Page 79 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Bollywood and the Ind an D aspora

The value of media, among a mix of other influences such as family visits, pil-
grimages, travel to the home country, local ethnic organizations, and places for re-
ligious worship, lies in their ability to permeate various social rituals. Studying the
circulation and consumption of bhangra music and dance among Asians in Brit-
ain, Gayatri Gopinath points out that popular culture forms are more than just en-
tertainment. In a diasporic setting, popular cultural forms become strategic tools
for keeping alive certain traditions, and most crucially, serve as a bridge between
generations. In the United States, performances of song-and-dance sequences
from Bollywood films as part of “India Night” cultural shows on college campuses
are another instance of media becoming a key resource for immigrant youth to
define cultural identity in relation to other racial and ethnic groups and for their
parents to participate in this process. As scholars like Henry Jenkins and Sunaina
Maira have observed, mixing classical dance with contemporary club moves and
remixing bhangra music with hip-hop rhythms, such performances reflect the
creative and surprising juxtapositions that happen in a migrant setting as people
construct the “home” as both a world away and right in one’s own backyard.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie GhaM . . . (haPPiness and tears,
001, dir. karan Johar)

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham . . . (K3G) is a story of an affluent Indian family: Yashvardhan, Nan-
dini, and their two sons—Rahul and Rohan. The family is split apart when Rahul marries
Anjali, a girl from a lower-class neighborhood in Delhi, instead of the girl his father has
chosen. Yashvardhan disowns Rahul, and Rahul and Anjali move to the United Kingdom
accompanied by Anjali’s younger sister Pooja and Rahul’s nanny. When Rohan learns about
these incidents, he vows to reunite the family. Rohan moves to London and makes his way
into Rahul’s family under an assumed name and reconciles the family.
K3G is one of the biggest hits of Bollywood. Major stars, catchy songs, and elaborately
choreographed dances all contributed to the film’s success. But the importance of K3G lies
in its departure from earlier Bollywood narratives in recognizing and representing nonresi-
dent Indians (NRIs). Over nearly three decades, Bollywood films have tended to position the
diaspora as impure and India as the crucible of virtues. Furthermore, in these films, claims
about the diaspora’s impurity are made by resorting to stereotypes of diasporic women as
“Westernized” and “immoral.”
K3G is no different from such films in its portrayal of gender norms, but does mark a
significant shift. K3G renders the diaspora less impure and more as an acceptable variant
within a transnational “Indian” family. While one can point to several scenes in the film, the
key moment is when Anjali and Rahul’s son (Krish), born and raised in England, sings the In-
dian national anthem at a school function in London. Instead of singing “Do Re Mi,” Krish
surprises everyone by singing the Indian national anthem. Such sequences function both
as reassurance for Indian immigrants that they can live abroad, yet claim cultural citizen-
ship in India, and as an acknowledgment of India embracing the NRI as one of its own. The
diaspora is no longer different and threatening.