The devotion comes in many forms and Amitabh’s recent visit to New York for a retrospective of his films had the entire South Asian community a-buzz. While he is hardly known to mainstream Americans, the 1,100 seat Alice Tully Hall was quickly sold out at $60 a pop, for a “darshan” of the star. The films were sparsely attended by the South Asian community, after all, they had probably seen them so many times they could recite them backwards. But they certainly turned out in full force for this live viewing, setting off on a teerth yatra or pilgrimage from all over the tri-state area, with grandparents, parents, children and even babies in tow.

And being in that huge hall with Amitabh enthroned on the stage was no less than being at a religious revival. The first time he opened his mouth to greet the audience in his rich baritone, the crowd went wild. Clips of his films were met with howls, whistles and claps. Although cameras were banned in the auditorium, hundreds of flashes went off from digital cameras and camera cell phones.

No rules could come between Amitabh and his devotees. And the babies seemed to bowl their appreciation too.

“Such devotion can still be seen in the hero worship accorded to Bollywood stars. People want to act, talk and look like their idols. Barbers down the decades have been asked to give their customers an Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar or Shahrukh Khan cut and tailors have been told to copy the clothes of the beautiful Madhubala or Aishwarya Rai.”

Stars may be ordinary mortals in real life, but the giant screens give them a larger than life persona and Bollywood cinema is an intriguing canvas with its potent mix of music, stars, drama, dance, lavish costumes and sets. Kabir says Hindi films take on the grand themes — redemption, survival against the odds, the importance of honor and self-respect, and the mission to uphold religious and moral values, something which Hollywood does only rarely now.

“Not so in India, where film directors routinely tackle the big questions head on, even when making a formulaic run-of-the-mill entertainer. It is this particular kind of story-telling that has offered people of Indian origin their most beloved form of popular entertainment.”

Little wonder then that these films hit home with viewers at multiple levels and they associate so strongly with the stars that make it all come alive. So it’s not just Amitabh or Shahrukh or Aishwarya, but practically every star has a huge fan following and everyone from the rag picker on the streets to the suave college girl is excited to see a movie star in the flesh.

“The word ‘fan’ comes from fanatic,” points out Madhulika Khandelwal, director of the Asia Center at Queens College. “Idol is a term routinely used for film stars in India. There has been a worshipping tradition in India of leaders and of turning them into demi gods — and this is not just in Hinduism, it’s almost the national culture.

The stars become leaders, where they are presenting our own lives and views on a big scale. So by seeing Amitabh Bachchan our own identity becomes bigger; our own life could be mundane but by being in touch with these stars and films somehow it’s all on a much bigger scale.”

It is this devotion that has made Bollywood the success story that it is. The Bhakts go to see favorite movies again and again. Take the magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam, which chronicled the ultimate romance between a prince and a courtesan and the clash of love and duty. When it was released in 1960, it became the biggest money-grosser, opening in 150 theaters. It ran uninterrupted for three solid years at the Maratha Mandir Theater in Bombay — yes, the name of the theater was just a coincidence, but it could have been a temple for all the devotion shown!

Says Khandelwal, “There’s a special experience in watching a film together with other people who understand. There’s a cultural language that we all share. I think it’s very much a part of ethnic identity. It’s very hard to first transmit and then to preserve certain traditions and cultural practices, and films are somewhat an easier medium to do that.

“These films are not just films and these stars are not actors and actresses. They really come out of the screen and become a part of people’s lives. For Indians, especially who are living away from home, Bollywood has a much larger role, almost integral to the life away from home, and that’s a kind of connection.”

Cinema for immigrants is about community, of social interactions at theaters, of being with like-minded people who speak the same cultural language. For the young, stars become trendsetters in fashion and style. The latest filmi music is mandatory at weddings and wedding style is inspired by that seen in the movies. Just recently at a huge Indian wedding in Miami, the entire decor was inspired by the lush sets of the film Devdas.

Indeed, stars assume larger than life, leadership roles. The India Day Parades in California or New York do not have a national leader or politician as the grand marshal — it’s always a movie star, who draws huge crowds. Says Khandelwal, “They become almost symbolic not only of the national identity of India, but also a cultural identity of India.”

Busy professionals seem to melt at the sight of a movie star. When Amitabh Bachchan was at a press conference at the Lincoln Center on a week day morning, an entire contingent of fans turned up bearing a huge silver trophy for him. Dr. Akshay Dave, a physician in New Jersey, is an active member of this online fan club, which was started by Fatima Mohammad of South Africa and has 500 members in several countries. The fans meet online to discuss the superstar’s movies.

