RURAL CULTURE IN HINDI CINEMA: A Sociological Study

Rural Culture in Hindi Cinema deals with the study of changing Indian rural society through cinematic lens. This book on Hindi cinema is an addition to the emerging trend of audio-visual research that has come into mainstream. The book initially deals with theoretical orientation to rural life and rural sociology. Thereafter it tries to analyse Indian cinema through different phases. Three chapters in the book deal with decade-wise changes in Indian rural life from 1950–70, 1970–90 and 1990–2010 respectively. Selecting films decade-wise, the author endeavours to analyse films through audio-visual narratives, keeping themes in mind in context to specific time and space. In doing so, author looks at the junction where sociologist’s village studies meet the film director’s cinematic image of the society. The book further looks into contemporary changes in village life in the post-LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation) era. Till the period of 1980, in films like Do Bigha Zamin (1953), Naya Daur (1957), Upkar (1967) etc. the villagers were seen to be nostalgic for village life and were willing to return back to their villages. However, after 1990s, a shift of change is observed where such nostalgia for village life disappeared among villagers who migrated to city, such as in films Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008) and Peepli Live (2010). As a special feature of this book, the author has tried to develop a new technique to read films as a text, which he terms as ‘film text’ that can be interpreted sociologically. In this outreach effort, the author has further tried to analyse Hindi cinema through fitting cinematic lens into sociological imagination.