• Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
• The Guardian,

Bollywood’s Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan lend their voices to Roadside Romeo, Disney’s first animated movie in Hindi. Photograph: PR

It's a marriage made in movie heaven. Bollywood and Hollywood, which have long peddled shared visions of chaste romance and unlikely friendships, today finally ties the knot with Disney's first Indian-made animated feature film in Hindi: Roadside Romeo.

The movie, which took two years to make, tells the story of a pampered pet dog after he is abandoned on the streets of Mumbai. Released today, for the start of India's Diwali holiday weekend, the film is a joint venture between Walt Disney Pictures and Yash Raj Films.

Being made in India meant the budget, thought to be $7m (£4m), was 15 times less than the average cost of Disney's Pixar movies such as Ratatouille.

In a tacit admission that a talking mouse could not be repackaged for Indian audiences, Roadside Romeo features Bollywood songs and dance numbers and the voices of its leading couple, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.

Disney said it wanted to build a "brand that touches Indian families everyday, [and has] reach and relevance ... [Disney is] strong in building creative properties".

And with a slump in cinema takings expected in the west there is a rush to tap into the Bollywood box office.

Mahesh Samat, Disney's managing director in India, said: "India annually sees 3.6bn movie admissions ... [ticket prices are] expected to go up to 80 rupees [£1] in five years. Which means we are talking about a $7bn box office."

Disney's new film is part of a trend that has seen tinseltown and India's "place of illusions" grow ever closer. Earlier this month Rupert Murdoch's News Corp struck a multi-movie deal with a top Bollywood producer. The actor Will Smith has a two-movie deal with Mumbai-based UTV, while the Indian billionaire Anil Ambani has invested $300m in Steven Spielberg's new DreamWorks film studio.

But to make it big in Bollywood requires more than just importing foreign talent, scripts and actors.

"Indian television is where US companies found out they could not just dub blockbusters into local languages. It does not work. Once they produced locally they struck it big. Murdoch did it with Star TV. So did Sony. So did Disney," said Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, a media consultant. "Now they have moved to cinema.

"Movies are part of the cultural fabric of India ... People instinctively know here what doesn't feel Indian and they reject it pretty quickly."

Failure to adjust to Indian tastes can be disastrous. Last year Sony Pictures became the first major US studio to produce a Hindi-language movie: Saawariya, or Beloved. But the romantic Bergman-esque film, based on Dostoevsky's White Nights, was trounced at the box office by a star-studded musical extravaganza Om Shanti Om.

Disney's decision to hire an Indian animation firm, Elxsi, part of the giant Tata group, for Roadside Romeo was an acknowledgement of an unsung part of India's outsourcing success story. If you see a Hollywood blockbuster there is a good chance a chunk of its computer-generated imagery was made in India.

One advantage Elxsi had was access to the Tata-built EKA, the world's fourth fastest supercomputer.

"Because of the speed of the calculations required we could render the graphics much faster than anyone else," said Subramaniam Ramadorai, the head of Tata Consultancy Services.

WASHINGTON -- I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to write about Sarah Palin's $150,000 shop op.

Then my husband called to say that this was just up my alley. (Given the state of our family budget, I'm not sure that encouraging me to think about buying expensive clothes was entirely in his self-interest.)

And my (male) boss raised it at our morning meeting.

I was planning to spend the day doing some Very Serious Reporting about how to handle the upcoming presidential transition, which is going to be awfully tricky to navigate no matter who wins.

But, hey, if these guys insist on frivolity, so be it. Between reading a treatise on transitions past and clicking around the Neiman Marcus Web site to figure out how Palin actually managed to drop $75,000 in one expensive swoop -- well, even though I am, alas, not one of those Marcuses, the latter's a lot more tempting.

It is true -- just ask Hillary Clinton -- that it takes a lot more time and money for a woman politician to be in the national spotlight than it does for a man.

But assume that even though she is the governor of Alaska, Palin's pre-nomination closet was nothing but North Face fleece and she needed to build a wardrobe from scratch. Assume she's got a little over two months on the campaign trail, and her handlers said it's simply not fashionable to wear each outfit more than twice.

So, say, 35 outfits -- jacket, skirt, shoes, the whole shebang -- which seems like an awful lot. At $150,000, that would be $4,285 each. I'm on the Neiman Marcus site now, and I'm having a hard time managing to spend that much. Here's a lovely Armani Collezioni asymmetric jersey jacket ($1,635), white blouse ($775) and classic pencil skirt (a bargain at $475).

Throw in a pair of Christian Louboutin Simple 100 Pumps -- I found them online at Saks for $575 -- and you're still not there.

Talk about a proven capacity for executive decision-making. I'm impressed, really, that she could manage to spend so much so fast.

Did they not think anyone one would find this stuff buried in the Republican National Committee reports -- when these things are electronically searchable?

That even if she needed new clothes and maybe wasn't interested in putting it on the Palin family MasterCard, it was a good idea to drop this big a bundle on Mrs. Non-elitist Hockey Mom -- even assuming this is a legitimate use of campaign funds? Hint: Macy's has some handy 20-percent-off coupons. Hey, there's a giant outlet mall in Virginia that has some great buys -- and it's in a swing state!

That it's a good idea, when the shopping spree turns up on the campaign reports, to say: "The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent"? Strategic decisions -- like what, St. John vs. Dior?

The later explanation -- "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign" -- reminded me of the Reagan White House scrambling to explain Nancy's "borrowed" designer clothes.

For all that maverick reformer talk, Palin seems to have a problem with the walk part. The Associated Press reported Tuesday on Palin's habit of inviting her kids along on expensive official trips -- and billing the state.

"In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women's leadership conference," AP reported. "Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park."

Given their governor's taste in clothes, I guess Alaska taxpayers should be relieved Palin was frugal enough to share the room.

All of which leads to an update of the governor's famous convention quip. What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a pit bull?

Lipstick and $150,000 worth of designer clothes.

Monday, October 06, 2008 6:25 PM