Ah, I love generalizing. No, this will not help you understand the entire Indian psyche. There is no Indian psyche, as the general elections are gleefully teaching us.

Without further ado, my totally unscientific list of the five movies that you must see so you don’t feel like such a friggin’ expat when your friends look at you with pity and say, ‘You’ve never seen SHOLAY? How long have you lived here?”

1. Sholay

Obviously. It’s the longest-running, highest-grossing film in the country. Not only do you get the world’s best motorcycle dance routine, you also get the world’s best rickshaw dance sequence. It’s humor and it’s suspense and it’s the Big B being cute and not being a creepy old man hitting on young girls. Plus, I love that this is supposed to be based on the super macho Western movie, The Magnificent Seven, but is actually two men gallivanting around the countryside singing on motorcycles.

2. Om Shanti Om

You probably won’t understand about 99% of the references to the films of the 70s, but splicing the star into old movies is a great primer on filmi history. And, what can I say? Shah Ruh Khan is a sexy, sexy man.

3. Umrao Jaan

Not the Aishwarya Rai version–you have to straight to the original. It’s awful. Heart-rendering. Depressing. Beautiful. The bonds of society are cruel and unusual. And men are never strong enough to overthrow their parents to be with the woman they love, especailly when she happens to be a beautiful, intelligent, good woman who just happened to have been sold into courtesan-ship at a young age. It’s not her fault. And courtesans are not whores. They are poets. And poor, poor Umrao Jaan had no other option and if you can’t you understand how depressing it all is, you have a cold, shrivilled, little heart.

4. Rang de Basanti

Particularly if you’re a blond British girl who wants to be a documentary film-maker and just happens to speak fluent Hindi and can dance Bollywood-style really, really well. Then this is totally the movie for you.

5. Mother India

Okay, I’ve never actually seen this film. But everyone says I should see it because before Slumdog Millionaire, it was like the original Slumdog Millionaire. I don’t really know what that means, since this is a movie about a mother opening a canal, not a boy on a gameshow. But maybe if you see it you can explain it.