India, Nov. 15 -- Last weekend, I booked tickets at an IMAX theatre to watch the latest big budget offering from Bollywood, Ramayana (the first part). The two-part series cost the makers Rs.4,000 crore. Watching it is a bit like ordering khichdi at a Michelin-starred restaurant. It's a dish you've grown up eating, one whose taste is deeply embedded in your childhood memories. But you're curious to see what a Michelin-starred chef, armed with exotic ingredients, fancy equipment, and an extravagant budget, can do with something so familiar.

Naturally, the ticket costs four figures, and every piece of the cheese-caramel popcorn in my medium-sized bucket costs me Rs.5. You get the drift. Another four digits.

The mandatory cancer awareness a...