The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History
By Jyotika Virdi,
Permanent Black, Rs 595

With 800 films produced every year, the Hindi film industry is the largest in the world. It is the country?s most powerful medium of communication, as also its dominant cultural product ? popular, affordable and accessible. It is also one of the few things in India which possesses a ?national? secular identity.

Jyotika Virdi takes up 30 films, all commercial successes, to examine how far the nation-building process is reflected in their stories and characters. Virdi first traces the emergence of the new independent nation and the ideal woman who, as in Mother India, is synonymous with the nation. Then she turns to romantic love in Hindi films and analyzes how female protagonists wrestle with various aspects of patriarchy. She traces the transition of the ?angry man? of the Seventies to the ?avenging heroine? of the Eighties and the revival of romance in the Eighties and Nineties.

That?s all very well. But this book is a ?scholarly? study; it is full of academic jargon and long excerpts from abstruse academic theses. Each chapter is full of annotations, sometimes as many as sixty. This results in robbing Hindi cinema of its magic and charm.

There are many facets of Hindi films Virdi does not analyse. For instance, the emergence of the ?negative? hero with Shahrukh Khan in Baazigar. Today, in films like Company or Musafir, there are no typical heroes. Similarly, until the Eighties there used to be a vamp in Hindi films who danced at least one ?cabaret?. But now, the heroine herself is unafraid to expose and provoke.

Virdi?s work seems in many respects dated, though there is a reference to Devdas (2002). She does not include Sholay and ignores the latest trend set off by Dil Chahta Hai, smart films made for an urban audience. In fact, one can sense that hers is the voice of someone who does not live in India and is not familiar with the ethos of Hindi films. Which is why Manoj Kumar?s films merit such a lot of attention for so obviously dealing with the ?nation?.

Sometimes her choice of film to illustrate a point is quite inexplicable. She chooses Teesri Manzil as a contrast to Insaaf ka Tarazu for she feels that ?the rape threat is an unmistakeable subtext of the film?. The latter film is based on a double rape and a trial; the former is more of an entertaining whodunit where rape is not shown or mentioned.

Clearly, Virdi will have to incorporate the exciting new trends in Hindi cinema. As the electoral upset this year proved, it is not easy to understand the Indian nation and more difficult to catch its reflection in Hindi films.