{"title":"‘Balla Ghooma Stadium jhooma’: Shifting discourse of cricket commentary in India","authors":"R. Thakur","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1940547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940547","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Broadcasting commentary has developed a unique relationship with cricket wherein it performatively mediates the changing discourse that surrounds the game. Although, the social history of cricket in India has gained a considerable academic space, the cultural history of cricket commentary in India remains a fairly uncharted territory. The paper by placing it within the cultural studies framework attempts to trace cricket’s auratic presence in the popular imagination. Cricket’s acculturation in India is unique to its radio sonic mapping, televisual spectacle and its experience with modernity. It argues how the cultural economy of cricket through radio and television commentary, covering cricket’s varied format over the years constantly informed and negotiated its linguistic, cultural and economic registers. The attempt is to foreground the ways in which its distinct structures of listening experience uniquely fostered decolonisation and indigenous appropriation of the game. Above all, interpreting the materialistic aesthetics of the broadcast medium, the shifting trajectory of cricket broadcast delineates how IPL’s subcultural sporting codes challenges the discursive ‘Englishness’ of cricket. What anchors in IPL through the playful transaction of the contemporary cricket culture, especially, through commentary, is the tension between global cultural reproduction and the forces of indigenisation at work.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"131 - 148"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940547","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42514870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Navigating the film-industry: Interview with Mr. Natarajan Ramji, Chairman and Managing Director, Travel Master’s India on what it means to be a location scout in India","authors":"Apoorva Nanjangud","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1940557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940557","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Film Tourism in India even though still in its nascency, is slowly being recognized by the Indian Ministry of Tourism as one of the Niche Tourism areas. Despite great potential for both economic and cultural impact, an understanding of various facets of the global tourism flows arising from Indian popular culture, and its facilitators is rather rare. Location scouts lend their expertise in discovering unique backdrops to create memorable moments onscreen; But how does it work in practice? In a one-of-its-kind interview, Apoorva Nanjangud speaks to Mr. Natarajan Ramji, CMD, Travel Masters India- one of the top location scouts in India- on topics ranging from the behind the scenes of the process of location scouting for Indian cinema, how he got the tag ‘Location guru’ and as a result thereof how destinations experience film-induced tourism.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"233 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940557","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49249670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sampada Karandikar, Hansika Kapoor, S. Sunitha Diwakar, Feryl Badiani
{"title":"She did it her way: An analysis of female rebellion in contemporary Bollywood movies","authors":"Sampada Karandikar, Hansika Kapoor, S. Sunitha Diwakar, Feryl Badiani","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1940548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940548","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Mainstream Hindi cinema, or Bollywood, has often clustered female characters into a finite number of gendered tropes, from damsels in distress, Hindu goddesses, virtuous wives and mothers, to vamps, molls, vindictive mothers-in-law, and justice-seeking avengers. Recently, women-centric cinema has attempted to depart from such stereotypical portrayals, with movies such as Queen, Pink, and Tumhari Sulu. The present study investigates the nature of female rebellion in women-centric Bollywood movies from 2007 to 2017, delineated by a major act of rebellion undertaken by the female protagonist(s), the antecedents to the major act, the immediate reactions to, and the cinematic consequences of this act. Based on these criteria, four coders independently assessed 13 movies depicting rebellion in women-centric Bollywood movies. Quantitative analyses revealed a consistent story arc of rebellious depictions across movies. Qualitative analyses showed that major acts of rebellion occurred subsequent to negative antecedents such as disrespect, lack of freedom, abandonment, and inequality. Overall, the study contributes to understanding the contemporary portrayal of female rebellion in Bollywood.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"149 - 163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940548","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47810762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caribbean Bollywood mashup: Digital practices and transcultural meaning making in Trinidad","authors":"Hanna Klien-Thomas","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1940554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940554","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Digital memes have become a widespread form of engagement with media texts in popular cultures. This paper focuses on image macros that incorporate Bollywood film content and establish transcultural references in the Caribbean context. Mashup serves as a conceptual framework to capture the manifold practices of recombining and re-contextualising media content in memes, related meaning making processes as well as interactions on social networking sites. By sharing, tagging and liking memes, young women in Trinidad negotiate their own positioning in relation to imagined as well as familiar audience groups. Embedded in experiences of a multi-ethnic and media-saturated society, these digital practices thus serve to navigate multiple belongings and identity choices. Moving beyond diasporic identity formations, Bollywood is an integral part of transcultural meaning making in this context.