Orienting Hollywood

Front matter

Sense te ae

A

A CENTURY OF FILM CULTURE

Index

About the Author vii

This page intentionally left blank

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No matter what we are carrying across a border, most of us avoid the “something to declare” checkpoint. In ferrying this book across the finish line, I would like to linger for a moment and declare my thanks to those who have made the journey possible.

The initial research for this book began at the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University. Iam deeply grateful to Richard Maxwell, Anna McCarthy, Manjunath Pendakur, George Yudice, and most importantly Toby Miller, for their engagement and encouragement. These smart people helped to assemble scattered ideas into an argument. Id also like to thank the rest of the Cinema Studies faculty and staff for their many kindnesses during my time at NYU, especially Richard Allen, Ventura Castro, William Simon, Robert Stam, Chris Straayer, Ken Sweeney, and Zhang Zhen.

I was fortunate to develop the research for this project with the generous support of colleagues at the University of Virginia and the University of California, San Diego. Thanks to Patrick Anderson, Gayle Aruta, LoriAnne Barnett, Lauren Berliner, Aniko Bodroghozy, Bethany Bryson, Lisa Cartwright, Sharon Corse, Johanna Drucker, Rita Felski, Gary Fields, Liz Floyd, Susan Fraiman, David Golumbia, Dan Hallin, Val Hartouni, Sharon Hays, Robert Horwitz, Krishan Kumar, Kate Levitt, Jamie Lloyd, Carl McKinney, and Pawan Singh. At UCSD, the Hellman Fellowship Program and the Faculty Career Development Program supported writing during the latter stages of the project.

As the book neared completion, my new colleagues at the University of Southern California welcomed me into a collegial and productive atmosphere for research and writing. I would especially like to thank Christine Acham, Jade Agua, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Elizabeth Daley, Mike Dillon, Kate Fortmueller, Larry Gross, Anikó Imre, Priya Jaikumar, Rick Jewell, Kara Keeling, Neetu Khanna, Akira Lippit, Tara McPherson, viii | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As with most projects with an extensive archival component, only a fraction of the consulted material appears in the notes at the end of this book. I would like to acknowledge the library staff at the following institutions for their generous help in researching well over fifty newspapers, periodicals, and trade journals, as well as providing access to innumerable memoranda, policy documents, trade reports, letters, and other ephemera: Anwar Jamal Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamma Millia Islamia, Delhi; Asiatic Society, Mumbai and Kolkata; National Archives of India, Delhi; Nehru Memorial Library, Delhi; and V. Shantaram Foundation, Mumbai. I would especially like to thank Barbara Hall at the Margaret Herrick Library, Ned Comstock at the Warner Brothers Archive, and Moslem Quraishy at the Sarai Archives for their assistance. I must express my deep gratitude to Debashree Mukherjee for her diligent research support and expert advice during the course of research.

This project benefited from talks and presentations in North America, Europe, and South Asia. I would like to thank Michael Curtin, Lars Eckstein, Greg Elmer, Joe Karaganis, Suvir Kaul, Purnima Mankekar, Allison Perlman, Kevin Sanson, Anja Schwartz, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Paul Smith, Michael Szalay, Rosie Thomas, and Ravi Vasudevan for their generous invitations.

Many artists, practitioners, policy makers, trade and industry representatives, and journalists generously granted interviews accompanied by drink and the occasional armed guard. Special thanks to Saleem Ahmadullah, Javed Akhtar, Madhusudan Anand, Fayyaz B., Shailaja Bajpai, Simrat Brar, Yash Chopra, Uma da Cunha, Kunal Dasgupta, Siddhartha Dasgupta, Blaise Fernandes, Jacinto Fernandes, Ashutosh Gowariker, Ravi Gupta, Nina Lath Gupta, Jiten Hemdev, Karan Johar, Jyoti, Nikhat Kazmi, Aamir Khan, Farah Khan, Pankaj Khandpur, Amit Khanna, Alex Kuruvilla, Manish Malhotra, Gul Nanda, Rahul Nanda, A. M. Padmanabhan, Anjum Rajabali, Sharmishta Roy, Kapil Saha, Supran Sen, Shankar, Aditya Shastri, Shravan Shroff, Sarabjit Singh, Uday Singh, D. F. H. Sidhwa, Shridhar Subramaniam, and Prakash B. Verma.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | ix

The wonderful folks at New York University Press helped steward the project as it traveled from initial proposal to final manuscript. I'd like to thank Ciara McLaughlin, Alicia Nadkarni, Kent Ono, and Eric Zinner for their support. Above all, the inimitable Sarah Banet-Weiser trusted in this project from the beginning—I so appreciate her enthusiasm and engagement. In addition to thanking the two anonymous reviewers for their careful feedback, I would also like to thank Anikó Imre, Priya Jaikumar, Carl McKinney, John McMurria, Denise McKenna, and Shawn Shimpach, who all generously offered detailed comments on the manuscript in various stages of completion.

So many friends have offered help, collaboration, and inspiration along the way. Td like to thank in particular: Paula Chakravartty, Matthew Fee, Tejaswini Ganti, Michael Gillespie, Roger Hallas, Jennifer Holt, Eric Hoyt, Brian Larkin, Nancy Kwak, Sudhir Mahadevan, Neepa Majumdar, Mia Mask, Debashree Mukherjee, Roopali Mukherjee, Kartik Nair, Lisa Parks, Aswin Punathambekar, Ken Rogers, Bhaskar Sarkar, Jessica Scarlata, Lorca Shepperd, Rosie Thomas, Ravi Vasudevan, and Federico Windhausen. Special thanks to Ira Bhaskar, John McMurria, and Shawn Shimpach for their friendship, warmth, and encouragement.

Ravi Sundaram’s camaraderie, playful cynicism, and tremendous insight have sustained me throughout the project. Ranjani Mazumdar has remained my dearest confidant and sparring partner during a time when I so needed both. Ravi and Ranjani’s East Delhi apartment has been a home away from home for almost fifteen years. This book is simply unimaginable without them.

My extended family in India—especially the Govils in Gurgaon, the Parmars in Noida, the Mohans in Saket, and the Golerias in Andheri— kindly put me up and helped me whenever they could. I would also like to thank Ela Prakash and Monika Prakash for their support. I will always be so grateful for Denise McKenna’s unwavering confidence. More than anyone else, our daughter, Anya, will be glad that the book is finally done!

When I was very young, my parents told me that I was made in Japan but born in India. As I surreptitiously polished off their last remaining drops of Johnnie Walker Black—some childhood habits are hard to break—I would repeat that joke to the grownups at our family parties x | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and wonder why they laughed naughtily. I have thought a lot about that transnational origin story while writing this book. “Home” has only ever existed as an orientation, but writing this book has helped point the way. This book is for those loved ones who know what I mean, and for Bhagwan Prakash most of all. And yes, in case you're wondering, I think I finally get the joke.