“’The people of Afghanistan will kill for a Hindi film. They
watch nothing but Hindi films……..’ director Kabir Khan, who shot his ‘Kabul
Express’ there ……… Hindi films “are hugely popular in Bangladesh and locals can
get their Bollywood fix on cable TV and through pirated copies which circulate
widely” despite being officially banned since 1972 ….Speaking on behalf of the
people of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi admitted, “We all love to watch Hindi
movies – Bollywood is better suited to Myanmar’s sensitivities” …….Nepal’s
Maoists share with its former royals an interest in Bollywood ……Shahrukh Khan
and Katrina Kaif performed at the coronation of the Bhutan King Jigme Khesar
Namgyel Wangchuck, who is a big fan of Bollywood ……Sri Lankans are also huge
fans of Hindi films according to Lankan actor Jacqueline Fernandez
In markets such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
where the state did attempt to protect its industry and citizens from
Bollywood’s hegemonic or “corruptive” influence by banning its imports, citizens
devised ingenious strategies to evade state regulation by smuggling them.
Bollywood continues to serve as the diasporas’ link with the
homeland and has acquired the added burden of answering second- or
third-generation South Asians’ need to connect with their roots…… Bollywood
films are often used by parents of Indian origin to transmit cultural knowledge
to younger members in Indian diasporas. But more recently, it is the younger
generation that has taken a lead in using Bollywood for constructing diasporic
identities and in introducing other ethnic groups to its magic.
….Indian films dominate the domestic Indian market. India is
the exception to the American domination of the global film business…..In
almost every country of the world, including historically film-producing
countries such as the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, imported American films
have a greater share of the market than do domestic films. India, however, is
the largest producer of films in the world and domestic films retain 93-95 percent
market share while Hollywood films only take 5-7 percent market share…..The
only other country with this extent of domestic film dominance is the US.……In
the UK, domestic films take 19 percent share, France 44.8 percent, Germany 25
percent and Italy 24.8 percent. In recent years, Japanese films have seen a
revival and now take 53 percent of their national market unlike in previous
years when their share was lower……..India’s share of global cinema revenue is
only 1 percent and is lower than those Japan, the UK, and France while the US
earns 60 percent of the world’s cinema revenue …..
…..film production in more than one language in any national
market is quite rare and is observed in only a few film-producing countries
such as Canada and Belgium. However, neither country supports film production
in such a wide variety of languages as does India ……..the 1,041 Indian films
made in 2005 were produced in 25 different languages… In Canada, films are
produced in English, French, and aboriginal languages……. Belgium has two film
industries – Flemish (Dutch) and French……..While Indonesia shows considerable
linguistic diversity, films are produced in Indonesian, the national language…..
“There are no regional film industries in Indonesia” ………
[India]…….. Within
8 years of the arrival of sound, film production had commenced in 11 languages…
The Hindi language film industry is the most prolific of the
Indian film industries with average annual production amounting to well over
one hundred films …..a total production of 9,937 films in the 75-year period
from 1931 to 2005. It is followed by the Tamil (6,362) and Telugu (6,183)
language film industries………. Malayalam (3,528), Kannada (2,798), Bengali
(2,628) and Marathi (1,287) language industries
Although the main centers of production and distribution
within British India were in Bombay ….the film industry also had a considerable
presence in Lahore ……. In 1961…the Pakistani State banned Indian films.
According to Shahzad Gul ……this ban had a disastrous effect on the Pakistani
film industry…… Many producers would go to Kabul along with their directors and
scriptwriters where they would view Indian films and later plagiarize them
….the establishment of Bangladesh ….cost the country a substantial part of its
market …..meant losing 30 percent of the market in East Bengal where Urdu films
made in Lahore were popular………during the dictatorship of General Zia …….There
was a brain drain and many filmmakers, film stars, and dancers left the
country……the number of film screens in Pakistan which number 120, while there
are 9 cineplex screens……..India’s population is five times the size of
Pakistan, but it has 12,900 cinemas ……and approximately 645 cineplex screens
…….But is the pornographic nature of the bulk of Pakistani films the only
reason keeping the audience away……. The increasing sexually suggestive nature
of many Pakistani films as well as the high inflation rate appear to have made
cinema-going a less than desirable activity for many Pakistanis.