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"215 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940554","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47762842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imagined communities and blind nationalism in South Asian Cinema: The case of war films Ghazi Shaheed (1998) and The Ghazi Attack (2017)","authors":"Astha Chadha","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1940555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940555","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Anderson argued that it was not just the ‘innovation’ of nations as an entity that is important but also the material conditions. The extent of nationalism and patriotism used as a tool in mass media (printed texts and popular culture) in India and Pakistan is evidence of the persisting enmity between neighboring states, which popular culture not only depicts but also ends up reinforcing with its construction of ‘the other’ and ‘the enemy’. The paper analyzes two films, Pakistan’s Ghazi Shaheed (1998) and India’s The Ghazi Attack (2017), which are war-at-sea and submarine films, respectively, To answer the research questions: How do these movies depict ‘imagined’ community and ‘blind’ nationalism? How is this depiction of ‘imagined’ community and ‘blind’ nationalism, similar or different in the two movies made on the same theme, given the backdrop of war and its outcome? In my analysis of the two films, I explore two facets of the concept of blindness: first, referencing Anderson’s definition of being unable to see the community members or enemies, and the blindness one experiences while underwater in a submarine. The paper argues that these ‘imagined’ communities find their stronghold in religion, culture, language, and ways of being in order to justify the existence of separate nations despite being part of the same landmass and empire for centuries. The ‘submarine’ is both an abode for men at sea and a weapon run for the enemy. The submarine, as a patriotically charged body at sea, serving the idea of nationhood, is an extension of the nation’s body in water, unable to see but functioning on the perception and identity gained from the ‘motherland’.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"165 - 176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1940555","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49104845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Colour, displacement and narratives of citizenship in South Asian/American and African-American cultures: Notes toward a future of a movement","authors":"P. Jha","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1885114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1885114","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The current movement that aligns the South Asian American population with Black cultures and Black Lives Matter is rooted in a deep history of the New Immigrants from the 19th century to the present. This essay integrates personal narrative with that of race in the United States and develops a historiography of the encounters between South Asian and African-American cultures. It interrogates the presumptions about how we perceive race, how scopophilic desire attenuates to the visual representation of people of colour. The cultural politics of skin colour and race were ambiguous in relation to South Asians and thus, racial slippage between what constituted brown and black played out in social and legal venues, thus defining who is citizen and who is excluded from having a voice in the body politic. Analysing this history is significant in articulating formations of cultural and political solidarities which are urgent in the present time of Black Lives Matter as South Asians link their racialization to that of African-Americans. It is through that we can move towards a liberatory and equitable future.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"87 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1885114","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49339243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Staying in our lanes: Desi childhoods, Gandhi statues, and the hard work of solidarity","authors":"P. Jani","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1884171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1884171","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A South Asian scholar and activist looks back into his various childhood affiliations with the symbol of Gandhi and reflects on the recent call to remove Gandhi statues from activists. Asking questions about political activism, community, and affective affiliation, this personal essay reflects on the difficult work of solidarity and the particular place of diasporic Desis within the struggles for racial and social justice.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"73 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1884171","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43586561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The provincial Flâneuse: Reimagining provincial space and narratives of womanhood in Bollywood","authors":"Surbhi Malik","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1880859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1880859","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay uses the interpretive lens of the flâneuse to read Rumi, the protagonist of Anurag Kashyap’s 2018 film Manmarziyaan, as an emergent figure who exemplifies provincial confidence and aspirations through specific notions of autonomy in the public space. At the core of this and similar portrayals, I argue, is a changing relationship between gender formations and provincial space, accessed not only in movement or ambulation but in a narrative of space and modernity not written by hegemonic or dominant forces. I read Rumi as a provincial flâneuse because she rewrites the provincial space that marginalizes her, and she does this not with income and ambition, or with brute power and violence, but with pleasure, movement, and affect. Her remaking of space is influenced by capital and the rhetoric of prostitution (the two contexts in which the flâneuse was historically imagined) but it is determined by neither. Rumi’s flânerie is, then, her struggle to weave a modern self from the disparate strands of provinciality, urbanity, and the uneven imbrications of the two. Her incomplete cooptation by both the provincial and the urban ensures ongoing dialogue between the two spaces, evident in the film’s use of hip hop, and tropes like the failure to elope to the city, and the terrace.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"33 - 45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1880859","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44223454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"South Asians, social justice and the black lives matter movement","authors":"P. Jha, S. Rajgopal","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1885112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1885112","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"71 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1885112","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49562785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Failing as allies: Brown Complicity in White Supremacy","authors":"Leela MadhavaRau","doi":"10.1080/14746689.2021.1884177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2021.1884177","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This piece addresses the problematic relationship between South Asians in the diaspora and anti-Black racism. Why do those who understand and participate within the inherently discriminatory framework of caste, not use their experience to work as allies with Black Lives Matter, and other progressive organizations? In 2020, discussion began on this question under the rubric of ‘brown complicity’ in white supremacy. This is a challenge to those of us in the diaspora to examine our own complicity before claiming any moral high ground. As one of the quoted authors notes, South Asians campaigning for Black lives must show action, accountability and introspection.","PeriodicalId":35199,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Popular Culture","volume":"19 1","pages":"97 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14746689.2021.1884177","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48547046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}