The biggest Bollywood market outside India is...?

London? New Jersey? That's your best guess?

Quite wrong. Horribly wrong. Its Square One (the biggest mall in Ontario) Cineplex in Mississauga, Ontario. How do I know that you ask?

My close friend is an author and his brother is an up-coming director and both are working on a movie based on my friend's short story set in New Delhi. The casting is almost over and excellent character actors like Naseeruddin Shah are set to star in it. So when he wanted to figure out how to market it to the huge Indian crowd abroad he approached the distributors in Toronto. It was quite difficult to get a foot in the door. So while he was casting in India he approached the distributors in Mumbai. And when asked they said Square One Cineplex (incidently that's a stone's throw away from our place here) is their biggest market for Hindi movies and asked him if he knew about it; its in Mississauga they added. He was like 'yeah, I live there'!!! Ask anyone in India if they know about Mississauga and am sure you would get blank stares. And here is this guy talking about it. And believe me there's a huge crowd and all new movies release the same day here. When you think about it, its quite funny to think that its easier to release a movie in Mississauga or Toronto (which have a sizeable Indian population) through a distributor sitting in Mumbai rather than a local one! I was quite amazed by this new piece of information. And you thought you knew where the biggest market abroad for Bollywood movies were!