New Delhi, Nov. 12 -- The winter of 1976 marked our debut in exploring Hollywood films on Sunday mornings. There was a caveat: most of the films screened were dubbed imports from across Europe, the majority from France and Italy. But for us, everything, even British films, was Hollywood. And despite our convent education, we struggled to understand English as spoken by Americans, the English, the Irish, the Scots, and, for that matter, almost any nationality except Indians.

Our first film was Borsalino (1970), starring Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo. I saw Belmondo again in The Burglars (1971) and Fear Over the City (1975). Later, I learnt that he was quite a legend, having starred in Chabrol's A Double Tour (1959) and Godard's Breat...