Pyaron the Potomac, chamak-dhamak in Central Park

They would be joining an established contingent of directors who have already made the leap. M. Night Shyamalan, to take one example, has earned carte blanche to make virtually any film he wants (including one with Mel Gibson, in Pennsylvania, meeting and beating aliens). The list goes on, including such names as Shekhar Kapur, Mira Nair, Ismail Merchant, Gurinder Chadha and Deepa Mehta. And one can imagine any of the current young Indian directors making the crossover: Fardeen Akhtar, Karan Johar or Ram Gopal Verma.

The list of Indian actors who have crossed the ocean is miniscule by comparison. One can recite names like Kabir Bedi, Ajay Naidu, Sarita Chaudary, Ayesha Dharkar, Andrew Nevin, Jimmy Mishra, and now, of course, Parminder Singh. But, with the exception of Parminder, none of those names would register with the public in the UK or US. And even Parminder would barely mention a blip.

To be sure, Hollywood is not a democracy open to everyone, and achieving crossover appeal is more complicated than taking a visa and booking a flight. But foreigners from other parts of the world have made successful incursions into American films — and have even outpaced American stars by bringing an exotic trace into the picture.

The Europeans have mastered the art. Colin Farrel is only the most recent addition to a long line of transplanted European stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ralph Fiennes, and Orlando Jones. Aussies like Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe have made it.

So is it a race barrier? Do crossover stars have to be lily white? It seems not. Chinese actors Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Kelly Hu, Lucy Lui are now bona fide Hollywood stars. And Latino performers, who resemble some of Bollywood’s best, have also made it big: Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Benicio Del Toro and Penelope Cruz. There is no good reason why Indian stars cannot mimic their success.

Even in sci-fi movies, where the casts are diverse and the stereotypical Indian proclivity for science would seem a qualification, Indians are rarely in the mix. Take the sum total of all the Star Wars, Matrix, and Star Trek movies — well over 20 films — and you’ll find a paltry five Indians. One is blue (Ayesha Dharkar in Star Wars II), one is bald (Persis Khambata in the first Star Trek), one dies in five minutes after uttering a few lines (Vijay Amitraj in Star Trek IV), and two are adorable child actors (Star Wars II and the latest Matrix). The total screen time given to Indian actors amounts to less than 20 minutes. Apparently Hollywood has inside knowledge that Indians won’t make it to space.

Although space may not hold much hope for Indian actors, Broadway does. With the March 2004 release of Bombay Dreams on Broadway, Bollywood stars may have a unique chance to shine. Broadway is the world’s most famous address for theatre, a place where film stars often go to back up stardom with substance. Bollywood Dreams offers Bollywood stars that chance. While its present cast does a wonderful job, imagine Amitabh Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Aishwarya Rai and Amisha Patel opening Bollywood Dreams in New York. From the producers’ point of view, having Bollywood stars on the marquee will offer lucrative rewards. A good opening is crucial to any Broadway musical, and with Bachchan, Oberoi and Rai on the playbill, the producers could easily raise ticket prices by 25 per cent. The total monthly gross would be well over $4 million. The extra $1 million will be more than enough to pay Bollywood’s biggest stars.

New York will surely take notice of a new production that suddenly raises the prices — and still manages to sell seats. The Producers with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broedrick is a case in point — top tickets without those two Broadway stars were selling at $100; with them the top tickets were sold at $480.

Selling seats won’t be a problem. Like all immigrants, the Indian-American community is starved to see its own likeness in popular culture. It is a cheap, unobtrusive way to feel transported to an old home without giving up the new one. They watch Hindi movies and go to live star shows, where they pay in excess of $100 to see their favourite Bollywood stars gyrate and lip sync. Give them an opportunity to see those stars in a mainstream theatre, and they will willingly pay top dollar.

But selling Bollywood to the West is not just about giving displaced Indians a taste of home. Indian stars must be presented to the wider world, at this moment of fascination with India. Imagine the publicity: a Time magazine cover with A R Rehman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Vivek Oberoi, Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, under the headline: ‘‘Bollywood Arrives’’. Or the daily reports on Page Six of the New York Post on Vivek Oberoi being the new Ashton Kutcher. Or perhaps an article about how the suave and dapper Amitabh Bachchan is the new Sean Connery. And the effect of Aishwarya on the men of New York might generate reactions best excluded from the printed page.

New York will take notice. Nothing speaks like money, and that’s what Bollywood Dreams, and the Indian actors it should recruit, will deliver. There’s no doubt that Bollywood possesses world-class talent and that Bollywood Dreams is a unique opportunity for the rest of the world to discover it. Only then, perhaps, will the show have lived up to its name: Bombay Dreams.