Jennifer Dubrow, Associate Professor, Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington
Progressive literature and cinema have usually been considered separately in the study of South Asia. Yet many progressive writers worked in some capacity for the Bombay film industry. This talk examines the close relationship between progressive literature and cinema in 1950s India, by comparing Krishan Chander’s 1957 hit satirical travelogue Ek Gadhe ki Sarguzasht (A Donkey’s Story) with the 1951 classic Bombay film Awara (dir. Raj Kapoor). The talk examines how both works use outsider figures to critique the postcolonial state. Both draw on tropes from Urdu poetry to suggest emotional change as key to social and political transformation.