If you know, you know: Imperso-nation and mimicry in Pathaan

Abstract

Pathaan embodies the essential Bollywood as being everywhere and everything in both form and content. Oscillating between the mythical and the farcical, combining allegory, nostalgia and inside jokes, Pathaan is action, comedy, romance and drama all at once. This reflection draws upon Sumita Chakravarty’s conceptualization of the ‘imperso-nation’ and Homi Bhabha’s idea of mimicry to discuss how Pathaan engages with nationalism, transnationalism and imperialism. In Pathaan, identities are, as Chakravarty puts it, ‘piled up’ and reassembled to allow the male action hero to impersonate as the patriotic son, the mobile cosmopolitan, the ‘new man’ lover and the secular unifier. Masquerade and imitation in Pathaan emerge not just in content but also in form. The reflection concludes by discussing Pathaan as colonial mimicry, where imitation, while flattering to dominant power, is also subversive as it slips into mockery to disrupt Hollywood superiority and Western surveillance.