'Bad' Women of Bombay Films by Sengupta, Saswati; Roy, Shampa; Purkayastha, Sharmila;

This book presents a feminist mapping of the articulation and suppression of female desire in Hindi films, which comprise one of modern India’s most popular cultural narratives. It explores the lineament of evil and the corresponding closure of chastisement or domesticity that appear as necessary conditions for the representation of subversive female desire. The term ‘bad’ is used heuristically, and not as a moral or essential category, to examine some of the iconic disruptive women of Hindi cinema and to uncover the nexus between patriarchy and other hierarchies, such as class, caste and religion in these representations.

The twenty-one essays examine the politics of female desire/s from the 1930s to the present day - both through in-depth analyses of single films and by tracing the typologies in multiple films. The essays are divided into five sections indicating the various gendered desires and rebellions that patriarchal society seeks to police, silence and domesticate.

1. Introduction: Breaking Bad.- The Disorderly Presence at Home.- 2. Desire, Deviancy and Defiance in Bombay Cinema (1937-1960).- 3. “haan, haan mein alaida hoon!” (Yes, yes I am different!): the Disorderly Bibi in Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam (1962).- 4. The Goddess of Mean Things: the Mother-in-law in Hindi Films.- 5. “ek admi tha, usne shadi karli!” (“There was a man who got married!”): Female Agency and Domestication in Omkara (2006).- The Business of the Body.- 6. The Politics of Sanitisation / Sanskritisation: the Court Dancers and Classical Pasts (Rajnartaki, 1941; Chitralekha, 1964; Amrapali, 1966).- 7. Goddess, Saint and Journeying Soul: Courtesans and Religion in Bombay Cinema (1939-2015).- 8. The Prison-House of Performance: the Figure of the Dancing Girl in Bombay Films of the1960s.- 9. Guns, Gangsters and “Gandagi”: the Moll in Hindi Cinema.- 10. Sex Workers in Hindi Cinema: Imagos and Realities.- The Question of Violence.- 11. The Caged Woman: Female Guilt, Desire and Transgression in Bandini (1963).- 12. “itni bhhi mahaan main nahi hoon, raja!” (“I’m not that great, O king”): the Angry Young Woman of the 1970s.- 13. Outcast[e] / Outlawed: The Bandit Queen (1996).- 14. The Female Atankvadi: Gender, Militancy and the Politics of Representation in the late 90s.- 15. Honoured Mother and ‘Honour’ Killing: Ammaji in NH10 (2015).- The Advent of the New Woman.- 16. Of Pallus and Pants: Fabricating the New Woman of the New Nation.- Andaz (1949), Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955), Shri 420 (1955).- 17. Consumer Pleasures and Hindi Cinema’s En-gendered Distribution of Moral Capital in Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011).- 18. Twenty-first century Heroines: Modernity in Cocktail (2012), Queen (2014) and Highway (2014).- 19. Curiosity, Consent and Desire in Masaan (2015), Pink (2016), Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) and Veere Di Wedding (2018).- The Screening of the Actress.- 20. “naye naam nit naye roop dhar” (Don new names and new forms daily): the Figure of the Actress in Hindi Cinema.- 21. Playing Anaarkali: Gender, Morality and Erotica.