This book considers the popular cinema of North India (Bollywood) and how it recasts literary classics. It addresses the socio-political implications of popular reinterpretations of elite culture, exploring gender issues and the perceived sexism of popular films and how that plays out when literature is reworked into film.

This book investigates the millennial history of the Indian subcontinent. Through the various methods adopted, the objects and moments examined, it questions various linguistic, literary and artistic appropriations of the past, to address the conflicting comprehensions of the present and also the figuring/imagining of a possible future. The volume engages with this general cultural condition, in relation both to the subcontinent’s current “synchronic” reality and to certain aspects of the culture’s underlying diachronic determinations. It also reveals how the multiple heritages are negotiated through the subcontinent’s long-term sedimentational history. It scrutinizes both conservative interpretations of heritage and a possibly incremental enrichment, and the additional possibility of a mode of appropriation open to a dialectic of creative destruction, in which the patrimonial imperative is challenged, leaving room for processes of renewal and rejuvenation. The collection is organized around four major topics: Orientalism, addressed by way of the Tamil Epic Manimekalai, through the evocation of the Hastings Circle and views on a possible Hindu-Muslim unity sketched out by Sayyid Ahmed Khan; modernism in Indian and Burmese texts written in English; pictorial art, through a consideration of the work of British Asian and Indian film directors; and, finally, the current state of a body of critical thinking on gender.

Tracks the establishment of a national literature in English for independent India over the course of the twentieth century

Brings together some of the best writers and thinkers on Indian literature in English from Rudyard Kipling to Salman Rushdie, covering everything of literary significance in India.

An eclectic collection of essays by the winner of the National Award Swarna Kamal for Best Film Critic 1997 With more than a thousand films produced annually in over fifteen languages India is acknowledged as the largest producer of motion pictures in the world.50 Indian Film Classics provides detailed critical accounts of the most important Indian films beginning with Prem Sanyas (1925) to Rang De Basanti (2006) in languages ranging from Bengali and Hindi to Manipuri and Malayalam and representing a whole gamut of themes: from the 1930s mythological Sant Tukaram to the politically radical Calcutta '71, from art-house favourites like Uski Roti and Mukhamukham to blockbusters like Sholay and Lagaan. These perceptive essays introduce the reader to the many moods that inform Indian cinema, the austerity of Pather Panchali, the lavishness of Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!, the solemnity of Samskara and the fun and frolic of Amar Akbar Anthony.Illustrated with rare posters and stills this is an invaluable guide to the most significant cinema India has ever produced.