Time Asia runs an interesting profile on Mira Nair (also see Sajit’s post):
Nair was also, she claims, an unwanted child—or, as she puts it, a “contraceptual blunder.” In 1957 the Indian government was worried about its exploding population, and her father, a senior bureaucrat, had sworn to limit the family to the two sons they already had. He sent his wife Praveen to a clinic for an abortion, but she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it…
…Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love was universally skewered, and even Nair disowned it as an “aberration.” (Time)
As Amardeep Singh has fisked in far greater detail, some reviewers have complained about the desi influences in Vanity Fair:
The buzz is all about how Nair has played up Thackeray’s Indian influences—he was born in Calcutta—including a Bollywood dance number and an ending shot in the Rajasthani fort town of Jodhpur. The New York Times griped about the “outlandish” sight of Witherspoon doing a “grinding Indian-flavored hoochy-cooch, worthy of Britney Spears,” saying it seemed “shoehorned in from another movie.” (Time)
Nair defended her colonialism-centric angle as a legitimate, innovative interpretation:
The basis of what I loved and which I thought Thackeray plumed so acutely and beautifully was the relationship between the colony and the empire. Thackeray himself was born in Calcutta and came to England, and I always saw him and his writing as a sort of satiric look at his own society; that he was the ultimate insider/outsider and I think it was in that realm and that vein that he created his great heroine, Becky Sharp… (Metro)
Next up for Nair is a film version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and, following in the footsteps of Bombay Dreams, bringing Monsoon Wedding to Broadway at the end of ’05:
She’s working on adaptations of The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru, The Namesake by Pulitzer winner Jhumpha Lahiri and Tony Kushner’s play Homebody/Kabul. She’s setting up the International Behenji Brigade, a Bombay production house with the backing to make three low-budget Asian movies… transforming Monsoon Wedding into a $14 million musical, complete with a wedding tent that Nair plans to assemble over the audience during each performance. (Time)
Thanks Manish for the link..thats an interesting article on Mira Nair. After shekhar kapoor (Elizabeth fame), looks like indian/indo-british/indo-US directors are working on british/classic novels..gurbinder chadda with bride and prejudice and now mira nair with vanity fair.. I have a feeling Gurbinder chadda has better chances of success. Good times for indo-american writers looks like. Salman rushdie’s midnight children, chitra divakaruni’s mistress of spices,now jhumpa lahiri’s namesake and Hari kunzru’s The impressionist ..movies made out of novels based on indian life.. I read all of them,of all these I feel “The Impressionist” is the only novel which would be great for a screenplay. Rest all might not make it big and are not screenplay material. Salman rushdie is writing his own screenplay for midnights children if I remember it right which would make it an interesting watch.. It would be interesting to see how they turn out.