Cinematic Mediation of Dharmic Axiology: Ramayana’s Metaphysical Idealisation of Kinship in Hum Saath Saath Hain and Ram Lakhan

I would like to begin this paper on filmic narrative with an examination of the most important essay written on the relationship between the work of art as traditionally conceived, and the modern techniques of mechanical reproduction. essay of course, Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin's aim here is to offer a non-mystified, a non-facist theory of art now made possible as a result of advances in technology. If in the process the theory also leads to an examination of the likely conditions under which the art of a classless society might be possible than all the better. But here that extension of his argument is of minor consequence because what Benjamin is interested in is the radical alteration which mechanical reproduction brings to the concept of the pristine, the hallowed, the canonised, the auratic orginal. significance of this to a theory of mass culture - and more specifically to Bombay cinema - should become clearer as I proceed.

Many scholars and audiences consistently identify the song sequence and its in terruption of the narrative as the quintessential characteristic that distinguishes Indian popular cinema from other cinema traditions.1 Song sequences form a significant part of musical culture throughout South Asia2 where they indepen dently circulate as the mainstay of programming on Indian music video chan nels, as selections on compilation DVDs or VCDs, and as downloads from video sharing and entertainment-oriented websites. Furthermore, song sequences are often reenacted in professional live touring shows, and more amateur cultural functions and weddings. Although some viewers and critics are thrilled by spec tacularly choreographed song and dance sequences within films, others consider song sequences disruptive and extraneous to the film's central narrative.3 After I anonymously surveyed 46 regular viewers of Hindi films in April 2008,1 dis covered that only slightly more than half of these viewers will always watch the song sequences in the course of watching a film at home.4 The statistics for the other half of the group reveal the range in attitudes toward the song sequence's importance to a film. While approximately another 25 percent usually watch the sequences, 15-20 percent only watch song sequences half of the time or less, and an additional approximately 5 percent state that they always skip the song sequences. The relationship between a respective film's genre and its songs merits more attention. The responses to this survey indicate viewers are more likely to skip song sequences if the film is a comedy, action movie, or thriller, but a few viewers also regularly skip song sequences in the romance genre. The lack of consensus on the song sequences relationship (if any) to its film's narrative may explain why scholars have only begun to explore the film song se quence as a cinematic device that can play an integral role in the construction of a film's narrative.5 In recent years, many popular Hindi films featuring characters based in diasporic locations have been shot outside India, and I argue that the song sequences in these films play a particularly crucial role in the narrative. In

Though popular Hindi cinema is frequently identified by its song-and-dance sequences, little has been written specifically about film dance. This article analyzes film dance and female stardom in Hindi films of the late 1980s and 1990s through an examination of the star text of Madhuri Dixit, the leading dancer-actress of the time. It tracks the kinesthetic history of the Dixit star text from Tezaab (Acid, dir. N. Chandra, India, 1988) to her most recent films and television shows and examines how her brazenly sensuous dance numbers have transformed the construction of the female body on-screen and indeed the very conditions of female stardom in Hindi cinema. This article analyzes the dance numbers from three films featuring Dixit and demonstrates the tensions and alterations provoked in the popular Hindi film narrative by the dissolving divide between the coy heroine and the raunchily dancing vamp. It suggests that these refigurations often revolve around dance, which operated as a critical site for the negotiation of cultural anxieties around female sexuality during the period. This article employs a body-space-movement framework to consider the strategies that nineties Hindi cinema deployed in its attempt to manage a new and potentially dangerous circulation of the heroine's body. By highlighting these strategies' frequent failure to contain Dixit's flamboyantly dancing body, this article posits that the dancer-actress engenders a distinctive mode of performance that suggests a different model for understanding female agency and the authorship of film narratives and star texts.

This discussion draws upon interviews with Pakistani viewers of Hindi cinema and locates them within a context of a declining film industry in Pakistan. I examine the reception of Hindi films among Pakistani audiences, and explore the ways in which their cinematic narratives help infuse western influences with local traditions. In so doing, they also help produce forms of dress, music and lifestyles that have much to say about the fluidity of cultural forms in local contexts in Pakistan, a country that continues to be a land of contrasts. On the one hand, there is the jihadi culture and support for Osama bin Laden, and on the other, a local production of modernity influenced by consumerism, redefined sexuality and Shah Rukh Khan. I argue that Hindi films target potential consumers and create desires that trouble as much as they entice. Through a montage of cinematic narrative, cosmopolitan lifestyles, dazzling wardrobes and distilled glamour, Pakistanis participate in consumption patterns emerging in the country. At the same time, sexuality is in a state of flux. While conservative forces are trying to regulate their mobility and sexuality, young people are challenging traditions and received norms. Such a process renders Hindi cinema an important yet, to some viewers, troubling component of public culture in Pakistan. The emerging public culture identifies complex and dynamic processes that allow for new types of possibilities and arrangements as the lives and agency of individuals interweave with shared cinematic texts and the social structures within which they are played out.

