Mass Entertainment Outrage
From Paatal Lok and Leila to A Suitable Boy and Deepika Padukone’s films, Indian movies and web series face targeted attacks from the outraged right-wing, hell-bent to shape the national narrative to their own terms. Is there a way forward for true creative voices to survive in the mainstream? By Karan Madhok
Short story by Debi Mukherjee: “Unlike the little girls I see outside temples, draped in their pano bhaju’s stringing garlands of Marigolds, I dare not play with the flowers in our garden. Papa cautions me against the rows of Mogras, Shoe-flowers, Frangipanis and a multitude of others. He says that I must not be lured by a flower’s fragrance.”