Retro Mode in Bollywood Cinema

(A paper written by Afrid Sheikh (2015A4PS0139G) under the guidance of Prof. Parichay Patra)

Introduction
In the course of this paper, we will be Now Reflexivity in films is a hard trait to
studying the tendency of Bollywood notice, and I myself have to admit that I did
Cinema to refer to itself, i.e to display not notice several reflexive instances in
reflexive properties. In a general sense, to movies like ‘Andhadhun’ and ‘I Hate Luv
be reflexive means to refer to oneself. But Storys’, simply because reflexivity is not
as in the case of Bombay Cinema as we see something that one thinks of when you see
here, it simply means that a scene or an a scene of the screen. A fitting example of
instance in a film refers to, or takes strong this is the Singham-esque Cop figure
inspiration from a scene from an earlier ‘Manohar’ in Andhadhun, played by
film. A strong example of the same being Manav Vij. I struggled to notice it until it
the opening scene of Om Shanti Om, where was explicitly pointed out to me, such is the
a young Rishi Kapoor is shown dancing on elusive nature of this trait. In the course of
a swanky disco floor, and a young this study, we will aim to prepare the
Shahrukh Khan watching him in awe. The reader’s mindset to notice these reflexive
scene progresses to show Shahrukh himself instances by drawing several comparisons
replacing Rishi on the dance floor, in the from our films of choice and analyzing
disco dancer’s eye catching outfit. them.
This is just one of many instances present
in Shahrukh Khan’s 2007 Blockbuster film,
Om Shanti Om, thus leading to it being the
primary choice for this study.
In addition to this, we will also be looking
at Sriram Raghavan’s 2018 blockbuster
Andhadhun. While the reflexive instances
were very evident in case of Om Shanti Om,
they are not so for Andhadhun. These
instances, while present, require deeper
introspection, and might not be evident at
first glance. Our mode of analysis will be
viewing the said films, and analyzing them
with the help of references from the
following articles: (i) Metafiguring
Bollywood : Brecht after Om Shanti Om by
Bhaskar Sarkar (ii) Querying the
‘Traditional’ Roots of Silent cinema in Asia
by Kaushik Bhaumik . We will be drawing
excerpts from these articles and using their
ideas as a base for our study.