This book traces the journey of popular Hindi cinema from 1913 to contemporary times when Bollywood has evolved as a part of India's cultural diplomacy. Avoiding a linear, developmental narrative, the book re-examines the developments through the ruptures in the course of cinematic history. The essays in the volume critically consider transformations of the Hindi film industry from its early days to its present self-referential mode, issues of gender, dance and choreography, Bombay cinema's negotiations with the changing cityscape and urbanisms, and concentrate on its multifarious regional, national and transnational implications in the 21st century. One of the most comprehensive volumes on Bollywood, this work presents an analytical overview of the multiple histories of popular cinema in India and will be useful to scholars and researchers interested in film and media studies, South Asian popular culture and modern India, as well as to cinephiles and general readers alike.

Contributors. Foreword Laleen Jayamanne. Introduction Vikrant Kishore, Amit Sarwal, and Parichay Patra Part I. Histories: Mainstream and Alternative 1. Myths, Markets and Panics: Speculating about the Proto-Cinematic Historical Significance of the Popularity of Two Parsi Theatre Plays at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Kaushik Bhaumik 2. The Left Encounter: Progressive Voices of Nationalism and Indian Cinema to the 1950s Binayak Bhattacharya 3. Genre Mixing as Creative Fabrication M. Madhava Prasad 4. What Do the Villains Have? Indian Cinema's Villains in the 1970s Hariprasad Athanickal 5. Inward Bound: Self-referentiality in Bombay Cinema Prateek Part II. Bollywood Dance: Re-reading History 6. Dancing to the Songs: History of Dance in Popular Hindi Films Shruti Ghosh 7. Designing the Song and Dance Sequences: Exploring Bollywood's Cinematic Creativity Vikrant Kishore and Susan Kerrigan 8. The Item Girl: Tradition and Transgression in Bollywood Dancing Amita Nijhawan Part III. Changes in the City scape, Changes in Cinema 9. Regionalist Disjuncture in Bollywood: Dabangg and the Consumerist Cinema Hrishikesh Ingle Mourning and Blood-Ties: Macbeth in Mumbai Moinak Biswas 10. Black Friday: A Screen History of the 1993 Bombay Bomb Blasts Rajdeep Roy 11. The Re-Mapped Dialectics of Contemporary Indian Cinema: Kahaani and That Girl in Yellow Boots Shaheen S. Ahmed Part IV. Other Regions, Other Nations 12. Marking out the "South" in/of Hindi Cinema: An Approach via Remakes Nikhila H. 13. Between Solidarity and the Stereotype: Chandni Chowk to China S. V. Srinivas 14. The Khan Mania: Universal Appeal of Superstar Shahrukh Khan in a Post-globalized Bollywood Era Sony Jalarajan Raj, Rohini Sreekumar, and Fikri Jermadi 15. Old Wine in a New Bottle: Bollywood Films Shot in Australia after 9/11 Sanchari De and Amit Sarwal 16. The Way Cinema was Banished: The Intervention of Cinema Studies in India Parichay Patra Index