Why Bollywood Songs Mean So Much to Indians Residing Abroad?

With Bollywood’s worldwide reach, theorists like Ashish Rajadhyaksha have considered these films from the early 1990s and 2000s as foretelling a ‘‘new sense of Indian-ness”.

Low-barrier cultural pastimes like Bollywood movies and songs let Indians across the world to feel “‘civilization belonging, explicitly delinked from the political rights of citizenship’’. By permitting so many citizens to chip in the culture without any means of geopolitical venture, they create an “Indian imaginary” – a novel way to feel that we are Indians.

Regardless of the fact that the movies most of us adore also highlight harmful divisions as part of “Indian-ness”; the most well-known case is Kajol’s Anjali Sharma in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, who gets the guy ultimately, but only after dumping her tomboy look.

When you are ravenous for genuine images of yourself in a mainstream context, it’s likely to switch to Bollywood, because still over-the-top you get to see something that reflects your authenticity. Bollywood songs and films are forever a text from which you can draw motivation, laughs, and escapes.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, exceptional to each Diaspora-dweller for an unusual reason, was special to Indians because of Kajol’s self-belief in dark skin. It makes us feel a bit loved due to the fact that her skin tone did not hold her back.

These films do not educate us for the sense of Indian-ness by asking that we reconstruct them. We definitely didn’t try to assemble our own complete family for a song-and-dance session after watching Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. These were just the craft through which we get to remember yes we are Indian, while also being British and Canadian.

Khamoshi’s “Bahon Ke Darmiyan” could decipher the early signs of first love, just as the enthusiasm of David Bowie’s “Modern Love” could too. There is not any type of competition in our iPods about who displayed it better – they both make us feel like merry making in the mustard fields of our imagination to this day.

When we usually go through a truly distressing prom night that rear up our struggles, songs like “Tadap Tadap” from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” make us critically cry.

A good Bollywood soundtrack is a success when the correct song is embedded at every important point of time, and being Indians, our soundtrack is no different. Moments of fury are filled with Blink-182 and Green Day, while fantasy dancing-in-the-field times call for Taal.

Each song on an Indian’s journey to being at ease with a chaotic and changing identity holds a memory that reminds them in abroad how far they have come since childhood.