The PR machine formerly known as Mira Nair says fast and cheap is where it’s at (via India Uncut):

When you have a big budget, like a Harry Potter, you have that many more people to answer to. You are simply one part of the machine that takes it over. It’s actually the freedom, the creative freedom, that is imperative for me. It comes only when the stakes are really low financially. That’s why I had total freedom to make a Salaam Bombay, or to make a Monsoon Wedding or to make a Namesake… If you have a big budget, you have that many more men in suits to deal with…

I like to do things unobtrusively and quietly, without much fanfare. People often don’t know what we are up to until it’s over. And that’s the secret.

She whips out her population and lays it on the table:

Let’s just face facts: our Indian cinema audience is now bigger than the Hollywood audience. So it’s not about wanting to be what they are, it’s about them opening their eyes to us…

On desi provincialism:

The extraordinary irony in making Mississippi Masala was that the African-American community and the Indian community were remarkably similar — in their love for family, in their communal sort of way for operating, in religion even, in that sort of emphasis on family bond and God for instance. But would an Indian ever cross the track into an African-American family? No way.

Salon writer Stephanie Zacharek loves how Harold and Kumar shows unremarkable, assimilated hyphen-Americans instead of relegating minorities to ethnic curio shops (thanks, Razib):

“Harold & Kumar”… may have said more about race in America today than any other movie of last year. .. [W]hat’s most impressive about “Harold & Kumar”… is that it didn’t dawn on me until the movie was nearly over that its two protagonists weren’t your usual average white kids… There’s something freeing in the way “Harold & Kumar” treats its characters’ ethnic backgrounds not as a novelty, as a stumbling block or even as an advantage, but as a simple fact… Race is an issue in “Harold & Kumar,” but it’s not the issue…

Of course, Zacharek is using Spanglish as her benchmark, so make of that what you will. I think we know her inspiration for the story:

“Harold & Kumar” is a reminder that our great land is made up of people from many nations, and a few of them are quite stoned. Let he who is without sin light the first joint.

Here’s more on how Harold and Kumar deals with race.