Perhaps, like Mira Nair, the global Indian immigrants too are 'nowhere' people. "When I left India at 19, I was rooted in a very certain reality. Since then, life has been very fluid, Back and forth, back and forth. And I realize in hindsight that I use that fluidity as part of my work," says Nair.

"I used to have a joke when people asked where I live," says Nair, "I'd say, `I live on Air India'. But the other side is that you live between your ears. You carry your home within yourself. That's a nice-sounding cerebral concept, but the truth is that you're torn."

A recent newspaper report said, "With Nair's movies immigrant communities like the Indians settled in this country (America) are being asked to standup and identify themselves. They cannot travel in both the boats. For them its time to drop anchor."

Nair herself said: "There's a tension around the issues of alliances. The black folks think, `All coloured people are the same and should stick together.' South Asians cash in on that when it suits them. But the white people are glad that the people from middle class ain't black. I once asked an Indian motel owner if he'd experienced racism, and he said, `No, I'm just a white person who stayed in the sun too long!'" Mississippi Masala ended with the sordid reminder, "In the end, people stick to their own kind."

Despite its complexities, Nair has proved she is best when working with raw and unproven talent. In Salaam Bombay she assembled the cast from a motley crew of street urchins. For Mississippi Masala, she chanced upon an unknown actress Sarita Chowdhry who portrayed the rudderless Mina perfectly. She was a fantasist, a rebellious daughter, a meek girl clinging to her Hindu ideals and finally a passionate lover. She was so excitingly brilliant that it was hard to believe that this was her first feature film. The affinity between the actor and the character was complete.

" It was the sense of homelessness that brought out the actress in me. I knew nothing of India. The country was like a storybook. So I could identify with the heroine instantly," says Sarita, daughter of an English mother and a Bengali father who quit his government job to join the UNO. Her father's postings took her to countries like Jamaica and Italy, but never back to India. " I was a Jamaican more than an Indian," says Sarita who later joined Canada's Ontario Film School.

This sense of perpetual homelessness is the common bond which Nair shares with all her movies. Born in Bhubaneshwar, 200 miles from Calcutta, Nair is daughter of a retired Indian civil servant. She studied in an Irish Catholic School in Shimla and followed it up by college. Then she came to America where she took up filmmaking seriously.

For Nair, films like Mississipi Masala and Monsoon Wedding are two steps forward from the days of documentaries. Her cinematic realism is rooted in her earlier efforts at social documentaries. Says she, " I believe in relevant cinema, not boring cinema." She seldom wavers from this ideal and even her critics admit that despite the gritty realities, the pace never slackens.

Nair made her documentary debut with India Cabaret, a short film about strippers in Bombay nightclubs. This 1985 film focused on the state of these women in a male-dominated Indian society. A controversial film, it drew a lukewarm response in India, but was a big hit in the west. Two years later she turned her attention on the dilemma pregnant women face in India when amniocentesis reveals that the child they are carrying is a female. Called Children of Desired Sex, the film told the somewhat exaggerated though tragic story of women who bear a female child.

And then came Salaam Bombay, an Indian-French-British co- production that brought her international stardom. " I wanted to use my influence in documentary film-making to bring an authenticity to screen that has rarely been used in any Indian film," says Nair. Since then, she has not looked back.

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