Pakistan snubs Indian cinema

Pakistan has clearly snubbed India's attempts to aid its flood victims. But that won't stop actor Om Puri and the cast and crew of his new Indo-British film West Is West, from holding a charity screening next month to help the victims. West is West Is a sequel to the 1999 cult hit, East Is East, a film about a dysfunctional British-Pakistani family run by a despotic patriarch (Puri).


Ironically, though West Is West is set in Pakistan, its cast members are largely Indian. It was shot entirely in India, in Punjab to be precise, since permission to shoot in Pakistan was denied to the makers. The irony doesn't end there. The charity show in aid of Pakistani flood victims cannot be held in Pakistan. It will be organised in no man's, land Abu Dhabi.

Like lyricist Gulzar, Puri believes in bettering ties between India and Pakistan through cinema and cultural activities. Now, even soft-liners in India have begun to wonder if this one-sided show of amity is being taken for granted by powers-that-be across the border.

Shailendra Singh, who is planning a film on the IPL and match-fixing controversy, won't cast Pakistanis in his film. On the other hand, Nikhil Advani refuses to edit Pakistani cricket players from his Akshay Kumar-starrer Patiala House, despite being under pressure to do so.

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