The present study primarily intends to document how textbooks and reference textbooks on film studies written by Western and diaspora authors either belittled Indian cinema as masala genre or glorified the moniker Bollywood as a signifier of pan-Indianness, overlooking the significant contributions of the Telugu film industry, which is the twin brother of the Hindi film industry both in genesis and growth (since 1931) and even today runs neck to neck with Hindi cinema in the production of films and film remakes. The study argues that Indian cinema has never been examined at the modernist (foundation) level of its structural perspectives comprising innovations of production, cultural flows in the delineation of regional variations, and fine arts including aesthetics consisting of six arts and genres that are native, distinct, and unique. Drawing its support from de-Westernizing media studies, the article posits that lack of familiarity with the Indian cultural and linguistic traditions, together with its complex structure and semiotics rooted in religious classics, which are portrayed more effectively in Telugu cinema than in Hindi cinema, is the reason for the failure of

For over half a century Gandhi has been one of the favored characters of a number of films – Nine hours to Rama (1963) to Gandhi, My Father (2007). Gandhian ethos, life and teachings are frequently represented in varied ways in different films. The portrayal of Gandhi in different films can be grouped into two broad categories: i. revolving around his life, percept and practice as one category and ii. involving his ideas, ideals and views either explicitly or implicitly. The first category of the films include three broad films—Gandhi (1982), The Making of the Mahatma (1996) and Gandhi My Father (2007) and the other category of the films include Nine Hours to Rama (1963- English), Jinnah (1998- English), Sardar (1993), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (2000), Hey Ram (2000), Lage Raho Munnabhai, (2006) etc.  Grounded in the theory of inter-textuality through moving image method, the present study is a comparative analysis of examining the portrayal of Gandhi among the first category of three films ---Gandhi (1982- English) by Richard Attenborough, The Making of the Mahatma (1996) by Shyam Benegal and Gandhi, My Father (2007) by Feroz Abbas Khan with crisscross critiquing of the portrayal of Gandhi in the second category of films. Using Bingham’s (2010) discursive analysis on biopic films, the study seeks to show how Gandhi is perceived and depicted through the lenses of these three eminent directors vis-à-vis others from the point of intertextuality both ideologically and politically. Further the study would elaborate how different personal and social events in Gandhi’s life are weaved together by these directors to bring out the character of Bapu or Mahatma from Gandhi. For all the above critique, Gandhi’s autobiography-The Story of My Experiments with Truth-has been taken as a base referent

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The screen adaptation of the novella Devdas by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is an important landmark in early Indian cinema. A prominent film, screened in four Indian languages (Bengali, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil), it seems to offer a novel vision of romantic love and romanticism. This article critiques the fanciful interpretations of the film provided by some postmodern academics in the field of comparative literature. It endeavours to place the film both as text and cinematic work into a broader perspective based on the study of intertextuality of three renditions: Raghavaiah’s Devdas (Telugu, 1953), Bimal Roy’s Devdas (Hindi, 1955) and Bhansali’s Devdas (Hindi, 2002). Grounded in cultural theory and Indian performative aesthetics coupled with moving image analysis, this study highlights the underlying, deep-rooted romanticism embedded in Indian philosophical and aesthetic traditions of devotion between atma (individual soul) and paramatma (absolute soul), personifying Paro/Chandramukhi as atma and Devdas as paramatma. This article, part of a larger project on de-Westernising media studies, makes a critical intervention in current South Asian Studies by aiming to provide a novel theoretical framework to which the philosophical and traditional tenets grounding the novella of Devdas can be anchored.