04-19-2008, 02:34 AM
A book review in Pioneer, 19 April 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Paradigms of popular culture
The book looks into, though not quite comprehensively, what we call 'lumpen culture', says Utpal K Banerjee
India's Popular Culture: Iconic Spaces and Fluid Images
Author: Jyotindra Jain (ed)
Publisher: Marg
Price: Rs 2,500Â
<b>The book under review sheds important light </b>in a generally-neglected area of what can be loosely termed 'lumpen culture' from a variety of viewpoints. This light shines mainly on images surrounding us, as says the blurb, <b>"On billboards, calendars, posters and religious paraphernalia, in print-media, and television, in restaurants and shops, on the roadside, in auto-rickshaws, taxis, trucks and buses, in bazaars and around temples."</b>
When one looks for such an all-encompassing view, chinks begin to appear. <b>What has been called a "Jodhpuri weltanschauung" was sorely needed for the totality of the tome. The weltanschauung, or world-view, should have defined all the parameters of popular culture:</b> Succinctly put together and then some selected and remainder discarded -- for lack of space or authorship or both -- and analysed at leisure. <b>Instead, the volume selects random topics and, howsoever scholarly be the coverage for those topics, the inquisitive reader remains insatiate.</b>
<b>The most important omission is the role of oral-aural component of what essentially is audio-visual culture experienced in the Indian popular psyche</b>. A glaring example is the analysis offered on the inlay card of the music-CD of songs from Jai Baba Ramdev, but not a word mentioned on the CD itself, -- although one would have thought the music to be the cardinal element of India's popular culture! Again, the Indian Republic Day Parade is seen as a purely visual event and analysed as such, to the exclusion of its accompanying songs and engrossing slogans, traditional chants and modern bands, which all are inseparable from the visual pageantry, and when the whole phenomenon comprises a vibrant spectacle.
The plea that the editor and the individual authors are merely looking at only the still and fluid images -- minus all sound -- does not really hold water, as popular images in India cannot possibly be viewed in total silence!
<i>{The editors gave what they included and what they excluded. Maybe the writer should write his own book. Na?}</i>
<b>Another serious flaw is relative lack of familiarity with the content and scope of "the emergence of modern communication technologies -- digital media, TV and film", which is vital for any critique of popular culture.</b> Let us be clear that modern communication technologies can be not only One-to-Many (like radio, TV, film, slide-shows on the countryside and video-parlours, to name a few), but also One-to-One (like web-surfing, e-mail, blog, chat, etc), Many-to-One (like CD, VCD and DVD, focussing on the armchair-bound individual) and a grand mix of all three categories. Any generalisation on media will simply not do, since both causative variables as well as outcome variables of popular culture can be vastly varied -- dependent on influences by the mediating variables of the communication technologies.
This, however, does not detract from the offerings of individual authors, most of whom have contributed intelligent minutiae. <b>Yousuf Saeed's contribution on "the dilemma of orientation in the popular religious art of Indian Muslims" is particularly interesting because of its insight into a rarely observed aspect of Islamic society. His observation that many posters collected from Pakistan make an uninhibited depiction of the personages of holy saints and Lahore keeps printing artistic visualisation of Khwaja Moinudin Chishti, Baba Farid and many others -- flying in the face of specific Islamic taboo against manifestation of figurative art in religion -- makes interesting reading.</b> Although Pakistan's popular art is not the subject-matter here, the present reviewer noticed 'trucks' (mentioned in the blurb but not covered in the book) in Pakistan to be decorated with resounding images and telling messages, -- certainly a fascinating part of a parallel popular culture!
