A name that's synonymous with packed theatres shouting his name and crowds of young men cheering for him, Salman Khan has been reigning in the popular imagination for three decades now. However, superstardom came with its share of troubles. Salman has found himself in the news once too often, almost as though he were controversy's favourite child. Endlessly discussed as well as criticised, he is an object of adulation, fantasy and reverence in the cultural space. Tabloid pieces, stories an...

This book analyses the role of women in the films of one of the leading filmmakers of the ‘Third World’ in the 1950s, Satyajit Ray, a national icon in filmmaking in India.The book explores the portrayal of women in the context of the creation of national culture after India became independent. Gender issues were very important to India under Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s – with the enactment of inheritance and divorce laws. Ray’s portrayal of women and his films anticipate much of ...

This book focuses on the cinema of the 1950s in India and analyzes the work of seven filmmakers from mainstream Hindi cinema and how they responded to the independent Indian nation after 1947.The selection of key filmmakers instead of cinema in general shows individual trajectories within cinema. The book examines the change in preoccupations or representations in the work of a single filmmaker, followed by an interpretation about the meaning of those representations. The filmmaker...

Satyajit Ray belonged to a category of filmmakers and artists from newly independent countries whose work was used to define 'national culture'. Failed Masculinities: The Men in Satyajit Ray's Films argues that a study of his films will give us a purchase on the moral trajectory of India in its first few decades of independence, particularly through examination of his male characters and their narratives. Films discussed by Sanyal include the Apu Trilogy, Shakha Prasakha, Ghare Baire and K...

Soumendu Roy today is widely known for his long association with Satyajit Ray. He was Ray's cinematographer for a generation of films that is celebrated the world around even now. Witness to a great genius, Roy also carved a niche for himself in his own right, working with other stalwarts of Bengali cinema like Tapan Sinha and Buddhadeb Dasgupta, among others. Through the Eyes of a Cinematographer is the behind-the-scenes story of one of the finest cameramen India has known, his childhood ...

Ecodisaster Imaginaries in India: Essays in Critical Perspectives is a volume of critical essays that discuss and debate the literary and cultural representations of ecological/environmental disaster in India from the perspectives that are integral to postcolonial disaster studies and the environmental humanities. The essays offer theoretically informed readings of environmental fiction, nonfiction, and poetry among other contemporary literary genres that open our eyes to today's burning i...