here is the lecture content:

"As we have said, as I have repeatedly said, a lot of times, a
good way to understand Bollywood cinema is to look at it through the lens
of what is going on in India. So when we look at this particular film with the
lens of what is going on in India, it is a little bit baffling because the film is
not really, it is not set in India. It is about Indian-ness, though it is about
being a certain type of Indian. Well, we'll discuss that in a lot more detail as
we go, but. What was it about this particular film that made it such a giant
blockbuster? So I have a poster of this film for you. This came out in 1995,
so this is the 1990s. The other film we have seen from this particular
decade is Hum Aapke Hain Koun our film from last week. Again, this was a
very popular, popular film. I I have to say, I'm a huge fan. I continue to be a
huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan in spite of all of his, all of his overacting and
all of his randomness. I feel a certain amount of loyalty because I was his
fan when I was a teenager and I continue to be that. So I saw this film.
There was this thing when I was a teenager about watching films on the
first day and watching the first show. So I made sure that I Was in the
theater watching the first day first show of this film and I really, really
enjoyed it. And again, this was one of those films that people repeatedly
went to the theaters to see. And it was in the theatres for a very long time.
In fact, in 2015, this film finished 20 years. It was two decades in 2015, it
was released in 1995. And one particular theater in Mumbai had this film
running for 20 consecutive years. So it was a big deal. You know, people
really, really enjoyed that film. Enjoyed this film. But what is? What is it
about this film that is so special? What is it about it that made it such a
staple for, let's say, Bollywood classes? Why is it that we are still talking
about it? Because it's not just because it's a very popular film. There are a
lot of films that were very, very popular, but this somehow keeps coming
back. In every discussion of Hindi film. And that is why we were talking
about it. So before we get to that, let's just try to have or try to draw a broad
picture of what is going on. In cinema. We have kind of drawn this picture a
lot, so I won't repeat everything, but in a very brief. Statement. 1960s was
about nation building. 1970s was kind of about national identity. Who are
we as Indians? 1980s was kind of. We have not seen any film from the
1980s, but it was really the hero struggling with the state and the state
continually failing the hero. 1990s was kind of weird because 1990s
marked a very interesting era. For India, this is the year when this is the
decade when India very completely embraced globalization. India said we
are OK with money and we are OK with international money flowing into
India. So, so the Indian economy opened up to foreign investment, which
was a huge deal, which meant that a lot of capital came in into it came into
India, a lot of infrastructure projects went off the ground. Et cetera. So it
was, it was a pretty big deal in that sense. The other thing that happened
was a large portion of educated middle class Indians or educated middle
class families saw their children leave for the West. So the number of
people who started living in the West really increased drastically and their
relationship to India changed. So before the 1960s, the people who were
coming into the United States. were coming, or let's say into into the UK,
were coming under very different terms. They were coming coming in very
small numbers and they were coming for industry that was not necessarily
respected. So they were coming as farmers for farming or they were
coming to work in factories, etc. In 1990s or I should say post 1965 when
immigration laws changed, the number of people coming into the United
States were coming for reasons that were white collar, they were coming
for very white collar jobs. They were, they were professionals, they were
engineers, they were doctors. They were coming here for education. Uh,
people like me were coming here, are coming here still for finishing their
education and then end up staying here. So the dynamic of the relationship
between India and the West changed because lots and lots of middle class
families and upper middle class families saw that their children had moved
to the West and they were interacting with the West. They were living in the
West. And that interaction was not just longing, right? In 1960s and 70s,
Hindi cinema showed people, showed Indians who were living in the West
as people who were either really longing to be in India. They really wanted
to be in India. They were living in the West, but that was not an ideal
situation for them Or it showed Indians as Not being good Indians, as being
too Westernized. So therefore they were not good Indians. In 1990s, all of
this changed just because of these two things, right embrace of
globalization and so many people, children living in India, so many people
migrating to India- To the United States to a different western country. So
that kind of plays into this particular film. Our reading actually talks about
two films, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, this film which is our major film,
which is the film you saw for this week, and another film Pardes, which I'll
talk about in a little bit, a little bit later. But this film is a Dilwale Dulhania Le
Jayenge is very strictly about being Indian. What is interesting about it
though is both of the leads in the film. So Shahrukh Khan's character Raj
and Kajol's character Simran are western kids. They were brought up in the
United Kingdom, right? They are not kids who are from India. Their
romance grows out of being in the West with interacting with the West.
