My gateway to Bollywood was, no surprise, Bride and Prejudice. I love Jane Austen adaptations, but the only Indian film I'd seen was Monsoon Wedding (and Bend It Like Beckham, if you count that). So I went to the movie's official site and loved that it included an overview of Bollywood - so we newbies would know what was being aluded to. When I read that, I though "Woah, I gotta get me some of that." So I went to my local independent video store and grabbed something off the shelf at random - Mujhse Dosti Karoge! - and fell in love. I just kept watching more and more, amazed that I had never heard of these before and that I had wasted 30 years not watching them!

What speaks to me most about Hindi cinema is the wholeheartedness of expression - I'm convinced that we'd all be better off if we would just go to the edge of the mountain fling our arms out, and say "I love yoooooo!" I like a world in which anger and revenge may be big, but so are friendship and forgiveness.