Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle

(Hardback)

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The over-the-top musicals of Bollywood may be the most familiar aspect of Indian popular culture, but there's much more, all explored in this fascinating volume. India leads the United States in producing movies (Bollywood employs over one million people) and music (from rock to raga), and its people are every bit as addicted to sports, television, and pop culture as Americans. As for actor-politicians, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has elected film stars head of government since 1967. Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle follows the rise of modern India's pop culture world, especially since the 1980s, when relaxed censorship and economic liberalization led to an explosion in movies, music, mass media, consumerism, spiritual practices, and more. It is a captivating introduction to a diverse nation whose appetite for entertainment has led to some surprising twists and turns in recent history. How did a popular Indian television series spark a change in government and the rise of Hindu nationalism Are some Bollywood film companies laundering money for organized crime, or even al Qaeda What accounts for the overwhelming popularity of that quaint vestige of colonialism, cricket The answers, and many more intriguing insights, await the reader in Pop Culture India!

Author Bio

Asha Kasbekar is a freelance journalist specializing in popular culture. She has worked at the British Board of Film Classification, taught Indian cinema at the University of London, and published papers on Bollywood films.