Their friends are all Western people or their friends are also Indians who
have grown up in the West. And that's an interesting thing that had not
happened in any Great depth with this kind of a cast, with this kind of a
budget in Hindi film before this, so that in itself made a statement. Outside
of that. As I have said repeatedly, this film is about Indian-ness and it is
about exploring the idea of Indian-ness in the West, right. So both of these
characters are characters who are not Indian in a traditional sense in that
they were both born and brought up in the United Kingdom. ?Yet their
Indian-ness is constantly questioned in the film and keeps coming up in the
film. So as you're, as you're reading talks about this film is kind of a
negotiation of what it means to be Indian in a foreign country and what it
means to interact with India in that country, Right? So this film is essentially
about that interaction. And it did so well because that interaction had not
been really explored. This kind of fit into films that after this were
specifically made for a non resident Indian population. A non resident
Indian population is called is oftentimes called the NRI, the NRI's right?
They have a specific status for a lot of reasons. The word the term NRI
itself contains some meaning, right? It means either It means you have left
India. It might mean that you have a lot of wealth. It means that you will
have a specific sort of relationship with India because you don't live in
India. So all of those things are kind of part of the word or the term NRI and
they are kind of ,these sort of films that Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and
the other film that we will talk about, Pardes, were kind of meant to explore
this relationship; The NRI's relationship with India and being Indian. Before
we talk in a little more detail about DDLJ, let us explore one of the things
that you're the author for today. Patricia Oberoi explores a little bit. She
gives us a snippet of a matrimonial ad for a newspaper from the 1990s.
This is an NRI family looking for a bride for their son. I cannot tell you how
many times I saw those ads in 1990s because the Times of India
newspaper my parents and I used to get when we were in that decade
used to have this entire section of matrimonials that looked just like the one
Patricia Oberoi gives us an example for. So this is a matrimonial for a boy
who is settled in the United States. It, we are told in the matrimonial that the
boy is very rich, that he is very educated, that the parents are very rich, that
they're looking for a girl who is also very educated but who is really steeped
into Indian values. Also, let's talk about how no one ever defines what
these Indian values are. We do not know what that mean. However, every
film that we have seen has this very strong subtext of what those values
could be. Last week we explored those values in terms of a joint family, so
Hum Aapke Hai Koun tells us, and Upkar and Amar Akbar Anthony, all of
these, all of these films in very covert terms, kind of give us snippets of
what Indian values, what family values, what traditions, what all those really
heavy words mean, but we never really know what they mean. Back to the
matrimonial. So we see this matrimonial ad for a woman who should marry
this man, we can only assume he's reasonable as a human being. We don't
know. We know he's rich, he's educated. He lives in the United States. So
when we look at that matrimonial, it gives you an idea of what people are
looking for in terms of women in their families. Again, a theme that we have
explored a lot but we have to when we are talking about Hindi film and films
like DDLJ. So How does the matrimonial relate to DDLJ? It is, they are both
trying to define Indian values, and they're both saying that for Indian values
to exist, there has to be a relationship with India and Indian-ness. The
matrimonial explores this relationship with wanting a girl who has been
brought up in India and is willing to move. So marriage is assumed to be
patrilocal, where the woman will move to where her husband or her
husband's family lives. Let's not even go into agency and all of those good
things here. We'll just assume it. Or accept it. And DDLJ also explores this
in a very specific way of Indianness, of defining Indianness. So proper
exchange of women, right, proper exchange of proper women is essential
for the film to work and for the matrimonial to work. Both of those things, or
both of those examples, both of those texts, the matrimonial and the film
are kind of centered around the proper exchange of women, of women.
Let's go into what that means. So. We see in DDLJ that there is a love
story. We see Simran who is presented as this young woman who who is
really very willing to sacrifice herself for the wishes of her father. We see
that somehow, let's even say her bad luck that she falls in love with our
hero, with Raj on a trip to Europe which she has essentially bargained with
her father to give her. Because she is giving him her life, her freedom, all of
her agency. She falls in love with this guy and she knows that that is not
OK. He knows that that is kind of not OK, and the story kind of progresses
with this particular idea, with the exchange of this one human being, our
heroine Simran from her father to the villain, to the man she's supposed to
marry, or to the hero, the man who constantly throughout the film keeps
proving his indian-ness, as Oberoi shows us in very specific ways, to get
the woman, right? So the woman kind of is in the center of the film and her
exchange is what deepens this idea of Indianness and properness and lack
of and lack of anything Western lack of agency in the woman and any lack
of agency in sexuality or any display of sexuality, right? So that's something
very important for us to keep in mind. The film is really about the proper
exchange of the woman. Umm. Of Simran. Simran, however, unlike Nisha
from our previous week's film, from Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Nisha is really
nauseatingly compliant, right? She will do whatever it is that it takes to
maintain the family value. Simran, however, kind of challenges it in several
points during the film, and Simran's mother challenges it in a few points
during the film. So in that way, Simran is slightly different from from our
previous weeks heroine, Nisha, but she's compliant, unlike Nisha who is
reluctantly, who is nauseatingly compliant, Simran is reluctantly compliant.