The paper engages with the portrayal of women with disabilities in Hindi cinema, considering the diverse facets of representational strategies and structures of power. Addressed in the narratives as objects of derision, pity, and care, women with disabilities are drawn to the able-bodied gaze and patriarchal chauvinism. Films such as Black (2005), Barfi (2012), and Margarita with a Straw (2014) are incorporated into the study to foreground the interactions among the ableists and non-ableists orbs. Efforts are underway to reposition the counter-discourse on disability narratives in 21st-century films, addressing the misrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in the hegemonic portrayal. Manifestations of the social model of disability would culminate in exposing the cultural tensions and reductionist ableism reinforced by normativity. To address, assess, and critique disability spectrum in films, the article moves forward to the intersectionality of disability, gender, and social reality to accentuate the lived realities of women with disabilities. By building on critical disability studies along with feminist disability studies as the theoretical base, the endeavour serves to permeate the arcs of representation, identity, and cultural synergy. Hence, the article seeks to unearth the dominant ideologies of normalcy and ableism in Hindi films while quantifying the amount of discrimination, stereotypical dissimulation interpolated and thus, counting insights into actualities in filmic narratives.

How the markers of caste are being framed within the cinematic narrative is a question which is still bereft of considerable academic discussion. Boasting of caste pride and hurling casteist slur at a particular caste are two such markers of caste which I will engage herewith in order to decode them. There is a naked display of boasting of caste pride—sometimes in the form of publicly showing janeyu or sometimes in the form of glorifying one’s caste name or family clan like ‘Brahman’, ‘Rajput’, or ‘Suryavansh’—which reeks of deep-rooted caste supremacist attitude of the high castes. On the other hand, the articulation of the casteist slurs like ‘Chamar’, ‘Chandal’, ‘Kachra’, and ‘Dhobi’ bear a dehumanising undertone characterised by humiliation, community-bashing, and verbal atrocity. Caste pride, which is employed to apotheosise the higher castes, is here in a symbiotic relationship with the casteist slur, which is used as a modality to derogate the lower castes. And there are scarcely any better cultural texts than Bollywood films in bearing a testimony to this case. Through an analytical study of dialogues, songs, and expressions tinged with casteism in Bollywood films, this chapter will explore the incorporation of these markers of caste into the cinematic language and how the cinematic representation of these markers of caste do contribute to constructing a deviated ‘Other’ on the basis of caste. Through unearthing these subtle metaphors of caste, this chapter attempts to visualise what Gyanendra Pandey calls ‘universal prejudice’.

In this article, I explore the dramatic substance of Hindi film songs through an approach based in performance studies, which presents performance as the very stuff of social life, social identities and social power. Given this, the enactment of song sequences in the Hindi film narrative cannot be dramatically benign, or just excess, or just pleasure (however intense). I describe how song sequences perform and thereby manifest and reify love and romance in the film narrative. Using work on public spectacle and power by Foucault and the public sphere by Vasudevan, I further analyse how they connect the public, emotions of love, and social or familial struggle in various ways, embodying key nodes of melodrama. I then reflect, in these terms, on the recent curtailment of performed songs in Hindi films. I thereby present a new method for analysing the dramatic agency of screened or background songs in films.

Existing differences between East and West Germany could still be observed in 2000, which are also evident when considering the differencies in certain attitudes towards the family. This article explores the compatibility of a family and a career and the attitudes towards abortion. The analysis is based on the data collected by ALLBUS in 2000 and aims to explore social changes or the lack of them in Germany since 1990. Results show that there are still enormous differences with regard to the attitudes towards family, employment and abortion. In East Germany, family and career are combined by women as a matter of course to a far greater degree than in West Germany. Asked about their attitude towards abortion, 70% of the respondents in the newly formed German states, but only 38% in West Germany considered it a less serious matter or not serious at all. Similar differences were found when considering the question whether abortion should be legally permitted. To interprete these results the different socialisation in East and West Germany as well as different social and structural conditions have to be considered. In the newly formed German states social conditions and economic deficits carry a lot of weight in the evaluation. This can also be observed in the strong ambivalence between an ideal life and family and their realisation. In West Germany, a more homogeneous estimate of future prospects and the wish to live in a family are found instead.

ABSTRACTCaste has been an integral part of the Hindu socio-cultural and ritualistic structure. Predominantly Indian society is divided into caste hierarchies which more often than not, manifests in everyday lives. Hindi cinema is one of the most popular sources of entertainment in India and henceforth it also reflects upon socio-cultural practices, discourses, and sensibilities at large. This essay looks into representations of caste question and Dalits in selected films in post-independent India. It argues that Dalits have been stereotypically represented in line with the dominant culture. They have been represented stereotypically as meek, docile, shabby, and underconfident individuals. Popular Hindi cinema constructs, disseminate, and naturalise the stereotypes in line with caste Hindu sensibilities. On the other, the continuous struggle of Dalits against the caste oppression is usually ignored in cinematic narratives. Such representations have linkages with lager cultural politics, on the one hand, and the power discourses, on the other. I have used critical textual analysis and historical analysis to read selected films as cultural texts.

