'The Best Indian Movies Ever'?

Rediff, these days, is asking some big names in Indian cinema to pick the best 10 Indian films ever.

To self, an out and out non-expert, this poll has brought out a simple fact often vehemently denied: the commercial and the 'arty' streams of Indian cinema are just that, separate streams - though there are odd channels which link them, And there are fundamentally different MINDSETS expressed by the two streams. The choices of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Theodore Baskaran and Amol Palekar stand clearly apart from that of the likes of Subhash Ghai and Pradeep Sarkar (although everyone includes the mandatory Ray or Ghatak).

I have an issue though with all the choosers so far:
- not a single children's film has been chosen by anybody as far as I can make out (no, 'Masoom' is not a children's film). The commercialists could have picked something like 'Chhota Chetan', which, warts-and-all, was a pioneering effort. And at least Adoor should have chosen Aravindan's near-forgotten masterpiece 'Kummaatti' (this movie even inspired the startup of an eponymous children's magazine in Malayalam, which unfortunately, was short-lived; and I am told 'Kummatti' was a hit in Japan(!)).

And I must say although it was modest of Adoor to leave his own works out, his 'blacking out' films by other Malayalam directors, especially Aravindan and John Abraham, seems less than innocent. One could also feel some sympathy for Mohanlal's way of admitting his non-expertise by choosing only films that mean something to himself; still, I felt bad he did not pick even one movie by Padmarajan who gave Lal some of his best roles.