OK, so I’m stretching the ”newcomers to Scotland” line a tad. Or maybe you could see Bollywood as a relative newcomer to these shores. Can’t say I remember many Hindi-language movies gracing cinema screens near me when I was growing up. Now a globe-straddling cinematic colossus, Bollywood has well and truly made its mark in our little corner of the world. Hell, they’re even using it to sell Irn Bru.

Weighing in with a budget of just over £17m, Anthony D’Souza’s Blue is small compared to its Hollywood counterparts. Yet it’s one of the most expensive Bollywood flics to date and confirms the ever-growing reach and power of India’s most high-profile cultural export.

Happily, initial wobbles were overcome and, in Scotland, the film has prime-time slots until Thursday at the main Cineworld complexes in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

For want of anything better to do and having never seen a Bollywood film, I went along to Saturday night’s screening at Cineworld Renfrew Street – and what a revelation! This has to rank as one of the most uplifting and enlivening cinematic discoveries I’ve made this year! No, seriously…

A brief plot synopsis: Sagar and Samir Singh (played by Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan) are brothers living continents apart. Sagar works for fishing and shipping magnate Aarav Malhotra (Kumar) in the Bahamas while little bro is a bike racer in Bangkok. A bit too cocky for his own good, Sam accepts a dodgy assignment from the shady Gulshan (Rahul Dev). He fails the assignment, losing a precious package and landing himself with a $50m debt he must repay if he wants to stay alive. 

After high-tailing to his brother’s home in the Bahamas, Sam proceeds to large it with Sagar and Aarav on the beach and in the local nightspots. Always on his mind is Nikki (Katrina Kaif), the beautiful love interest he left behind when he fled Bangkok. Unfortunately for Sam, Gulshan soon catches up him and a desperate race to avoid death ensues – one that culminates in the brothers and Aarav risking life and limb to find a teasure trove imprisoned in a sunken ship.  

OK, so Blue is plagued by clunky, redundant plotting; credibility isn’t just stretched, it’s snapped over and over again.

Blue: the cast

That minor quibble aside, I left the cinema in fits of laughter and feeling refreshed and renewed. Roll on my next Bollywood fix. Hell, even “Chiggy Wiggy” is growing on me…

It would seem Edinburgh’s restaurant scene is weathering the recession better than most. Yet there’s little evidence of resilience on the city’s Brougham Place. A usually cheerful street curving from the Meadows to Tollcross, it enjoys a steady throughflow of students and professionals, and has offered a wide range of international cuisine – from East African to Thai to French – for years. Sadly, it’s suffering from a severe outbreak of toletsignitis and has clearly seen better days.

Things are pretty much full steam ahead at the moment. Having only recently agreed to take on the premises, Cindy will pick up the keys and sign a new contract this Friday. She tells me she feels “stressed” because of a new UK Border Agency rule requiring her to obtain a special permit before she can sponsor workers from Thailand. “My business has been put back by about eight weeks because of it,” she sighs.

Cindy - Sirapassorn Srisotorn to family and friends in Thailand - is 35, single and a native of Bangkok. She arrived in Scotland about six years ago with her fiance from Edinburgh (they’ve since split up). If anyone can help revive Brougham Place, it’s her. She’s a brilliant cook. She’s also ambitious, determined and smart, and holds a degree in Communications from one of Bangkok’s top universities. Previously, after studying English at Telford College, she worked for the distribution arm of a well-known Scottish social affairs magazine, helping to increase sales by 40% in the first half-year of her employment.

She has vivid memories of her father protesting on the streets of Bangkok in support of ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra,

Rioting in Thailand

As she peers enthusiastically through the window of her restaurant, discussing new furniture she hopes to buy, it  seems that Scotland has treated Cindy well. Sadly, this isn’t the case. She’s certainly quick to acknowledge the warmth of the individuals she’s made friends with. However, having worked for DTAC, one of Thailand’s biggest mobile phone companies, and enjoyed numerous employment perks, her ambitions for life in Scotland extend well beyond the restaurant trade. She feels there is little prospect of realising them.

“I wanted to go abroad, speak English, see things,” she says. “I wanted to do a postgraduate marketing degree at Strathclyde – but it wouldn’t have worked.

“Scottish people are quite conservative. It’s not easy to affect their social life. You have to do something that Scottish people like. If you do something they expect, that relates to their social life, you can succeed.

“I know some Thai people who tried to run furniture import/export businesses from Scotland but they never succeed. It seems Scottish people can’t accept something that’s unusual to them.”

Being female hasn’t helped either. “I know I am a business woman. I have much determination to run a business. I am accurate; I can drive things. But life’s not easy here. Not many British people accept a South East Asian woman as leader of the team.”

A new opening with new possibilities. Yet the decision of this woman to open a Thai restaurant also feels like a restriction, an indictment, a waste. What would Cindy be doing now if she’d decided to make her home in London or America?