The 2012 Nirbhaya case marked a watershed moment in India’s gender discourse, triggering a paradigm shift in both journalistic and cinematic narratives. This study explores how the post-Nirbhaya decade (2011–2020) transformed the representation of gender and nation across Indian media, particularly Hindi cinema. Drawing upon feminist media theory and postcolonial gender perspectives, the paper investigates how public outrage and social media activism reshaped the narrative frameworks of mainstream entertainment and news. Through textual analysis of selected films—including Kahaani (2012), Queen (2014), Piku (2015), Raazi (2018), and Thappad (2020)—the study highlights the emergence of women-centric narratives that challenge patriarchal norms and foreground female subjectivity. Concurrently, evolving portrayals of masculinity reflect a gradual move toward emotional sensitivity and gender equality. The findings suggest that post-2011 media discourses signify a transformative shift: from sensationalized victimhood to empowered agency, and from gendered nationalism to inclusive citizenship. By situating these transformations within the broader socio-political context of digital activism and neoliberal reform, the paper argues that the post-Nirbhaya era represents a crucial cultural reorientation in India’s media ecosystem.

This article explores the role of (South) Asianness for contemporary German popular culture. The mystery series Stubbe: Von Fall zu Fall features an Indian taxi driver whose presence in the German nation is said by the filmic narrative to be an illegitimate one. This article investigates the repercussions of this illegitimacy in both legal and cultural terms. When read against the background of recent green card legislation, the mystery series can in fact be read as being symptomatic of a wider cultural unease about a potential model minority's threat to the German workforce. At the same time, the film's ridicule of the Indian as ‘sonic other’ and the reference to the ‘alien’ sounds of Bollywood music disavows the mainstreaming of Indian cultural artefacts, above all of Bombay's film industry and music, into German popular culture. Finally, the filmic narrative depicts a curious cultural sympathy between Germany and the UK, a sympathy, however, in which Raj nostalgia intersects with a dismissal of empire.

This article explores the role of the song sequence as a narrative device in contemporary Hindi cinema. It does this through an analysis of select song sequences from six films – Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Tumhari Sulu, Dangal, Highway, Tamasha and Udta Punjab. These songs play an essential role in the film narratives, and the article discusses them through a focus on song picturization, song lyrics and the absence of lip-synchronization. The broader context of my inquiry are the changes in the role of the film song in recent years marking both continuities as well as discontinuities with the established song tradition of Hindi cinema. I argue that even as a realist aesthetic is changing the form of the song sequence, the song scene continues to be a complex mechanism of storytelling in contemporary Hindi films.

Orchestral scores in Hindi cinema have been virtually ignored both by fans and scholars: they have received little attention from Indian music and film critics and are only infrequently a subject for commentary. Despite the lack of respect for film scores, however, music director A.R. Rahman carefully crafted his scores to generate musical narratives that operate in tandem with film narratives. In order to illustrate how Rahman’s film scores of the late 1990s and early 2000s marked an inflection point for background music in later Indian films, this article compares the background scores of the films Taal (1999) and Swades (2004). The article traces the development of musical themes in these films and Rahman’s later shift in compositional approach, suggesting that later composers in mainstream and hatke cinema deployed new tactics in their film scores, such as the development of musical themes unrelated to the song melodies composed for the film. These changes in background scoring practices provide new incentives for audiences to attend to musical sound in the narrative, heralding the commercial success of multiplex films of the 2010s, even as they blurred the boundaries between film song and film score.

Cinema is one of the most popular forms of mass consumption that continuously conditioning the cultural values in Indian society. It plays a crucial role in informing, entertaining and educating its audiences. It has always seen as an important medium through which the harsh realities of life expressed through its fictional characters. Films with female protagonists are not new to Indian cinema; however, contemporary film makers are now even more comfortable in making bold films. Such female-led brings out the problems and success stories of women upfront, by allowing women to talk about it in public. By showing women as emotionally and economically independent, female centric films encourage societal change in the treatment of women in the patriarchal Indian society.Numerous studies have been conducted on the Indian Cinema Industry, and on the stereotypical portrayal of women in commercial Indian cinema. Although there have been some women - centered movies that have tried to address women’s issues, there has been very little, if any, research done on the portrayal of women in these films. In these movies, women are shown to break out of the conventional roles, and proved themselves as a maker of meaning. It is in this context the present paper makes an attempt to analyze women centric movies by focusing on the changing trends in the portrayal of female characters in film narratives.

Bombay cinema has remained largely aloof from the science-fiction genre. The indigenous Indian space program in the 1970s did not spark the invasion/mutation sub-genre in Hindi cinema the way it had done for Hollywood in the 1950s. Pakistan's scientific endeavors did not prompt national anxieties in India. Yet Hindi cinema has presented viewers with monstrosities begotten by science. This article reconnoiters the Monster/Creature narrative in Hindi cinema and contextualizes the historically specific monstrous visions in two pioneering monster narratives of the 1980s. The horror-inflected Hindi science-fiction genre with its “moral tales of scientific excesses” remains essentially an anti-science discourse.