ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book constitutes the first comprehensive academic investigation of the ongoing cinematic phenomenon that is new independent Indian cinema. It adopts a multi-angle, pluralistic and intercultural approach, featuring a diversity of voices and perspectives. Whilst the transglobal perpetuation of Bollywood as shorthand for Indian culture ostensibly augments India's global street credibility, it arguably obfuscates the nation's current socio-cultural and religio-political frictions. These tensions are exemplified in escalating levels of religious intolerance, and transgressions on freedom of expression, all largely met by the ruling states policy of silence. The chapter focuses on how the emergence of Indian Indies from an in-between space enables them to represent alternative stories whilst simultaneously gaining popularity in urban India. This middle Indie space could be located between the two enduring Indian cinema traditions, Bollywood and Parallel arthouse, and in India's current tryst between globalising modernity and traditional past.
