Indian cinema is more interesting than Hollywood and it is where the country has found itself, Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul said here Friday.

This accolade, coming as it did from the writer known for his unrelenting diagnosis of Indian cultural life, should certainly cheer Bollywood, which is often criticised for being cliché-ridden and stealing freely from Hollywood films.

The 72-year-old author was speaking at the India Today conclave here.

Naipaul's praise for Bollywood stood in sharp contrast to his critique of Indian writing in English, which he said tended to become exotic in the process of trying to please the West.

"There is no room for ideas outside politics. There is no great philosopher or thinker grappling with complex issues," bemoaned Naipaul while analysing the intellectual decline of India.

Rejecting the idea of ashram (monastery) as "parasitic and intellectually false", he called on Indians to engage passionately with "a world where one kind of imperfection replaces another".

"History shows success in the world goes hand in hand with intellectual advance," he declared.