Ashish Rajadhyaksha Livres

Focusing on India's recent history, this volume offers a comprehensive retrospective that explores the influences shaping the present. It features key essays covering politics, economics, cultural studies, and aesthetics, complemented by various artistic and documentary forms, including photography, maps, letters, and legal documents. This multifaceted approach provides a rich understanding of the country's past and its impact on contemporary society.

The author, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore, is a prominent critic and writer specializing in cinema, art, and culture. He has contributed significantly to the field as co-editor of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema and has written extensively on film, including a notable work on Ritwik Ghatak, exploring his epic storytelling. Rajadhyaksha's expertise offers valuable insights into Indian cinema and its cultural context.

The fifty-one essays compiled in this book were written over a forty-year period by India's leading independent filmmaker. They provide new insights into a turbulent era in modern India's cultural history. Kumar Shahani has taught, spoken and written on a variety of subjects over this period.

The Indian cinema sells 2.9 billion movie tickets annually, the largest in the world. Yet, as an economic entity, the Indian movie industry remains small, with an annual revenue that is 5% of Hollywood's. This volume throws light on the history of Indian cinema and the circumstances that saw the birth of one of the world's great countercultures.