Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

An Indi an woman in a flowing, beaded gown glides through a pond. As the drumbeat of the Indian countryside patter, a dancing phalanx of tunic-clad women twirls. A mosquito net brushes over the woman's lover. A silver anklet splashes into a pond. These are scenes from the trailer of a forthcoming movie, Saawariya. The film, whose Hindi title means beloved, has an Indian director and cast. It is melodramatic. Its characters speak Hindi and burst into eight song-and-dance routines. It is, in other words, vintage Bollywood - but for one thing. It is brought to you by Hollywood. The studio behind Saawariya , Sony Pictures , is the first in what will become a wave of American studios to produce their own kaleidoscopic, song-anddance Bollywood films. The American studios are keen to make money in India, but in a nation where $19 of every $20 spent at the box office goes to domestic films, the studios are deciding to join Bollywood, not try to beat it. "The importing of American fil

Hollywood: Former Playboy model and oil heiress Anna Nicole Smith died Thursday after collapsing at a hotel. She was 39. According to her attorney. Smith, was unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital on Thursday while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., hotel officials said. Smith was mourning the death of her 20-year-old son who died in her hospital room last year . Anna Nicole Smith, the pneumatic blonde whose life played out as an extraordinary tabloid tale — Playboy centerfold, jeans model, bride of an octogenarian oil tycoon, reality-show subject, tragic mother. She was stricken while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and was rushed to a hospital. Edwina Johnson, chief investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, said the cause of death was under investigation and an autopsy would be done on Friday. Just five months ago, Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died suddenly in the Bahamas in what