"After Salaam Bombay, I could have picked up any one of the several offers that came my way and lived happily ever after. But somehow, honest commitment would have been missing. I needed a subject I could relate to myself, " said Mira Nair in a recent interview.

Constant shuffling between India and America gave her a chance to observe expatriate Indian life at close quarters--an observation that later attained a concrete image encapsulated in Mississippi Masala and My Own Country, and then in The Perez Family where she depicted Cuban refugee life in the U.S.

However, her best piece of work has come with her latest Monsoon Wedding where Nair closely examines the growing phenomenon of global Indians. A world where the young, wired and upwardly mobile Indians co-exist with their traditional parents and family elders. The film portrays an extended Punjabi family that reunites in Punjab from around the world for a noisy and colourful wedding. The film is all about the four days preceding the marriage.

Monsoon Wedding has not just annexed the prestigious Golden Lion for the Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival this year but has made Nair the third woman filmmaker in 58 years to win the award. Before her, Margarethe von Trotta won it for The German Sisters in 1981 and Agnes Varda for Vagabonde in 1985. Nair also became the second Indian after Satyajit Ray whose Aparajito was honoured with the Golden Lion in 1957.

" This one is for my beloved India and my continuing inspiration, and for the extraordinary ensemble of actors in my movie who possessed their roles so completely,'' said Nair after she received the award on September 8.

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