Understanding Railways through Politics & Bollywood Songs

Abstract

Indian Railways in their 167 years of operations have undergone a transition in perceptions in the minds of people and have emerged as an important economic instrument in the post-Independence era. On the other hand, Bollywood, a term often associated with popular Hindi cinema has used Indian railways as part of narrative and mise-en-scene. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection of the narrative of some popular Bollywood songs which have used Indian railways as a backdrop to suggest socio-economic inferences and also examine the link between pop culture and the representation of Indian railways in Hindi songs