A friend, an acquaintance, a colleague, whoever, comes up to you and says “You watch Indian films, right? Can you recommend one for me?”

Not to be taken lightly, right? You hold in your hands the fate of someone’s relationship with an entire subcontinent of cinema. If you choose wisely, you’ve made a new friend or strengthened a bond - at the least have a new film-watching companion. But if it goes wrong, you find yourself justifying pleather pants or defending Kareena Kapoor or assuring someone that they need not worry too hard about why om has the all the resonance of the living universe and just to trust that it does or encouraging someone to just sit tight while we take a momentary detour to Switzerland because we’ll get back to Mumbai in just a minute. It’s even worse if you’re present for the watching, witnessing every little reaction, trying to figure out when you should pipe up to explain something or acknowledge ridiculousness - or trying to discern whether you’ll get chucked out of the room if you dance along to your favorite picturization.

You’re responsible.

Possible outcomes:

• they spend the entire film with their nose scrunched up, bewildered and lost
• they spend the first half of the film with their nose scrunched up, bewildered and lost, and the second half completely unengaged and/or unhappy
• they hate it from the get-go
• they spend the first half of the film with their nose scrunched up, bewildered and lost, and the second half increasingly interested and/or taken in, maybe dancing a little bit in their seat
• they’re intrigued and want to see more
• and the holy grail, the convert, the kindred spirit, who turns to you, eyes wide, and says “this is genius.”

Here and there in life there have been things that I feel really strongly about other people getting excited about - the Beatles, Bridget Jones’s Diary (the book), my local pancake house - and my love of Hindi cinema does not allow me to be casual about acquainting others with it. I can’t help but take the whole process way too seriously. Sometimes I wonder if what I’m really worried about is that a rejection of Bollywood is a rejection of me, even though I know better, even though I do in fact realize that Indian movies couldn’t possibly be everybody’s cup of tea - universal themes and classic plot elements notwithstanding.

But with most people there’s a potential that they’ll like at least one or two films, or one or two things in any given film, that something in the masala will grab them, and it’s up to you to come up with just the right selection. But more often than not, even knowing the possibility for a good fit is out there, I still find myself frozen by my genuine hope that people will like what I choose for them.

After a year or so of recommending things to new watchers, I’m bored with Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai, solid and reliable as they are. I’ve just had a request from one of my closest friends to recommend something for her husband, and I have no idea what to do. I quizzed her on his movie tastes, hoping for a clue, but I’m unable to translate his other likes and general personality into a film title. How do you all do it? How do you choose? What has gone over like gangbusters, and what has tanked miserably? Do you ever recommend titles or stars that you yourself don’t really like if you think the viewer will respond to them? Do you give disclaimers and explanations - “I know three hours seems long, but the musical numbers take up a good fourth of that” - or just hand them a DVD and hope for the best?