Washington, Jan. 12: Sixty-three years after Kumar Pallana brought Indian celluloid talent to America for the first time, Hollywood last night unreservedly embraced Bollywood when Slumdog Millionaire swept all four Golden Globe awards for which the Indo-British film was nominated.

The sweep of the Golden Globes by Slumdog has set Hollywood abuzz that the film adaptation of a best-selling novel, Q & A, by Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup is likely to be the hot favourite at this year’s Oscar ceremonies.

Swarup told The Telegraph in an interview today that Slumdog’s spectacular showing on Golden Globes night was “huge for Indian entertainment”. He said that “after Gandhi, this is the first Indian film to go truly global”.

Swarup stressed that he was describing the film as “Indian” within quotes because, like the Richard Attenborough production about the life of the Mahatma, Slumdog is a British production shot in India with ethnic Indian actors.

The author of Q & A, who is India’s deputy high commissioner to South Africa, predicted that Slumdog’s global success will persuade Hollywood to go looking to India not only for shooting locales, but also for stories.

“We are now beyond merely providing a locale in Udaipur’s Lake Palace for shooting Octopussy,” the 13th spy film in the James Bond series that was shot partly in India.

“India is a nation of a billion stories,” Swarup said. “One day’s newspaper has enough plots for a few novels.”

He should know. The plot of Q & A is based on life stories from Mumbai’s Dharavi slum and how a boy from the slum is arrested because he won the mass-viewership TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati.

Swarup revealed that his second novel Six Suspects, published in August last year, has been optioned by BBC in the UK to be made into a film.

The plot of Six Suspects is built around the shooting of Jessica Lall, the barmaid who was killed by a powerful youth in Delhi, the so-called BMW case where children from elite families in the capital mowed down several people on the roadside and other incidents of that kind.

Although I.S. Johar followed Kumar Pallana to Hollywood, Dilip Kumar famously turned down a role in Lawrence of Arabia and Lagaan was a blip on Oscar night seven years ago, the Golden Globes last night represented Hollywood’s unhesitating acknowledgement and recognition of Bollywood.

Personifying that recognition was Shah Rukh Khan, who was on the stage with Slumdog’s lead actress Freida Pinto to present the film clip of the Indo-British entry.

A.R. Rahman, who won a Golden Globe for the best score for this film, came on the stage too. Many Indian Americans who were glued to their TV sets choked up when Rahman thanked “a billion people of India” while accepting the award.

Later, the film’s top cast, including Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor, were greeted to a standing ovation on the podium after Tom Cruise declared that Slumdog had hit the jackpot as this year’s best picture.

The film scored for best direction and for best screenplay as well.

Last night’s four Golden Globes were the culmination of wide acclaim for Slumdog at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado and at the Toronto International Film Festival recently.

Shortly afterwards, the film won five out of its six nominations at the prestigious Critics Choice Awards in California last week and scored as the best film at the National Board of Review in New York last month.