Hindu Diasporic Consciousness

Abstract

This article applies theories of diaspora and diasporic consciousness to the study of a film produced in Canada by an independent South Asian film maker, Srinivas Krishna. The film, Masala, a dark comedy filmed in Toronto against a backdrop of South Asian immigrant groups, multi-culturalism and the 1985 Air India bombing and drawing upon the magico-realism of Bollywood productions and Indian devotionals, offers commentaries on questions of identity and life among South Asian diasporic communities in Canada, Canadian social policy, religion and diasporic consciousness. The article examines the way the film is located in diasporic space and how the film maker plays upon the different locations and sensitivities of his audiences to represent, explain and critique diasporic space. The article considers the way caricature and stereotype inform the negotiations of identity among members of diasporic communities, the way objective and subjective spaces are redefined in a diasporic setting and how Hindu beliefs are represented in such settings. The article examines how the film maker draws upon traditional techniques of Indian story telling as well as a mixture of cinematic techniques to tell a diasporic version of a Hindu avatara story. It argues that in simultaneously affirming and challenging the religious beliefs that inform that story, the film maker raises some provocative questions about the vitality of religious and cultural traditions in the diaspora. The article concludes with a brief examination of how the film was received by audiences in India and in Europe and North America.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alessandrini, A. (2001). My heart's Indian for all that: Bollywood film between home and diaspora . Diaspora, 10, 315–340 .

Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global culture economy. In M. Featherston (Ed.), Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity ( pp. 295–310). London: Sage Publications Inc .

Appadurai, A. (1991). Global ethnoscapes: Notes and queries for a transnational anthropology. In R.G. Fox (Ed.), Recapturing anthropology: Working in the present (pp. 191–210). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press .

Bailey, C. (1992). What the story is: An interview with Srinivas Krishna . Cineaction, 28, 38–47 .

Baumann, M. (1995). Conceptualizing diaspora: The preservation of religious identity in foreign parts, exemplified by Hindu communities outside India . Temenos, 31, 19–35 .

Bordwell, D. (1986). Classical Hollywood cinema: Narrational principles and procedures. In P. Rosen (Ed.), Narrative, apparatus, ideology: A film theory reader (pp. 17–34). New York: Columbia University Press .

Chakravarty, S. (1993). National identity in Indian popular cinema 1947–1987. Austin: University of Texas Press .

Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas . Cultural Anthropology, 9, 302–338 .

10.

Cohen, R. (1996). Diasporas and the nation-state: From victims to challengers . International Affairs, 72, 507–520 .

11.

Desai, J. (2004). Reel a state: Reimagining diaspora, homeland, and nation-state in Srinivas Krishna's Masala. In Beyond Bollywood: The cultural politics of South Asian diasporic film (pp. 101–131). New York: Routledge .

12.

Gillespie, M. (1995). Sacred serials, devotional viewing, and domestic worship: A case-study in the interpretation of two TV versions of the Mahabharata in a Hindu family in West London. In R.C. Allen (Ed.), To be continued … Soap operas around the world (pp. 354–380). New York: Routledge .

13.

Gilroy, P. (1987). There ain't no black in the Union Jack: The cultural politics of race and nation. London: Hutchinson .

14.

Grundmann, R. (1994). Where is this place called home? Cinemaya, 23, 22–27 .

15.

Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity, community, culture and difference. London: Lawrence and Wishart .

16.

Jiwani, Y. (1992). Masala take one: The audience that didn't count. Rungh: South Asian Quarterly of Culture, Comment, and Criticism, 1(3), 10–13 . Reprinted as The audience that didn't count . Reverse Shot 1(2) (Summer, 1994), 18–21 .

17.

Krishna, S. (1991). Masala. Canada: Strand Releasing . 105 minutes.

18.

Krishna, S. (2005, 18 April). The case for a public inquiry. Toronto Star, p. A19.

19.

Levich, J. (1993). Masala . Cineaste, 20, 44–46 .

20.

Lutgendorf, P. (1990). Ramayana: The Video . The Drama Review, 34, 127–176 .

21.

Lutgendorf, P. (2002). [1995] All in the (Raghu) family. Excerpt. In S. Brent Plate (Ed.), Religion, art, and visual culture (pp. 187–192). New York: Palgrave . Originally published in L. Babb and S. Wadley (Eds), Media and the transformation of religion in South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press , 1995.

22.

Mankekar, P. (1999). Screening culture, viewing politics: An ethnography of television, womanhood and nation in postcolonial India. Durham: Duke University Press .

23.

Mishra, V. (2002). Bombay cinema and diasporic desire. In Bollywood cinema: Temples of desire (pp. 235–269). New York: Routledge .

24.

Parekh, B. (1994). Some reflections on the Hindu diaspora . New Community, 20, 603–620 .

25.

Rai, A. (2002). “Start narrative here”: Excess and the space of history in Asian diasporic films . South Asian Popular Culture, 1, 13–32 .

26.

Ramanujan, A.K. (1990). Is there an Indian way of thinking? An informal essay. In M. Marriot (Ed.), India through Hindu categories (pp. 41–58). California: Sage Publications Inc .

27.

Safran, W. (1991). Diaspora in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return . Diaspora, 1, 83–99 .

28.

Sheffer, G. (1986). A new field of study: Modern diasporas in international politics. In Modern diasporas in international politics (pp. 1–15). New York: St. Martin's Press .

29.

Taylor, E. (1993). Splitting image: Masala celebrates fragmentation. LA Weekly, 21–27.

30.

Waugh, T. (2002). Home is not the place one has left: Or Masala as “a Multi-Cultural Culinary Treat?” In G. Walz (Ed.), Canada's best features: Critical essays of 15 Canadian films (pp. 255–272). New York : Rodopi .

31.

Vertovic, S. (2000). Three meanings of “Diaspora.” In Hindu diaspora: Comparative patterns (pp. 141–164). London and New York: Routledge .