Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Introduction: Outright Hokum
The Unoriginal, Unreasonable, Unrealistic Blockbuster
Critical Mass: The Maturing of the Masala Film
The Social Message of Escapism: Travels in an Idealized Moral World
Bombay as Allegory: The Geography of Time
Methodology: Sugar Coated, Homeopathic . . . or Bullshit?
Chapter 1. Amar: Straight Shooter
Here’s a Story of a Man Named Kishanlal, Who Was Busy with Three Boys of His Own
Adoptive Fathers and Lovely Ladies
Rehabilitating Fallen Women with Love and Fraud
Rehabilitating the State in the Bedroom
The Buried Gun: Disciplined Celibacy and Muscular Hinduism
Seminal Statecraft: Shiva and Rama
The Gun Unburied: Amar, Kishanlal, and Manmohan
Chapter 2. Akbar: Parda and Parody
From Emo to Hero (via Urdu)
Akbar of Allahabad
Doomed Past: Lucknow
Chaudhvin Ka Chand (“Moon of the Fourteenth” or “Full Moon”)
Mere Mehboob (“My Darling”)
Palki (“The Palanquin”)
Pakeezah (“The Pure One”)
When Is a Veil Not a Veil?
Parody behind the Parda
Man behind the Curtain
This Is True, It’s No Story
Chapter 3. Anthony: Amar Akbar Irony
Item Number One: “I Am Alone in the World”
Item Number Two: One Is a Lonely Number
Item Number Three: Anthony and Jesus, Fifty-Fifty
Item Number Four: My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves
Item Number Five: The Irony of Anthony as Apotheosis
Item Number Six: The Hemoglobin in the Atmosphere
Chapter 4. Maa—!
Anthony and the Bad Mother
Akbar and the Wayward Mother
Amar and the Righteous Mother
Maa and the Cosmic Mother
Conclusion: Excuse Me, Please
Appendix: Film Synopsis
Prologue Sequence: The Historical Nation as Slum
Time Lapse into the Present
Title Sequence and First Song
Neighborhood Antics and Second Song
Enter Lakshmi: Romance and the Redemption of Middle-Class Hindu Respectability
Reversal of Fortune: Kishanlal and Robert
Amar and Anthony: Fictive Brotherhood between Real Brothers
Enter Jenny: Christian Hybridity and Third Song
Three Models of Romance and Fourth Song
Muslim Social Subplot and Fifth Song
Zabisko Makes His Move
The Scales Fall from the Eyes: Bharati’s Redemption and Sixth Song
Akbar and Salma United, Kishanlal and Amar Reunited
Anthony Loses One Father and Regains the Other
Masquerade
Seventh Song and Finale
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index