Nasreen Munni Kabir, a London-based filmmaker and author, says that Bollywood is one up against Hollywood as "we know something the West doesn't. Song 'n dance can hold up a film."

Music and dance became part of Indian cinema at the same time as Hollywood musicals were at their prime worldwide. Nasreen says: "On the US stage, however, song and dance routines - with the exception of opera - were confined to 'the musical'. On screen, a musical was synonymous with pure entertainment - as though song and dance by definition lightened the tone.

"This is still the case today: a film critics' Top Ten poll in 2002 by the UK's Sight and Sound magazine had only one musical, 'Singin' in the Rain' (1952), at No. 10. This could explain why the West has, until recently, been dismissive of Indian movies, unable to think of them as anything other than lightweight romantic musicals."

But in India, the use of film music has never been seen merely as popular and escapist, perhaps because its origins lie in classical, folk or urban theatre traditions. These are rightly understood as established art forms, with virtually no distinction between narrative, music and song.

So, unlike a majority of their Western counterparts, Indian audiences can sit as comfortably through song-and-dance routines in films with a heavy political tone ("Bombay") as they can in comedies ("Munnabhai MBBS"), she adds.

But the global success of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams (music by A.R. Rahman and choreography by Anthony Van Laast and Farah Khan) has shown that for a global audience musicals are a resilient genre that they can fall in love with all over again. And this is a big opportunity for India's music industry.