ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relationship between the Hindi cinema and Muslims, specifically Muslim women. It argues that the relationship between Hindi cinema and Islamicate culture is a subject larger than the Muslim Social as a genre or the stock Muslim characters that live in Hindi films. Awadh produced the archetypes but the cinema's use of them wasn't limited by place or time. The pre-history of Hindi cinema is located in theatre and the language of the theatre-the Parsi theatre of the 1870s, for example–was Urdu. The screenplays and lyrics of Hindi films are written mainly in Urdu. The most literal rendering of the rarefied conception of the bawaif is to be found in Muzaffar Ali's film Umrao Jaan, but in the generality of Hindi films, the tawaif is a more carnal figure. To the chagrin of committed Hindi dramatists, highminded Hindi drama failed to strike roots.
