Salman Rushdie reportedly waxed eloquent about a desi rom-com at the IAAC film fest yesterday. He must’ve been feeling generous about My Bollywood Bride, which sounds a whole lot like Bride and Prejudice…

“… the theme [of] My Bollywood Bride, where this young American man discovers that his girlfriend is a Bollywood movie star, [has happened before] … A major Hollywood movie star had an affair with a pretty Indian girl. When she told him her name was Zeenat Aman, he didn’t know who [she] was. He was clueless…” [Link]

… or he was just misquoted. I’ve never heard the erudite Rushdie speak as awkwardly as he’s quoted at the link above. I chalk it up to not having a recorder.

Kashmera Shah is born and bred in Mumbai… She has also acted in a number of Hindi films including ‘Yes Boss,’ ‘Pyar To Hona Hi Tha,’ ‘Jungle,’ ‘Saazish,’ ‘System’ and ‘Janasheen…’ Brad Listermann was the owner of a highly successful investment bank… “A friend of mine was on Kiss.com. I had just broken up with my boyfriend… we wrote to people who were between… 29-35… I found four guys, one of whom was Brad… Two weeks after the day we had this marathon conversation, we met in Seattle… We went to Vegas and got married… Exactly a year later… we remarried… at the beautiful Bellagio in Las Vegas.” [Link]

The couple has turned their experience into a movie, with Shah playing herself opposite model Jason Lewis from Sex and the City:

After having spent several glorious days with Alex (in a Los Angeles that, thanks to John Drake’s lensing, has never looked more beautiful) Reena must return to India to look after her ailing father. She also must submit to an arranged marriage with the powerful, intimidating Bollywood producer Shekhar (Gulshan Grover)… Alex heads for Mumbai, where, despite knowing only Reena’s fist name, he discovers her face on a billboard and tracks her to a film set… [Link]

Rushdie was also groovin’ on Gandhi at the Bat:

I really want to see Kabaddi Cops — the idea of a bunch of Canadian policemen learning kabaddi in order to integrate with the Asian community… I also want to see Mahatma Gandhi appearing for the New York Yankees in Gandhi at the Bat. It is worth the price of admission…” [Link]

Kal Penn says a smokin’-hot Sarita Choudhury got him into film:

“I grew up seeing a white guy doing a really bad Indian accent in The Simpsons. There were no role models for aspiring Indian actors. It was only when I saw Mississippi Masala in a New Jersey mall with my parents that I realized there could be actors that looked like me…” Penn… tried to buy the film rights to Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake but was beaten to it by Mira Nair… [who] said, “my 14-year-old son [was rooting for] Kal [to] play Gogol, as he is this big Hollywood star…” [Link]