ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the Indian subcontinent and its global diaspora(s) as a vernacular cosmopolis, divided by religion, nation and language, and yet nevertheless united by mutually comprehensible popular aesthetics. Indeed, the continuous dialectic in Indian film between local and cosmopolitan vernaculars, between the pure and the impure, the fundamentalist and syncretic, represents, perhaps, the wider story of South Asia and its diasporas, a proposition that the author hopes will become clearer in the course of this chapter. The fact that, as in South Asia, similar vernacular cultural tastes, cuisines, music, sport, poetry, fashion and film are widely enjoyed across vast geographical regions points to a key feature of late modern diasporas which has remained so far untheorized in the scholarly literature. The appeal of Bombay cinema in the context of the global South Asian diaspora can only be understood if it is put in context of its development and continuation as part of and inflected by its internal subcontinental 'diasporas'.
