Mehfil 3 - CounterBlockbusters: On Subversive Cinema
Indian popular cinema known as Bollywood has always been a dominant symbol of the nation. It constructs and legitimizes ideas of traditions, cultures and ethos, and most importantly, solidifies who gets to be Indian and who does not. In this episode, Amrita Ghosh welcomes Hussain Haidry and Alka Kurian to her mehfil to talk about a different India, one that we see represented in small, alternative and subversive cinema, and one that demands that we dismantle the politics of inclusion and exclusion that dominates Bollywood blockbusters today. Hussain Haidry, a screenwriter and film scholar Alka Kurian talk about our current moment as Bollywood and Indian cultural productions are having a huge resurgence in the West and what it means for Indian entertainment, hegemonic politics within India, and in the diaspora. The discussion focuses on the popularity of films like RRR and Pathaan, two huge blockbusters, as well as questions of spectatorship and the timing of such films in our post-pandemic landscape. Both introduce us to exciting new films that might be under the radar but are edgier in content, have very different kinds of protagonists, and showcase stories that depart from the usual style and content of populist films. These include fits such as Kayo Kayo Colour by Shahrukhkhan Chavada, Sir by Rohena Gera, Fandry by Nagraj Manjule and women-centric films by Alankrita Shrivastava. This is an in-depth conversation about the politics of marginalization in Bollywood today as well as the growing risks involved in filmmaking in India.
Hussain Haidry is a poet, lyricist, and screenwriter. He worked as a Head of Finance in a healthcare company in Kolkata, and moved to Mumbai to become a full-time writer. He started his career by performing spoken word poetry, and has written lyrics for the films Qarib Qarib Single, Mukkabaaz, Taish, Kadak, Sherni, Dobaara; and web series like Yeh Meri Family, and Tripling. As a screenwriter, he has co-written the Amazon web series, Laakhon Mein Ek (Season Two), and a short film on Netflix, titled Madhyaantar in the anthology series Ankahi Kahaaniyaan. Originally from Indore, he was catapulted to fame with his poem “Hindustani Musalmaan” (Indian Muslim) that went viral on the Internet.
Alka Kurian is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington Bothell, where she teaches gender studies, literature, film and human rights. She is the author of Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas and a co-editor of New Feminisms in South Asia: Disrupting the Discourse Through Social Media, Film and Literature. She is a recipient of the 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar award to Morocco for research on fourth wave feminism. She hosts the South Asian Films And Books podcast.
Amrita Ghosh is Assistant Professor of English, specializing in South Asian literature at the University of Central Florida. She is the co-editor of Tagore and Yeats: A Postcolonial Reenvisioning (Brill 2022) and Subaltern Vision: A Study in Postcolonial Indian English Text (Cambridge Scholars 2012). Her book Kashmir’s Necropolis: New Literature and Visual Texts is forthcoming with Lexington Books. She is the co-founding editor of Cerebration, a bi-annual literary journal.
To inaugurate our Mehfil which means a celebratory gathering in Urdu, we asked Uday Bansal to compose a small poem for us. It was read out by Amrita Ghosh at the start of the program.
Tumhaari taal se betaal / Duniya tumhaari shaunq se ghafil hai / Taqaluf Chhod bhi do / Aao yeh tumhaari hi mehfil hai
This roughly translates as "cast off your inhibitions and come join our celebrations."
We want to thank Bansal who writes poetry in Hindustani, the confluence of Hindi and Urdu. Bansal has performed at the world's largest Urdu Literature festival Jashn-e-Rekhta in 2022 and has given a TEDx talk titled "Zabaan-e-Urdu" where he explores the misconceptions about the Urdu language and its relevance in today's times.
