The global popularity of Hindi cinema crept up and hit the Bombay film industry in the eye last year when Mani Ratnam's Dil Se made it to the UK Top 10 in its first week. Then in August this year, Amitabh Bachchan topped a BBC online poll on the most popular star of the millennium, beating Hollywood demi-gods by a long shot; what's more, Govinda finished tenth on the list.
More recently, Subhash Ghai's Taal broke box-office records in the US, mainly because he thought it worth releasing an unheard-of 44 prints in the overseas circuit. The oddest success story is, of course, of Rajnikant's Tamil films bowling over Japanese filmgoers.
Indian audiences used to treat the indigenous film—whether in Hindi or in any regional language, the popular film's form remains the same—as an acquired taste peculiar to Indian culture, a "vice" to be admitted to sheepishly, something to be slightly ashamed of, like paan stains on the teeth and coconut oil in the hair. In spite of a comfortably receptive overseas market, the Hindi film industry was smugly content with the vast audiences it had at its command within the Subcontinent. So unlike Hollywood, Indian filmmakers did not feel the need to expand internationally beyond a few known and fairly lucrative territories that went under the omnibus label of "Overseas". A clear example of ghar ka murgi daal barabar—a piquant Hindi saying which means that people often ignore what is right under their noses. In this case, a unique product and an eminently exportable commodity.
There was always a small and steady market for Hindi cinema abroad, or wherever there was a sizeable South Asian immigrant population. And their popularity also extended to the native population of the Gulf, some African countries, and, oddly enough, Russia and some East European countries, plus a minute cult following in campuses across the US, the UK and rest of Europe. Raj Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty are hugely popular in Russia, Amitabh Bachchan's name can open doors in Egypt, and shopkeepers in Singapore are known to have declined payment from anyone who knows the words to the latest Hindi hit film song.