When sophomore biology major Abhas Mathur moved to the United States from India nearly two decades ago, he was too young to realize the culture he had left behind.

But growing up in this country, Mathur found something that brought India home, despite the thousands of miles that separated him from his native New Delhi. It was Bollywood – films produced on a grand scale, full of beautiful men and women in traditional Indian garb struggling with forbidden love – that brought the vibrant costumes and traditional dance and music of India into his living room.

“One of the main ways for me to stay in touch with my culture was through Bollywood and other movies,” Mathur said. “In India, Bollywood is a really big part of the culture.”

Bollywood, India’s premier film industry and an international phenomenon, rivals Hollywood in movie production and rakes in millions of dollars each year. With plots that emphasize family honor, overblown romances and elaborate dance routines, Bollywood has grown to epitomize Indian pop culture to the Western world and, for some university students, has become a link to their native home.

Each week, Mathur said his father would bring home a Bollywood film for the whole family to watch together. The films, Mathur and other students said, provide valuable context for them to use when reconnecting with their heritage. They offer a cultural lens, a framework for the student’s developing ideas of personal and ethnic identity.

Now, students have more opportunities to reconnect with the Indian Film Series offered in Stamp Student Union’s Hoff Theater.

Brought to campus last week by student organization Develop, Empower and Synergize India, the film series was part of the campus’s first annual India Week. Since 2003, DESI has worked to give students examples of “India’s richness,” said president Anupama Ramachandran.

Although India Week – also organized by the Office of International Programs – is now over, DESI has already planned the film series for the rest of the year and hopes the program will continue indefinitely.

“We want to popularize these movies because they really are gaining world fame,” Ramachandran said. “Much of the world watches Indian movies, and we wanted to bring that to the University of Maryland. Students don’t find their culture in the films, but the films are an extension of the culture they already have.”

Other events during the week besides the film series – such as panel discussions about democracy and business in India – drew large, multiracial crowds. During Friday’s India Cultural Evening, the country’s diversity was showcased through a Bollywood-style fashion show and live music and dance, where exotic costumes, lavish choreography and intricate rhythmic beats gave the show a stylized feel.

Gaurav Madan, a senior government and politics major who saw part of the fashion show and the performances afterward, was impressed and uplifted by the many facets of his Indian culture.

“It was cool to kick it with some brown people,” he said. “I kinda miss that at Maryland sometimes.”

Apart from India Week, the year-long film series has sparked an interest among Indian students because of Bollywood’s important role in their cultural communities, and it gives them an opportunity to re-engage in a family-oriented hobby similar to Mathur’s, students said.

“I’m Indian, so I just grew up with Indian films,” said Dheera Kapoor, a junior neurobiology and physiology and art history double major. “My parents would watch [Bollywood films] and I would sit with them. Then I kind of liked them.”

Drawn by the colorful singing and dancing numbers, Kapoor said she was also aware of the films’ authenticity and stark contrast to Hollywood films.

“You get to see the Indian culture with actual Indians,” she added. “I haven’t been to India since I was 3, so the cultural things in my life come from those films. Here, everything is so Americanized. So some of the movies do help you to reconnect.”

Now one of 193 members in the “Bollywood UMD” Facebook group, Kapoor said she is excited for the upcoming Hoff showings like Mississippi Masala, Omkara and Maqbool.

And although Bollywood is sometimes stereotyped as producing unrealistic love stories, Mathur says he’s seen the industry’s range of themes expand over the last few years. This transition has sustained Mathur’s interest in the films – something Bollywood’s exuberant choreography and music could not do alone.

“Songs are usually incorporated, but Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world,” he said. “Lately, they’ve seen a change into real cinema. Song and dance isn’t as common as it used to be.”

From plotlines that emphasize melodrama and suspense to films centered around identity and cultural issues, Bollywood is making itself known even in overseas industry circles. Production giants like Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox have taken notice and recently begun creating offices in India.

Ramachandran, who was involved in the selection process of Hoff showings, said DESI tried to include smaller Indian movies that highlight the regional flavor of the country in addition to the grandscale Bollywood blockbusters.

She added that the series will include Indian versions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello, but admits the Bollywood films are the most popular offerings.

“I think the essential thing that runs through all the movies is the vibrance of India. A student who doesn’t know much about India would be drawn to the movies because of the vibrance, dancing and singing,” Ramachandran said. “But then the Indian culture starts to sink in.”

Contact reporter Kevin Rector at rectordbk@gmail.com.