Take a tour to see how Indian cinema has found foreign fans

Julia Wessel was one of them. "I loved everything about it, especially the Shava Shavasong," she recalls. "My mum never cries at funerals, but K3G got to her!" Fans connected via Web boards back then, but Wessel knew what they needed something more concrete. So in 2006, she quit studying cultural anthropology to edit Ishq, a slick German-language Bollywood magazine.

Ishq, at 6.50 euros, is not cheap. But nine years on, it boasts a readership of 10,000 across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with 90,000 fans on Facebook.

"About 95 per cent of these are women," Wessel says. "They're drawn to the movies because German culture can be quite cold, especially for men. In actors like Shah Rukh, they see a guy who is soft, romantic, not afraid to cry or show his emotional side." It's probably why Ishq's readers also love Shahid Kapoor ("Even his bad films, though he redeemed himself with Haider.") and Hritik Roshan. Wessel says that when Khan was filming Don 2 in Berlin, fans gathered by his hotel window to catch sight of him. The star must have obliged, for the women now commemorate the day they saw him!

Shah Rukh and the other Khans offer more than romance for Europe, Wessel says. "They're positive, entertaining role models, especially at a time of Islamophobia." The films sit oddly with the region's liberal mindset. "My Indian friend who's a feminist can't understand why I love Karan Johar films," she says. "My mum just figured out how arranged marriages work. But marrying a man you don't know... that's where I draw the line."

For the german part it's absolutely correct ! 😉