ABSTRACT
One of the most popular Bollywood films of the nineties, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The Lover Takes a Bride), opens with the actor Amrish Puri feeding pigeons in London, gazing into the distance, nostalgic for the mustard fields and untainted culture of Punjab. DDLJ, as the film is commonly known, is a significant film in Bollywood cinema because it is the one of the first to signify the diasporic subjects as Indian national subjects rather than as corrupted Westerners. The “Indian and his family” can and have remained intact despite its transplantation abroad argues the film. More specifically, it suggests that despite their vulnerability to Westernization, gendered and sexualized normativities can also exist in the diaspora. The popularity of the film transnationally attests to the pleasures and desires associated with such a narrative of belonging.
