Self, Other and Bollywood

Abstract

I will be risking infamy to claim myself a film scholar, let alone a specialist in Indian Film Studies and/or issues related to social and political realities of cinema as a whole. My primary concern with this book—and my argument in it—is topical: the concept of an ever-permeating ‘other’, cinema or otherwise, moderates my occasional dabbling with continental philosophy, and the current anthology deals with otherization as a central theme. I am interested in looking into the basic spirit of this book—how Bollywood, an industry owing its origin to the paradoxical layering of national history, has evolved into a space ‘consistent enough over time to suggest ideological effectivity’ (Prasad, 1998, p. 5). Such interest clearly totters on the verge of a jumbled perspective, because of the numerous densely correlated ideological apparatuses. Ideologically or aesthetically Bollywood poses a challenge to the curious, mainly due to the sheer scope of the topic. I will, therefore, further delimit my ambit. I want to (1) briefly look into the variant theoretical expositions of the definition of ‘Bollywood’, i.e. how it functions, coheres, frustrates, and (2) analyze the philosophical underpinnings of the word ‘other’, i.e. its constant struggle and negotiation with ‘self’, through three defining moments of continental philosophy. The ‘other’ in Bollywood, the ‘other’ that is Bollywood are engaged in a constant negotiation within and outside of itself—it is being defined, refuted and pruned to fit into a conceptual garb of aesthetics.