Kingsley says about his Bollywood experience.

And even as Indian filmmaker Anthony D’silva recovers from the Blues given by Aussie popstar Kylie Minogue’s Chiggy Wiggy with actor Akshay Kumar, Kingsley plans a film (Taj Mahal) with Aishwarya Rai in the lead. And who would have ever imagined, Paul Schrader, writer of Hollywood blockbusters such as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, scripting and directing a Bollywood masala. But Schrader’s Extreme City is expected to be just that.

The filmmaker puts his shift in context, “I’ve been getting indie (American independent) movies made for 20 years. But I take a good look around and what I see is a barren, barren place — in terms of the financial community, in terms of audiences, in terms of distribution. It’s cold out there.” Trade analyst Taran Adarsh concurs, “India is shining and so is Bollywood. We have a stable government and we’ve shown we can’t be swept away by disturbances like recession. So global pop culture wants to be a part of this stability.”

But not everyone is happy about this growing participation by foreign celebs in Indian popular culture. “The interest in India is prompted more by the growing desi market more than any love for our culture. Global celebs know they can’t make money sitting at home, so they’re all here,” say Sudhir Mishra.