Seven Oaks Magazine.

A tired, sweaty villager stands on a hill and looks off into the horizon. The sun is blazing; the ground is parched. A shadow of recognition crosses his face and his eyes widen. He begins to scream incoherently, and jump and wave his arms. The man cannot speak, he is mute, but he attempts to communicate with his unsettling roar.

He grabs a dhol and begins to play it as loud as he can. The other villagers look up from their work. A murmur works its way through the crowd asking what the commotion is about. The mute man stops playing his drum and points towards the east. The villagers follow his arm to see, in the distance, heavy, black clouds. The rains had come.

The musical score begins to gather and the villagers take their places. They are happy and smiling. Their arms stretch out and welcome the life-giving rain. Their fields would soon be green and production could begin. They begin to sing a song and perform an elaborate, highly choreographed dance routine. The rains had finally come.

The scene described above comes from a recent Indian mega-hit Lagaan. It identifies many of the characteristics of the Indian moviemaking machine. Blatant, but nonchalant political incorrectness by way of a mute man's screams. The reliance on nature or fate to move a story forward - the residents of the village need the rain in order to produce crops and pay taxes to their British overseers. Characters express excessive exuberance and celebration when fate is kind to them. And no Bollywood film is complete without ornate musical numbers launched at the slightest pretext.

Bollywood film - the name having been taken from the combination of "Hollywood" and "Bombay," epicentres of film production in their respective countries - has long been the footnote when discussing movies in a global context. In quick succession, most will list off American, Japanese, and French as the great cinemas, with special consideration to India. Bollywood is mentioned not for its quality, which it certainly does not lack, but its outrageously prolific production - and for good reason. From 1997 to 2002, America released 3,881 feature-length films. Japan made 1,653. The French managed 1,102. India produced 5,222 movies in those five years, almost as much as the other three combined.

Yet Bollywood has no studio system to speak of, is set in a country where the average income is a fraction of any of the others, and has a government that holds an infamously tight grip on much of the cultural production. The people who make these films have enormous clout economically and politically, often entangling themselves in scandal. People from all parts of the sub-continent, no matter how different they are in terms of religion and ethnicity, rally behind the popular movie of the day.

Indian film has been a fixture since the beginning of film itself. The first films were shown in Bombay in 1896, silent shorts on the wall of a hotel room. In 1913, the first fully indigenously produced feature was released. By the 1920s, the industry began to take shape. In the 1930s, the tradition of social protest in Indian film was established where a conscious effort was made to address injustices in movies that were accessible to a wide audience. The next two decades were marked by rapid expansion in film and, with it, the popular music. Movies were released in a number of India's many languages. In the 1960s, the industry started to bow to the demands of the box office, and a crop of mediocre, but crowd-pleasing, films were produced. This formed a rift among filmmakers, one that is still visible today. In reaction to the release of these blockbusters, a splinter industry formed and managed to create some of the best cinema of its time. The New Indian Cinema, as it has since been branded, boasted such films as The Apu Trilogy , Seemabadha , and Agantuk , and marked the beginning of the dual nature of Indian film. This division defined itself throughout the seventies and eighties. By the nineties, the big budgeted, multi-star section of the industry, called 'Bollywood' by non-Indian observers, had begun to regress into the musicals of its past, but this time with larger budgets and flashier results.

While a diversity of films continues to be produced in India, the popularity remains with Bollywood. However, Bollywood has always taken a few lessons from its less-flashy counterpart, recognising its tradition of advocating justice and, sometimes, open social protest.

Consider the product. The main complaint of detractors of the Bollywood style of cinema is its abrupt departures from reality, usually in the form of elaborate dance and song sequences that mark major turning points in a film's storyline. Characters, seemingly in the midst of some existential crisis, or about to win over a reluctant lover's favour, suddenly leap through space and time to take part in precisely choreographed numbers that reflect their emotions and interior dialogue. A couple will be transported from a street in Old Delhi to the pyramids of Egypt where they proceed to prance and sing about their newfound love. Unrequited courtiers crash parties by leading suddenly adept and finely trained attendees through very large dance numbers. I've seen even higher flights of fancy.

Western audiences declare their suspension of disbelief precarious when confronted with this type of narrative. How can a poor villager and the daughter of the rich landowner suddenly find themselves in the Swiss Alps, belting out their adoration for each other? Bollywood is deemed unrealistic and substandard, not meeting the conventions of 'reality' set by Western cinema. Superiority is declared, and Bollywood is written off as a curiosity. This is rather naïve.

Indian films do jump into musical numbers at random, but to think music and liberties with reality do not play as large a role in Western film would be incorrect. If the West has a better grip on 'reality,' why do musical scores soar in the background? How do thugs and idiots have intelligent and witty dialogue? The Western viewer accepts certain premises in the judgement of film, premises that, interestingly, are rejected by the typical Bollywood fan. Watching a film with someone who has only been exposed to Bollywood, something I have done numerous times, is an interesting and humbling experience. To them, Western film is uninteresting. Not because there is a lack of song and dance, although its absence is bothersome. Nor are they repulsed by the fascination with authenticity, though they find the realistic sex and violence unnecessary. They simply find it boring and cannot understand why it was made.

In this way, as simplifying as it may seem, much understanding of the modern sub-continent can come from understanding its relationship to film. Indian audiences expect certain things from their movies, and from these expectations emerge an idea of what they want for themselves.

To them, film is entertainment, in the purest sense of the word. They want to walk out of the house having seen a movie. Western film, from its very best to its meat grinder worst, is the endless exploration of human nature and emotion. From Mystic River to Mr. Deeds , popular American movies are one psychological study after another. Bollywood movies, on the other hand, are swashbucklers. There is no gray area between good and bad. An issue arises and the two parties take their sides to battle it out. There are no questions, no wringing hands and no doubt that good will prevail over evil.

The average Indian doesn't need the 'reality' other kinds of film offer. More often than not, their reality is already grim and they don't need any more of it. Why consider the agony, psychological or otherwise, of existence when one lives in India? They're surrounded with agony.

They want heroes that complete tremendous tasks of courage. They wish to see happiness, a world of fantasy where breaking into song is as normal as walking down the street. The want good guys to do things they can only dream about. In Coolie , the head of the porter's union thrashes the evil railroad owner (with a hammer and sickle no less) in his own backyard for denying the porters the homes that they were promised. In Mard , the hero can ride his horse and buggy into the pristine pool of an exclusive British country club (where the sign says, "Dogs and Indians not allowed") to demand that a local be given the dignity of a little courtesy. In Lagaan , another pre-Independence period piece, a ragtag group from all religions and castes take on the British at their own game to strike a blow against their brutal occupiers.

In a way, Bollywood film is a more honest use of the medium. They suffer no pretence about providing their audience with 'reality.' Here, everyone can sing and dance. Fights are epic and just. Here, ordinary men doing extraordinary things, and bad people get it in the end. Heroes will take several bullets to their chests and, through faith and will, still save their loved ones. Emotion and longing is expressed through music and song, not brooding and frustration.

At its best, Bollywood and Indian cinema represents the nation's greatest desires and best hopes. Better than any other art form, it has represented a people's egalitarian longing and sense of social justice. With it, Bollywood expresses the zest and appreciation a people have for life, how they wish to sing and dance in a swirl of light and colour.