Communicating globalization in Bombay cinema: Everyday life, imagination and the persistence of the local

Abstract

Bollywood films increasingly portray the life-worlds of India's urban middle class and their transnational connections. Characters in the Hindi-language films use English phrases, cell phones and computers, celebrate Valentine's Day and are seen to frequent exercise clubs and shopping malls. The non-resident Indian, or NRI, symbol of the diaspora, is now a fixture in these films, often the hero and portrayed as part of the familial world and social circle of the urban middle classes. This, combined with the way a large portion of the films depict settings outside India, in Switzerland, Mauritius, the UK and North America, have led critics to question the Indian-ness of the films. This article examines the deterritorialized narrative of Bollywood film for its communication of globalization and transnationalism. It argues that Bombay films address broader debates in the study of transnationalism, such as the significance of the local in a postnational world. The films offer insights into the production of locality by communicating a sense of place as feeling rather than representations based solely on geography or territory, so making a case for a topography of affect as meaningful for a phenomenology of globalization.