Asked how a busy physician connected with being a fan, Dave fluttered about the Bachchan charisma, “I’ve always been fascinated by movies, even before I went to medical school. I always wanted to do something with movies, but I went into medicine so I couldn’t accomplish my other dream.”

India may be a land of engineers and doctors and IT professionals, but at heart Indians are all Bollywood Bhakts. Many would have liked to be a part of the Indian cinema, which they grew up on and around which their teen years revolved. The passion for cinema remains, no matter where they go or the professions they pursue.

Whether it is a huge national conference of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) or Asian American Hotel Owner’s Association (AAHOA), one of the chief guests is bound to be a star, such as Madhuri Dixit or Hema Malini. At a conference of Indian psychiatrists, Khandelwal was taken aback observing a psychiatrist in the audience ask about the psychological meaning behind a song from the popular Dev Anand movie Guide, “Tu Jahega Kaha, musafir, jahega.” (Where are you going, traveler?) The audience did not find it odd , however, and the panelist responded seriously to the question.

Another time, Khandelwal attended a conference on the city of Bombay, where an anthropologist presented an entire paper on Dev Anand’s films in Bombay! Bollywood is certainly getting a lot of respect, and the films are not just being seen, they are being analyzed in academia!

During the last few years with the advent of the world wide web, the influence of Bollywood has multiplied many times over, creating a virtual community, an entire online nation of Bollywood Bhakts united by the miracle of the Internet and email. Perhaps more than any other community, people of Indian origin have the most computer geeks and IT professionals.

This band of Bollywood fans is adept at using technology. In a recent BBC online poll, Amitabh Bachchan was voted Star of the Millennium, beating out legends like Marlon Brando, Sir Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Alec Guinness. For Bollywood fans, clicking that mouse was almost their religious duty!

The Internet is currently abuzz over the reigning Queen of Bollywood, the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai. Fans have created no less than17,000 websites in her honor. She receives a mind-boggling 5000-10,000 emails dailyfrom around the world. Since it’s not possible to reply to all of them, she selects them at randoms for response.

Bollywood Bhakts have set up a thriving community on the web — it’s like a huge colorful souk, a bustling bazaar where you can go from link to link, from Shahrukh to Salman to Preity to Rani — each star has its ardent devotees. While some sites are hi-tech marvels, others are pure labors of love of individuals.

Aishwarya appearing on Oprah? Amitabh on Charlie Rose? The news goes out lightening fast through the tom-tom drums of email and thousands of Bollywood fans tune in to watch their heroes in action. The Internet has a thriving culture of countless sites for Bollywood news, movies, stars and fan clubs. There are Bollywood meet-groups from London to Vancouver to Houston to Bombay, in which online fans actually get together to view Bollywood movies. There’s a meet-up group even in Paris!

Click around and you come to bollywhat.com, a fun site for the clueless Bollywood fan who doesn’t know Hindi or Indian culture. It answers such weighty questions as “Why don’t the characters kiss already?” “What does it mean to wear red stuff in the part of your hair?” and “What does it mean to touch someone’s feet?” It also provides detailed synopses, vocabulary lists and transliterated and translated lyrics for films, making it easier for non-Hindi speaking fans to understand the mysteries of Bollywood.

Bollywood Bhakts are a quirky lot who transform their obsessions into their life work: there’s a site hosted by Uday Mahadeo Talwalkar, who has made the world’s biggest typewritten portrait (21.4 feet by 13.3 feet) of Lata Mangeshkar. He used 364 A-4 size sheets of paper and took approximately 236 hours over five years to create his masterpiece.

For Bollywood Bhakts, stars are as important as food, air and water. One fan wrote in an essay on the web, “1942 is an important year in Indian history. Not only because it marks the Quit India Movement, but also because the film industry’s biggest blockbuster Amitabh Bachchan was born.”

Nor are they averse to risking life and limb for their tinsel gods. In Bombay: Maximum City, Suketu Mehta relates the story of two Pakistani boys who were caught by Indian soldiers as they illegally crossed the border in Kashmir: “It turned out that they hadn’t crossed to join the jihad: they had braved death at the border in order to see their idol in the flesh. They had planned to travel to Bombay to see Shahrukh Khan.”

With the new interest in India around the world, Bollywood fans are riding high with each new victory of their stars, be it Lagaan’s Oscar nomination, Aishwarya’s appearance on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world or Amitabh Bachchan’s appointment as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Now Hindi movies often show in mainstream theaters in Manhattan and reviews appear with frequency in major media from The New York Times to The Village Voice. Each becomes a matter of pride for the Bhakts, a validation of what they knew all along — that Bollywood is the best.