Shuri Mariasi Gietti Tambunan
Indonesian film historians have granted that Indian and
Chinese films served as an important model for Indonesian films in the
1950s……….With the downfall of Indonesian film industry in the 1970s and 1980s,
Indian films were still shown extensively in movie theaters in big cities in
Indonesia. But, as they were perceived to as low-class entertainment, they were
only shown in second- and third-class theaters while A-grade theaters were
reserved for Hollywood (or Western) films…. In 1991 and 1992 when a private
television station broadcasted Ramayana
and Mahabharata, Indian television
series….these ….were very popular and reached a high rating between 48 and 60,
confirming the long-standing popularity of Indian popular culture in Indonesia
through television. ……..In the 1990s, ….close to 90 percent of the total
population had at least one television set …….However, Bollywood films were
still considered as low-class entertainment in the early years of their
popularity on television. …….the defining moment of Bollywood’s recognition in
Indonesia’s mediascapes is the successful run of the movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ……….at the end of July 2001, which marked a
revival of Indian films’ market among the Indonesian upper class. KKHH created
a flurry in the consumption of Bollywood films …. [It] was a bigger box office success than the ‘Titanic’ when it was
screened in Indonesia and when the same film was shown on T.V……ratings shot
through the roof……. KKHH …..reached its success not only through A-grade
theaters (and also the second/third-grade theaters) for the lower classes
consumption) but also through its repeated television broadcasts and through
pirated VCDs …Bollywood fever has also caused an increasing interest in Indian
fashion …….the theme song for KKHH was covered by many Dangdut singers with
numerous local …..adaptations. …….Ashraff, a Kerala-born singer, alongwith Iis
Dahlia, a popular Dangdut diva, recorded a duet of the KKHH theme song (sung in
Hindi) and it became one of the top hit Dangdut songs in the beginning of the
new millennium ………instruments and rhythms of both styles are compatible. Hindi
music therefore, sounds very familiar and pleasant to many Indonesians serving
to intensify the Bollywood film viewing experience for them……
……in early 2000, Indonesian audiences were inundated not
only with Dangdut songs inspired by KKHH but also with television products,
mostly Indonesian soap operas known as sinetrons,
which were basically copycat products of Bollywood films. ……… For many
Indonesians, Bollywood’s traditional portraits of family life can easily be
identified with their own conceptualization of family life. Bollywood films
offer a more identifiable viewing experience
rather than, for example, Hollywood films which emphasize nuclear or
single parent, or even dysfunctional, families. …Even if films are about modern
families or rich families living in the urban areas, there is bound to be a
balancing act in ensuring that the family returns to its traditional values……
Elena Igorevna Doroshenko
Only two factors impeded the Russian audiences’ acceptance
of Indian films, namely stereotyping (“Indian films are all same, with the same subject and plot”) and replacing
of the “unknown” by the “exotic”……..sloppy translations, poor dubbing, and
“Westernization” of the cinematic texts has diluted their famed “exotic appeal”
for the Russian audiences since the 1980s and led to their being stereotyped as
“naive” …….Indian films …….(2000-2010) continue to be culturally “misread”
despite the introduction of a 24-hour Indian film satellite channel and
screening of an occasional film on mainstream television…….While Indian films
came to the USSR in the 1950s, the three best-known being Awaara (1951), Shree 420
(1955), and Mother India (1957)
…..the hypothesis that the Aryans and other migrating tribes
of ancient India actually settled down in the present-day territory of Russia,
which is used to justify the Russia’s perception of India as its “long-lost
motherland” ……A large number of people in Russia would have memories of growing
up with books like the Hitopadesha
and with adaptations of The Ramayana
and The Mahabharata …….it cannot be
denied that the choice of Indian books and films imported by the USSR
government was determined, to a great degree, by their shared political
ideologies. This explains why Mother
India, based on Pudovkin’s Mother (1926) was one of the first films to be
imported in the former USSR and won the hearts of a number of Russian
audiences. There is no doubt that Raj Kapoor’s films were chosen for exhibition
in USSR and Russia for their socialist underpinnings, but their cultural impact
far exceeded the political…..although the imported films were carefully
translated and adapted, they were not edited or censored, which facilitated
comprehension….Songs…..were also translated. But they were never recited over
the voice of the performers despite the rest of the film being dubbed. ……this
professionalism helped preserve the cultural value of the films and turned them
into classics……films, especially foreign ones, were a rare phenomenon in the
1950s help to explain the tremendous popularity of Indian films in the USSR
immediately following their import….. 64 million people in the USSR watched Awaara – a record, unbroken even by a
recent film like Avatar.
1960s-1980s ……The film epitomizing this period of Indian
cinema in the USSR was Seeta aur Geeta (1972) that invites instant recall in a
certain generation instead of Awaara
and Shree 420. ………the most important
point for making the film so popular in the Soviet Union was probably the
concept of Navarasa underpinning the
film…..unfolds from the mood of suffering in the beginning to that of
celebration in the end. When asked about the aspect of Indian cinema they liked
most, Russian fans remarked that one was able to experience all kinds of emotions, happiness or
sorrow, anger or affection, when one was watching Indian films.
