ABSTRACT
Colonial India in the 20th century saw the expansion of consumer culture, including cinema and advertising, particularly in its capital of commerce and finance, Bombay. India was both a receiver and generator of atomic imaginaries by way of the globalised culture industry under the carapace of colonialism. The larger context included foreign and indigenous film and other media that were vetted as they went through stringent censorship. The fact that the atomic weapon was strictly outside of an arena of commodity exchange imbued it with an exceptional potency with which to lace commodities. The imagery of the ‘mushroom cloud’ and its awe-inspiring aesthetic threatened to overcome the bomb’s sense of destruction. The splicing of documentary elements into a filmic fiction was intended to further enhance realist ideology and narrative, but it did not always succeed in seducing the spectator. Feature films in Indian cinema halls were often preceded by ‘information films’ relaying documentaries of topical interest.
