In fact, Phoolan told me that in the two years that she was on the run from the law she would take absolutely impossible risks just to go to the movies . What's interesting is that while Phoolan and other dacoits have been influenced by film, they have also had a huge influence on the industry itself. The Indian Gone with the Wind is a film called Sholay , which has broken all box-office records. It's a film about dacoit life. No matter where you are in India, even though this film came out perhaps twenty years ago, you'll find movie houses and video shops still featuring it.
All Indian films pit the good guys against the bad guys, the white hats against the black.
Dacoits in films always wear white hats, so to speak. And knowing Phoolan, even if she doesn't get my copy of the piece, she'll make a point of finding it, because she is very conscious of what is being written about her. It's awfully hard to say how she'll react. I think it's a fair treatment of her, but . . . Phoolan loves to sue people.