1980s-1990s …..Disco
Dancer (1982) came to represent Indian culture of the 1980s in the fomer
USSR….the film definitely rings a bell in the majority of Russians because of
its theme song, “Jimmy Jimmy Aaja Aaja” ………Raj Kapoor’s and Nargis’ acting –
expressive, highly emotional, and sincere in every respect – was probably why
their characters carried such a tremendous appeal for the audiences in the
USSR. As the same principles constitute the core of Russian acting, their films
were greatly appreciated. ……..this histrionic legacy was preserved and
developed throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. But this high tradition of actors
had begun to wane and deteriorate in the 1980s….The characters appeared to have
become increasingly “cartoon-like” through their melodramatic display of
emotions……
1990s-2010 ……marked by great political and social changes in
Russia…….when Indian cinema lost most of its Russian fans ………Cinemas were
closing down all over the country …….low-quality videos with shoddy dubbing and
translation …..completely destroyed the impact of Indian films……the new Indian
cinema and the Yash Raj-Yash/Karan Johar phenomenon passed Russia by……..early
2000s when the state-owned television Domashny (Home) revived the tradition of
airing Indian films. The dubbing and the quality of translations …was …superior
to that of the pirated videos but still not as professional as it was during
the Soviet era………
Gwenda Vander Steene
…….Indian films are also a way for Hausa people of Northern
Nigeria to distinguish themselves from the “West” –oriented south …..They allow
an alterity to Hollywood domination …….Fuglesang argues that Bollywood offers
Kenyan audiences a “reassuring familiarity” as the audience know what to expect
in a Bollywood film
Senegal …….The first films came through Senegal via
the Middle East, which appears to have had an important role in distributing
and subtitling Indian films in Africa. According to Larkin, Arabic and
Bollywood films were first imported in Nigeria by Lebanese cinema owners in the
1950s whose expectations of Arabic films becoming popular in African Islamic
countries …..were overturned by Indian films that became more popular. In
Senegal, too, Arabic and Indian films were imported simultaneously and the
latter turned out to have a much bigger success than Arabic ones …were imported
massively in the 1970s ……Until today, this first “generation” of Bollywood
movies imported in Senegal remains particularly popular not only among the
older generation but also among the youth …..:Larkin’s thesis about the
popularity of Bollywood rising from the fact of its not being perceived as
Western. ……..The first Indophile [people
who love and are very attached to Indian films, music, and dance] radio
program was broadcast by Radio Senegal in 1967 ………and was an immediate success
…….many Indophile associations are organized around an anchorman, usually a
well-known Indophile, who organizes soirées
indous for their fan clubs ……..the aesthetic aspects, the “beautiful
women,” the picturesque settings, the marvelous clothes and makeup are one of
the primary reasons why Indophiles love Bollywood……several ……also mentioned the
highly melodramatic plots while others cited song-and-dance sequences as the
reason for their liking the films and attributed this to the importance
attached to music and dance in Senegal…….Fuglesang…….explains….that Bollywood
films, insofar as young Lamu women can connect the stories to their own lives
or fantasize about their idols, become a place in which people can invest their
fantasies …….As a tool for reshaping one’s own life. Bollywood is not merely
“passive” entertainment but also has an empowering effect.
“as the women are all the time actively relating film events
to their own lives, the films represent a tool
for working and reshaping reality rather than a downright escape”…
In this way, the audience actively participates in creating
and empowering their own lives and identities.
….gender dynamics…..most of the audience consists of
women….Reasons given by Indophiles for this …..are that not only the themes of
love, marriage, melodrama and so on have a larger appeal for women but also
that the danse indou (Indian dance)
is also considered more appropriate ….for women who are believed to be equipped
with the skill…. for performing it. …. dance in Senegal, especially the Wolof sabar dance, is mainly done by women.
Apart from that, one can notice an evolution toward a marginalization of male
dancers in Indian classical dance. Dancing in India is seen more and more as
women’s business, ….the same decline of male dancers is found in Egypt
throughout the twentieth century ….
