Papers – Page 40 – ECSAS 2023

Historical Heroines and the Homogenised Ideal of Hindu Womanhood: A Study of Contemporary Bollywood Films

Recent times have witnessed a surge in the production of historical films and period dramas in Indian film industries, especially in Bollywood. While being popularly acclaimed for their visualisation of the past, these films raise some serious issues with regard to their representation of gender, caste and religion. Studies indicate an ongoing historical revisionism in […]

Idols to Individuals- The Formation of the Independent Hindu Women in Recent Malayalam Films

The Brahmanical Hindu norms worship women as goddesses- demanding women (mother/sister/wife) to preserve and nourish the patriarchal ideologies and values. This is visible in the family, which is regarded as a primary social institution. While earlier Malayalam* films portrayed women as objects, recent Malayalam movies represent women as individuals rather than objects or types. The […]

A Sītā for the New Millenium: Representing Sītā in Amish Tripathi’s Fantasy “Ramchandra” Series

This paper explores the rewriting of Sītā’s story in Amish Tripathi’s popular mythological fantasy Ramchandra series, with a focus on the second novel,”Sita: Warrior of Mithila” (2017). Amish is a controversial writer who has been criticized from the right, which objects to his total rewriting of the Rām story, and the left, which accuses him […]

The reassessing of Hindu women’s ideal in the Hindi novels Gāndhī aur Saralādevī Caudhrānī: Bārah adhyāy and Tr̥n dhari oṭ

Indian literatures are still playing a major role in reshaping the values and representations linked to Indian women’s identity. As far as Hindi contemporary literature is concerned, especially over the last years, there have been many attempts at reassessing values and symbols linked to mythical, religious and historical Hindu women characters (Mangraviti: 2021). It is […]

Re-imagining the Hindu Maternal Subject through Revisionist Popular Narratives.

The maternal subject has been quintessentially an apotheosised and desexualised figure in Indian mythology and it is important to assess how these ideal figures are mediated in contemporary popular fiction. Given the tangled web of contradictory associations with motherhood, which can be a position of empowerment and simultaneously a site of patriarchal oppression, I investigate […]

Violence, Care, and Empowered Motherhood in the Netflix series Mai: A Mother’s Rage

This paper examines the representation of motherhood in the Hindi-language Netflix series Mai: A Mother’s Rage released globally in 2022. The figure of the mother has a long and rich legacy in the Indian cultural imagination, including in Hindi cinema, where the Hindu mother especially has served as a symbol of the nation, the voice […]

Rewriting Hindu Women in Popular Films

This paper explores issues related to rewriting Hindu women in popular films and discusses interpretations of gender and Hinduism in Bollywood films of the 2000s. I examine the films Dil cahta hai (The Heart Wants), 2001, Devdas (Devdas), 2002, and Ham Dil De Cuke sanam (I Have Already Given My Heart Away), 1999, from the […]

Unplanned pregnancies: the value of essentialized motherhood in Kabir Singh and Thappad

This paper examines the treatment of unplanned pregnancies as strategic plot-points within two recent and seemingly disparate works of Hindi cinema—Kabir Singh and Thappad. Commercial Hindi films have begun to depict a variety of female characters. However, the positioning of motherhood as the undisputed outcome of every pregnancy curiously remains an unshakeable norm. By juxtaposing […]

Umbartha: The Metaphors of Gendered Limitations in Marathi Cinema

This paper introspects on the iconic 1982 Marathi film Umbartha (threshold). Directed by Jabbar Patel and written by Vijay Tendulka, Umbartha is transitional between Marathi cinema and Bollywood, especially as its leading actors were Bollywood stars: Smita Patil and Girish Karnad. A powerful feminist narrative, the film’s title a is a metaphor of the boundaries […]

The New Indian Woman and Her Others in Alankrita Shrivastava’s films

One of India’s foremost feminist film directors, Alankrita Shrivastava is known for her “lady-oriented” films that center women’s desires and dreams, and that consider how women navigate a rapidly globalizing India, the “New India.” Her most recent film, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2020), stays true to her reputation, following the lives of two […]