Two well-written essays are by Anuradha Kapur on curtains of the Surabhi Company of Maharashtra and by Ranjani Mazumdar <b>on the Bombay film-posters that throw interesting sidelights on two of the important facades of Indian performing arts: Theatre and cinema.</b> Chritopher Piney's illuminating article on the spread of the popular cult of Ramdev alludes, in passing, to the complex Rajasthan folk traditions of mobile images, but there is surprisingly no coverage of the rich storytelling heritage of the rural north India that involves a tapestry of mobile images -- as part of popular culture within the ambit of the present volume.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe volume two and three are needed. One fine day someone will analyze IRF and BRF posts as Indian internet reawakenieng culture.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Paradigms of popular culture
The book looks into, though not quite comprehensively, what we call 'lumpen culture', says Utpal K Banerjee
India's Popular Culture: Iconic Spaces and Fluid Images
Author: Jyotindra Jain (ed)
Publisher: Marg
Price: Rs 2,500Â
<b>The book under review sheds important light </b>in a generally-neglected area of what can be loosely termed 'lumpen culture' from a variety of viewpoints. This light shines mainly on images surrounding us, as says the blurb, <b>"On billboards, calendars, posters and religious paraphernalia, in print-media, and television, in restaurants and shops, on the roadside, in auto-rickshaws, taxis, trucks and buses, in bazaars and around temples."</b>
When one looks for such an all-encompassing view, chinks begin to appear. <b>What has been called a "Jodhpuri weltanschauung" was sorely needed for the totality of the tome. The weltanschauung, or world-view, should have defined all the parameters of popular culture:</b> Succinctly put together and then some selected and remainder discarded -- for lack of space or authorship or both -- and analysed at leisure. <b>Instead, the volume selects random topics and, howsoever scholarly be the coverage for those topics, the inquisitive reader remains insatiate.</b>
<b>The most important omission is the role of oral-aural component of what essentially is audio-visual culture experienced in the Indian popular psyche</b>. A glaring example is the analysis offered on the inlay card of the music-CD of songs from Jai Baba Ramdev, but not a word mentioned on the CD itself, -- although one would have thought the music to be the cardinal element of India's popular culture! Again, the Indian Republic Day Parade is seen as a purely visual event and analysed as such, to the exclusion of its accompanying songs and engrossing slogans, traditional chants and modern bands, which all are inseparable from the visual pageantry, and when the whole phenomenon comprises a vibrant spectacle.
The plea that the editor and the individual authors are merely looking at only the still and fluid images -- minus all sound -- does not really hold water, as popular images in India cannot possibly be viewed in total silence!
<i>{The editors gave what they included and what they excluded. Maybe the writer should write his own book. Na?}</i>
<b>Another serious flaw is relative lack of familiarity with the content and scope of "the emergence of modern communication technologies -- digital media, TV and film", which is vital for any critique of popular culture.</b> Let us be clear that modern communication technologies can be not only One-to-Many (like radio, TV, film, slide-shows on the countryside and video-parlours, to name a few), but also One-to-One (like web-surfing, e-mail, blog, chat, etc), Many-to-One (like CD, VCD and DVD, focussing on the armchair-bound individual) and a grand mix of all three categories. Any generalisation on media will simply not do, since both causative variables as well as outcome variables of popular culture can be vastly varied -- dependent on influences by the mediating variables of the communication technologies.
This, however, does not detract from the offerings of individual authors, most of whom have contributed intelligent minutiae. <b>Yousuf Saeed's contribution on "the dilemma of orientation in the popular religious art of Indian Muslims" is particularly interesting because of its insight into a rarely observed aspect of Islamic society. His observation that many posters collected from Pakistan make an uninhibited depiction of the personages of holy saints and Lahore keeps printing artistic visualisation of Khwaja Moinudin Chishti, Baba Farid and many others -- flying in the face of specific Islamic taboo against manifestation of figurative art in religion -- makes interesting reading.</b> Although Pakistan's popular art is not the subject-matter here, the present reviewer noticed 'trucks' (mentioned in the blurb but not covered in the book) in Pakistan to be decorated with resounding images and telling messages, -- certainly a fascinating part of a parallel popular culture!
Two well-written essays are by Anuradha Kapur on curtains of the Surabhi Company of Maharashtra and by Ranjani Mazumdar <b>on the Bombay film-posters that throw interesting sidelights on two of the important facades of Indian performing arts: Theatre and cinema.</b> Chritopher Piney's illuminating article on the spread of the popular cult of Ramdev alludes, in passing, to the complex Rajasthan folk traditions of mobile images, but there is surprisingly no coverage of the rich storytelling heritage of the rural north India that involves a tapestry of mobile images -- as part of popular culture within the ambit of the present volume.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe volume two and three are needed. One fine day someone will analyze IRF and BRF posts as Indian internet reawakenieng culture.