A Gandhian Affair

India's Curious Portrayal of Love in Cinema

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by Sanjay Suri

Type

Essays

Subject

Countries > India

Keywords

India, Hindi cinema, sexuality, sociology

Publishing date

2019

Publisher

HarperCollins India

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 320 pages
5 ½ x 8 ½ inches (14 x 21.5 cm)

ISBN

978-93-5357-080-4

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Book Presentation:
Sex has always dominated Hindi cinema but in a curious hide-and-seek sort of way. Sanjay Suri argues that Hindi cinema was the unlikely offspring of the Father of the Nation in this respect a product of his celibacy and austerity. Gandhi s heroic retreat from wealth and sexuality was written into the cinema and then elaborately filmed shot by shot. Just about every film brings up these two themes for the hero to then rise above. Suri draws on numerous examples from Mother India to Do Bigha Zameen; Naya Daur to Pyaasa; Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam to Guide; and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to Lage Raho Munna Bhai to show how cinema was made within well-defined moral fences that were built with dos and don ts about sex and money. In the 150th year of his birth, A Gandhian Affair is a history of India through the preoccupations of its cinema under the spell of the Mahatma.

About the Author:
Sanjay Suri is Europe correspondent for CNN News18 Television. Born in Jalandhar, he has earlier been London correspondent for Outlook magazine, editor-in-chief of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, and chief reporter of the Indian Express in Delhi. He has an MA in English literature from Delhi University and an MSc in social and organizational psychology from the London School of Economics. He has done media studies at Stanford University and been a visiting fellow at Oxford University. He is also the author of Brideless in Wembley, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Hutch Crossword Book Award, and of 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After.

See the publisher website: HarperCollins India