ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on post-1980s popular films, and through representations and reception, addresses the paradox that while the ‘apocalyptic imagination’, as articulated in the West, is not strictly valid for the contemporary Indian context, nuclear technology is deeply imbricated in relationships to do with the individual and the nation, and anxieties about its defence and perpetuity. When nuclear issues are invoked in Indian film, they are yoked with the sentiment of nationalism but not always in a straightforward manner. Contrary to expectations, nuclear missiles are not viewed as a synecdoche for the nation in popular films. The nuclear icon became more commonplace in thrillers produced after 1998, not least due to the political crescendo around the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan. Nuclear weapons appear as a technological invention, a new idea, sometimes a gimmick - ‘new-clear’ perhaps - rather than specifically associated with horror, fear and planetary devastation or the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it as conjured up by notions of the apocalypse.
