never going to use it. He just wanted to have it.” Taneja may have wanted to outshine
his fellow immigrants, but his wife felt otherwise, Gharai said. Deepti Taneja preferred her used Honda to her hus- band’s parade of Mercedes sedans, he said. “It’s too big,” she told Gharai as he
was building the house. “Why do we need it?”
Opposite page: hrithik Roshan, among the Bollywood stars promoted by Taneja, at MCi Center in May 2002.
This page, top left: Taneja with himesh Reshammiya, star of “aap Kaa surroor: The Moviee — The Real Luv story” in 2006.
Bottom left: Taneja with Bollywood actor amitabh Bachchan (second from left) in 1996.
M
of ceremonies. Afterward, he threw elaborate receptions where dozens of guests could mingle with the celebrities from overseas. “These concerts promote our cul-
ture to the generation that’s born here,” Taneja told a Washington Post reporter in 2002. “They should know their iden- tity, and Indian cinema is the best way of keeping them aware of it. … It makes me feel I’m keeping India close to the Indians overseas.” He spared no expense when it came
to cosseting the Bollywood stars, provid- ing stretch limousines, shopping allow- ances and funds for travel to and from India, business associates said. When sister singing sensations Karisma and Kareena Kapoor toured, Taneja made sure their dressing rooms were filled with flowers — red roses for Karisma and yellow blooms for Kareena. Vaughn Mordenti, a New Orleans
event producer who worked often with Taneja, recalls quaffing rum and Cokes
with Taneja in a limousine after a show in Houston. “We all kind of drank a little too much,” he recalled. The next thing he knew, another guest in the party had commanded the limo driver to speed backward in circles around the empty- ing stadium parking lot. “Vijay is laugh- ing and rolling on the floor,” Mordenti recalled. “I don’t know how long we did that. … We were paying [the driver] to drive backwards, so he did.” Taneja hired McLean architect and
builder Ali Gharai to build him what he hoped would be the biggest house in Fairfax. “He wanted it to be different from
other Indian clients, who are super con- servative,” Gharai said. “He kept adding things as time went on. ‘How about a pool? How about a theater? How about a [squash] court?’ … I knew he was
See interviews and archival footage about the rise and fall of
Vijay Taneja at
washingtonpost.com/ magazine.
ost Americans were only just waking up to the charms of the colorful musicals made in India, the largest film indus-
try in the world. This was long before the success of the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” but Taneja felt it was only a matter of time before the American appetite for such films would explode. He began traveling to India, looking for film projects to invest in. In 2006, Taneja organized a concert tour for a doe-eyed young musician named Himesh Resh- ammiya who was on the cusp of fame in India. Taneja became convinced he could make Reshammiya a star. “He was still waiting for that day
that someone would give him a break,” Taneja recalled in an interview with a local Indian television station, Darshan TV, in 2007. “I said, ‘Let’s start it.’ I be- lieve in the guy.” The two agreed to make a movie
together, and “Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee — The Real Luv Story” began filming in Germany later that year. But when it was released in 2007,
critics jeered the film’s flimsy plotline and the acting of its young star. It had been optimistically projected to earn box office receipts of up to $37 million but made about $3 million. In the end, Taneja would recoup
only about $1.8 million of his more than $10 million investment, according to a lawsuit he filed against Reshammiya seeking an accounting of the box office receipts in U.S. District Court in the District that was later dismissed. “He was very disappointed,” said
Bharat Jotwani, a New Jersey entertain- ment promoter who knew Taneja well. “In Hollywood, they make movies backed by market research. In Bollywood, in Bombay, you make daydreams.”
June 6, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 25
TOP LEFT VIDEO STILL COURTESY OF BALA CHANDRAN; BOTTOM LEFT PHOTOGRAPH BY BALA CHANDRAN
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