Craft act

Actor Pankaj Tripathi didn't see a Hindi film until he was in tenth standard. His village didn't get electricity until three years ago, so there was no point buying a television, and he'd walk seven kilometres to the railway station. "There's no pucca road still," he says. "I am hoping they will get one built."

That wish aside, Tripathi considers himself a "bada santusht kisam ka aadmi" (a very contented man), in part because of that so-called deprivation. "The infrastructure and exposure