There was a Marathi film based on caste. The songs were catchy; they set the dance floor on fire. But it was a gut-wrenching romance that ended with honour killing. Despite its dark theme, it was a super hit, so successful that it had to be turned into a Bollywood film to reach a wider audience. The remake was sanitised, glamorised and idiot-proofed, aligned to what filmmakers claimed was in line with the needs of the audience they knew best. Maharashtra became Rajasthan. Brown people became pink. Bandra mythology manifested itself in full glory: hollow, like the froth of a really good cappuccino.

Bandra is a Mumbai suburb, the home of Bollywood stars and major filmmakers, a metaphor for Bollywood glamour. It is a mythic world where India has no poverty, where everything looks like Switzerland, London and New York, and everyone is fair, bejewelled, fashionable and fabulous, even in heartbreak and homophobia.