Seeing Kolkata: Globalization and the Changing Context of the Narrative of Bengali-ness in Two Contemporary Films

Binayak Bhattacharya

doi:10.1515/asia-2019-0050

Article

Seeing Kolkata: Globalization and the Changing Context of the Narrative of Bengali-ness in Two Contemporary Films

Binayak Bhattacharya

Published/Copyright: March 17, 2020

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From the journal Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques Volume 73 Issue 3

Abstract

The article engages with the question of an exclusivity, an ‘otherness’ of the Bengali culture, in the available representative modes of Indian cinema. It studies the socio-cultural dynamics through which this ‘otherness’ can be found reorienting itself in recent years in a globalized perspective. It takes two contemporary films, Kahaani (Hindi, 2012) and Bhooter Bhobishyot (Bengali, 2012) to dwell upon. The analysis aims to historicise the construction of a cultural stereotype called ‘Bengali-ness’ in Indian cinema by marking some significant aspects in the course of its historical development. Using the films as cases in point, the article attempts to develop a framework in which the changing landscape of the city of Kolkata, shifting codes of the cultural habits of the middle class and reconfigured ideas about a ‘Bengali nation’ can be seen operating to develop a refashioned relationship between the state of Bengal and the rest of the country. It suggests that the global cultural inflow, along with the localized notions of the new, globalized Bengali-ness, are engaged in developing a new politics of representation for the city and the Bengali society in the cinemas of India.

Keywords: Bengali cinema; Kolkata; Indian cinema; Kahaani; Bhooter Bhobishyot

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Published Online: 2020-03-17

Published in Print: 2020-03-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2019-0050

Keywords for this article

Bengali cinema; Kolkata; Indian cinema; Kahaani; Bhooter Bhobishyot