Titas De Sarkar, PhD Student, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Onscreen Dādā-s: Bengali Cinema and the Postcolonial Youth
The elder brother – Dādā – has emerged as a distinctive social category in the political and public domains over the long twentieth century in Bengali society. This talk focuses on Bengali cinema to study the location of the Dādā in postcolonial Calcutta and the manner in which he negotiates with a plethora of crises among the contemporary youth. Studying song sequences from a cluster of Bengali movies released in the late seventies, the talk argues that the Dādā redefines conventional understanding of heroism, solidarity, and masculinity.