Few people in the west would be curious about Rani Mukherjee unless her name is juxtaposed with Ben Affleck. No, J Lo need not worry as Rani ain’t running away with her big Ben.

This is about the merging of Hollywood, even if at an incipient stage, with Bollywood, India’s humongous film industry which churns out more than 700 films every year compared to Hollywood’s 250.

The latest instance is of Rani and Affleck probably coming together in a crossover film Bombay California to be directed by avant-garde director Dev Benegal. Reports in the Indian media suggest that another pin-up idol Ethan Hawke has also consented to star in the movie, but Affleck is likely to get the nod to romance Rani.

This Bollywood Hollywood pronouncement comes in the wake of several commercial and artistic tie-ups, though it is yet too early to predict that mainstream America will take to dancing around trees, a staple of Hindi film songs, in a big way.

In the past year, there have been several more instances of casting crossovers. Bo Derek fleetingly sizzles in a bikini act a la 10 alongside India’s numero uno actor Amitabh Bachchan, in the just released Kaizad Gustad’s Boom. Baywatch star Brenda Rodericks plays the American lead in top director Vashu Bhagnani’s Out of Control.

Two more top Indian actresses have been paired with foreign actors. There is Bollywood diva Aishwaria Rai with Jaoquin Phoenix in Bride & Prejudice by Gurinder Chaddha of the Bend it Like Bechkam fame. And actress Masumi is starring with Russian actor Valery Nikolaev in the movie Gate to Heaven.

But, it is too early to expect Americans to start humming Indian numbers such as Humma Humma. Hindi movies are being reviewed by mainstream publications such as the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, but more out of the growth of immigrant readership. Though, most Bollywood movies are now released in the US same day as India, gradually on more and more movie screens, they cater to the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) numbering over 20 million, an economically powerful community. Other sections of the south Asian population from Pakistan and Bangladesh also form an audience. In keeping with patron interest, several Hindi blockbusters deal with the theme of an American Indian boy returning to his roots, falling in love with a virginal village belle and finding solace among family and native friends, acutely missing back in the alien land USA.

There have been attempts to broad base the reach. In May this year American television audiences got their first extended taste of Bollywood when Turner Classic Movies broadcast a 12-film festival of Hindi blockbusters. The Bollywood bonanza, co-hosted by filmmaker Ismail Merchant, focused on what Turner called "the prolific commercial film industry that began in India in the early 1930s and has since gone on to create the most-viewed films in the world."

Yet, among Americans, the serious film crowd in the US is still engaged by India´s art film circuit of movies made by the late Satyajit Ray and films by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The Smithsonian recently hosted a retrospective of Gopalakrishnan’s movies.

If there has been a successful Hollywood-Bollywood merging, it has been in the Indian offices of American studios like Columbia Tristar and Twentieth Century Fox. While billion dollar Hollywood blockbusters continue to be unleashed across the country, Fox and company are also emerging as key distributors of small budget Indian films. Columbia Tristar distributed 42 Indian movies last year simultaneously unleashing Terminator 3 and Maa Santoshi Maa (Mother God Mother) primarily for the rural market. Warner Bros and Paramount Films are also reportedly on the verge of finalizing long-term plans to distribute Hindi and English movies in India. It is estimated that these studios control 10 per cent of the Indian film market.

And, if there is a more widespread American interest in Indian movies, it is the new genre of crossover movies, in which Rani and Affleck are likely to appear, with smart and funky English scripts. These movies are a product of urban, modern, sometimes transnational Indian experience, with the plots often based in western locations. Among the recent releases include NRI-made films like Bend It Like Beckham, Mystic Masseur, Bollywood-Hollywood, American Desi. American and British moviegoers are as gaga over the ravishing Lisa Ray, as any other Indian. Knigtley is a star courtesy her role in Bend it Like Beckham.

Indian productions such as Mr and Mrs Iyer, Freaky Chakra, Everybody Says I Am Fine, Jhankar Beats, Jogger’s Park woven around English speaking protagonists are also being viewed.

But, for the staple Bollywood fare there is still a way to go. It sure will take a while for Americans to figure out why top Indian actors and actresses are required to dance and run around trees in such movies. Even most Indians have not cracked this one.