…..In Nigeria, …..women lived indoors, women were absent in
the cinemas in the 1970s, but gained access to Indian films through the rise of
home videos. According to Larkin, Indian films have since then become
identified as “women’s films” because of their huge popularity among
women……experience as male Indophiles, they conceded that it was sometimes hard
in the beginning, as men watching Bollywood were often stigmatized for being
gay……Most Indophiles tend to consider Indian and Senegalese culture as similar
than different and attribute their love for Bollywood to its reminding them of
their own culture, country or customs expressed. …..Several Indophiles point to
similarities between Senegalese and Indian dress styles. The style labelled style indou (“Hindu dress style”) that
can be described as a kind of fusion style using either Senegalese or imported
Indian cloth is very popular among them ….. Indophiles maintain that the images
of village life, horses and carts, women fetching water at the well or carrying
fire wood on their heads “really make you think you are in Senegal” …….Many
values such as hospitality, respect for elders and women, sanctity of marriage,
piety and so on, highly regarded in Senegalese society, may also be found in
Bollywood films according to some Indophiles. The importance of family networks
and living in an extended family is also mentioned….. it is remarkable that
many Indophiles are of Fulani origin and their love for Bollywood is explained
by their belief that they could be related to Indians ….physical resemblance
….the idea of peul indou (“Hindu
Fulani”) used by several (mostly Fulani) Indophiles to refer to the south
Indian population …..According to Larkin, the argument that Hausa language and
Hindi are similar is often used by people to stress the similarities between
both cultures. The same holds true for Senegal. Wolof or Fulani is said to be
“very similar” to Hindi ….caabi (key
- Wolof) and chaabi (Hindi), asaman (heaven – Wolof and Hindi).
Linguists reinforced my hunch that most of the words mentioned as similar are
of Arabic origin. ….Larkin ….also stresses the preference for older films and
the “West” being defined as the “other” whereas Indian culture is perceived as
similar ……..the older generation of Indophiles …..says they love old Bollywood
movies because of the values expressed in them such as the importance attached
to family networks or a socially acceptable marriage. These values, according
to them, remind them of their own past. …..The Indophile “community”
encompasses about 30 associations in different cities all over Senegal, apart
from all the individuals not belonging to any association.
Zakir Hossain Raju
…….in Bangladesh public sphere, one may feel that the sphere
is flooded by things Bollywoodian. …..the fact that Bollywood films are banned
from theatrical screening in Bangladesh for nearly five decades now, starting
in 1965 …..more than 30 satellite television channels circulate Bollywood
films, songs, and gossips round the clock in middle-class living rooms ….all
over Bangladesh……In Internet forums, viewers discuss recent Bollywood films
(and also Hindi TV soaps) on a regular basis and many a times vent their anger
at the sloppy films produced by Bangladesh film industry…..Most authors and
media critics in Bangladesh see Bollywood as a cultural predator ….from 2001 to
2011, this tussle between the nationalist middle class and Bollywood has become
highly visible……some cultural nationalists and Islamists….find the invasion of
Hindi language over Bengali as well as “Hinduization” expedited through
Bollywoodization. ……After Bangladesh became an independent nation ….surprising
everybody, the Pakistani ban against Indian films was kept in action….a
50-year-old viewer says, “the word cinema meant
Hindi cinema mainly and then Hollywood. Yes, there was Pakistani cinema and of
course, Bangladeshi ones, but those were few in number.” …… with the
availability of consumer VCRs, a trend of consuming Bollywood films at the
household level started in the early 1980s ……Small video-theatres started
mushrooming in the cities and towns of Bangladesh…..Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun,
Zeenat Aman and Hema Malini quickly became familiar names and popular icons
among the middle and lower-middle class viewers…..In the 1980s-1990s Bangladesh
cinema, plagiarism from Bollywood films became a popular tendency because of
the motive of the exhibitors in earning a quick and high profit from the
theaters. …….during the last 15 years or so……though Bollywood is still absent
in cinema theaters, its circulation has reached almost the entire population in
Bangladesh
Teresa Hubel
The tendency in Hindi cinema to depict the courtesan as
having few choices is belied by the biographies of actual historical
courtesans, many of whom had a substantial range of possibilities available to
them. As David Courtney writes……..that were generally denied women of a more
domestic nature. If they had professional aspirations, especially in the
artistic fields, they had a virtual monopoly. If they desired to settle down
marriage was always an option. From what we know of history, when this option
was taken it was often with only the wealthiest and most well placed men.
Remember their mastery of etiquette and the social graces made the tawaifs a “prize catch” for almost any
man. If they desired an independent lifestyle, this too was an option …..denied
to most women of that period. This is borne out by an examination of tax rolls
that tend to show only tawaifs as
female property owners and tax payers. The tawaifs
were often poets and authors, in a period when the majority of women were
illiterate. When everything was considered, the tawaifs had education, independence, money, power, and
self-determination in a period when many women were little more than cattle.
Omme-Salma Rahemtullah
I do not speak Hindi. I am not from India, but am of Indian
ancestry, born in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, and migrated to Canada at a very
young age. Yet I feel the need to connect with Bollywood.
Florian Clauss
……people of Turkish origin, who constitute the largest
immigrant group in Germany, might have become acquainted with Indian cinema
through their transmission on Turkish satellite channels…
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