Tracing the obsession of the two filmmakers with the figure of the courtesan, actor, and sex-worker, often rolled into one lonely, headstrong character type Notice the similarity in posture in the poster for Mandi (Benegal, 1983, top photo) and Gangubai Kathiawadi (Bhansali, 2022). What else do you notice? Although the web series Heeramandi was all over our screens in the…
Tag: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Ritwik Ghatak at 100: The Many Re-incarnations of Ritwik in Bollywood
From Subhash Ghai to “Bidhu” Vinod Chopra to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the unlikely ‘filmi’ students of the Film and Television Institute of India where Ghatak taught for all of two years, keep his legacy alive in unmissable ways. There is also Payal Kapadia, as non-Bollywood as it can get, who mentions his influence on her work The film lovers’ conventional…
The Courtesan, the Sportsperson and the Desires of the Nation
The courtesan, a long-time fascination of Hindi cinema, is being replaced by the sportsperson. Corporeal labour and the art of sports is the kind of performance that the politics of post-2000 India celebrates. The courtesan represents women in pre-modern India, the sportsperson represents the ideal citizen of contemporary India. In particular, the sportswoman In the book Dancing with the Nation,…