ABSTRACT

India today, filled with cell phones and multinational companies. For if social and historical contexts determine the form and content of a story, it is not surprising that storytelling in India—in films, novels, plays, poems, television serials—has been shaped by the country's dramatic transformation and has, at the same time, shaped the narrative of this transformation. This chapter discusses some well-known Indian novels and films from different eras to illustrate the different values they espouse and different meanings they have acquired over the years. In the classic 1955 Hindi film Shree 420, the lead character Raj, played by the great Raj Kapoor, walks from his country home to the modern metropolis of Bombay to find his fortune. India was just eight years into its post-British independence, and the themes of its cinema not surprisingly reflected a "progressive" notion of democratic rights alongside traditional values.