While the world is still far behind in its perception of India as the land of snake charmers and of Indian cinema as reels and reels of melodrama interrupted by a string of costume song and dances, Bollywood has long crashed through that "glass ceiling".

The Americans may have changed their perception just that little bit after Lagaan and Rang De Basanti and Water staked their claims for the Oscars. But largely the Americans too think of Indian cinema they identify it with classic Bollywood and two flowers kissing.

If at all the West thinks about the 'other' Indian cinema — often called art cinema — they probably think of the lyrical naturalism of Satyajit Ray whose greatest films were made decades ago.

To some extent "India Now," a series of nine features and two shorts at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York will help diffuse that look, between Bollywood and not-Bollywood.

All but two of these films are independent productions, financed outside the commercial studio system, but in terms of production values, aesthetic purpose and of course entertainment value, not much separates the best of these films from the adventurous Bollywood selections.

Joshua Siegel, assistant curator in the museum's department of film, said he wanted to show the diversity of the largest film industry in the world, "not to be encyclopedic, but to give a sense of the range and of the genres."

Siegel organised the series with Uma Da Cunha, a guest curator based in India. The films at the Museum of Modern Art, all produced within the last two years, include a documentary, an animated short, a Shakespearean adaptation, a movie inspired by T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, a drama about the 2002 Gujarat riots, comedies, tragedies and, of course, some glorious melodramas.

There is a certain common thread that runs through the spectrum range of films. The fragility of the middleclass, the betrayal of secular ideals, and the dilemma of working and living abroad recur repeatedly in the themes.

Most ineterestingly however is the woman as the pivot on which the the stories move. "India Now," anchored by four strong films, two independent and two Bollywood, begins with a jolt of communal violence.

Parzania, based on a true story of a Parsi boy who disappeared during the riots in Gujarat, is a straight-from-the-heart film about a gut-wrenching national tragedy when more than 1,000 people were killed when Hindu mobs attacked Muslims and other non-Hindus.

Gandhian ideals are looked at over the shoulder in Parzania, which begins with a schoolroom lesson about the "great secular democracy of India" and ends with the anguished testimony of the lost boy's mother (a searing performance by Sarika for which she won the National Award) calling the government to account: We were middle-class people waiting for the police to protect us, she says; isn't it the government's duty to provide safety and security for its citizens?

Rahul Dholakia, a Gujarati now living in Los Angeles, directed Parzania, an independent production mainly in English. The film was cleared for release in Gujarat but has not yet been screened because of threatened violence by extremists.

Elsewhere in India, it hit a niche audience between the eyes, but did not send the cash registers ringing.

A film about "Sisterhood" is Nagesh Kukunoor's Dor, which has made its mark with a discerning audienece in India, speaks a powerful language in what has been termed "a feminist buddy film" and is all about the unlikely bond between a self-assured Muslim woman and a shy, oppressed Hindu widow.

It may sound like typical Bollywood masala, but is far from it. Besidxes, it is a technically accomplished film made by oen of the bright sparks in recent years, Kukunoor, and has some fine performances by Gul Panag and Ayesha Takia.

The story turns on the Muslim woman needing the Hindu to sign papers pardoning her husband, who is accused of murdering the Hindu woman's husband in Saudi Arabia, where the two men were working.

Shot in two visually delightful locations (the greenery of Himachal Pradesh and the sandy deserts of Rajasthanl), Dor is a striking social drama. Rather different is the urban comedy, Khosla Ka Ghosla , which shows the middleclass fighting to enjoy its privileges.

Here is the modern Indian family in all its splendour: a short-haired daughter draped in Western clothes; the studious, bespectacled engineer son, Cherry, waiting to fly to his job in America; the girlfriend who dares to live alone in the big bad city; the father, who doesn't think decency is on the decline.

Then there is Omkara, which is testimony to Bollywood's growing stature and its energised side. In the hands of the director Vishal Bhardwaj, this adaptation of Othello dem olishes the image of Bollywood being merely a "lifter" of plots and other films, with a terrific adaptation of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Omkara is a half-caste gangster general and his Desdemona, Dolly, is coveted for her fair and lovely looks. Set in the dusty heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Omkara revels in in its ambience and folk-inflected musical score sets it apart from a whole body of Bollywood productions.

Each selection in "India Now" has its interests and pleasures, and Kaalpurush, Shoonya, Maati Maay, The Bong Connection or the Manipuri documentary A Cry in the Dark are handsome examples of that. - (SAMPURN)