But compliant they both are because their agency is either not there or is
defined by their compliance of. Indian values or their own exchange from
their father to their potential husband. -nSo both films in some way have a
compliant heroine. Both films are very much about proper exchange of
women. But DDLJ does it in a different context. The context is not Indian,
the context is the West and how it interacts with India and Indianess as
these two characters, as Simran and Raj come together in the film. The
wave of globalization in 1990s meant that identity and Indianness had to be
redefined in certain ways. Both the films Hum Aapke Hain Koun and
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge speak to the redefinition of this identity. The
other film that Oberoi discusses, Pardes, also speaks to that redefinition.
Another thing that is very interesting about films of this sort, and we talked
about it a little bit last week, is how much they sanitized the idea of family
and how much they sanitize the idea of India. So one of the things Patricia
Oberoi mentions is the film entirely romanticizes Punjab, which is an Indian
state. It's in northwest of India. This particular state was very much in
conflict throughout the 1980s. But the film does not talk about that conflict
at all. The imagination of India, the imagination of of of family, the
imagination of family dynamics is completely sanitized. So it's really, it
really speaks to ideal situations and it speaks to ideal situations as they
would tie in with with self definition within this idea of globalization that is
new, that is happening, that is very present. It also speaks to wealth. So
DDLJ also, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is let's say tale in wealth. We see
that all the families, if not, really, really rich. There are at least very, very
upper class. There is no mention of any poverty, which if you are talking
about India, you're really sanitizing India if you're not talking poverty. But
that is the goal of these sort of films. It's an idealized, it's a very idealized
India. But let's go back to, let's go back to the idea of Indianness and
Indianness in this film. So, so far I have said that the idea of globalization
and the idea of Indianness and sanitization of Indianness is very present in
this film. And both of these are tied to how Indian Ness is redefined in the
film, or talked about in this film. So the character of Raj in this film. Your
reading for this week gives you 11 examples of where Indian Indianness is
really pressed. I'm going to talk about two or maybe three. The first
example that comes to mind is the opening scene of the film where Baldev,
Simran's father, is shown as he's walking through the streets of London
and he is really longing for his home. But as he longs for his home, in every
aspect of his being, his Indianness is very alive. He's dressed like an
Indian, his shop has spaces that are very Indian and very Hindu. In his
home life he's very Indian. His wife is always dressed in Indian clothing. His
daughters are very compliant, very conformist, very respectful, again very
Indian. There is no voices of dissent in the entire family and they all kind of
follow this project of being Indian in the West. So that is again places in the
film that that press on on Indianness But Baldev's character, so this guy's
character. I mean, we can really buy that he very Indian and he's pressing
on his Indianness. Good for him. More power to him. But Shahrukh Khan's
character is more interesting because as far as we know, he is an
extremely rich kid. We see him playing rugby, we see him in this really
fancy sports car. We see him as the son of a very rich businessman, who is
Indian but who is settled in the UK. This businessman? Raj's father does
not press his Indianness all the time, though towards the end of the film, he
does. When he goes to look for a bride for his son, his indianness becomes
very alive. But Raj, the most important points in the film where him saying
that I am Indian, I am a Hindustani becomes a very critical thing in the film.
It's the scene where Raj and Simran both get drunk. Raj brings Simran
back-to-back to a room in a hotel and Simran gets up in the morning
thinking that she's had sex last the previous night with Raj. And Raj plays
with her a little bit, suggesting that he did, they did indeed have sex. And
then Simran starts crying and she's very she's hysterical. And then Raj tells
us, look, I understand you're an Indian girl. I understand what that means.
And I am also an Indian, and I understand what it means to be Indian. And
in this entire dialogue, we are quite literally talking about Simran's virginity
in a very physiological sense. And that virginity is very deeply tied to her
Indianness. And the protection of that virginity is very deeply tied to Raj's
Indianness, right? So she is Hyper Indian because she's a virgin, she's not
married, and he is Hyper Indian because he's protecting the virginity of an
Indian girl. So this is the place where he basically comes out and says look,
don't go, don't look at all of these fancy things that I have and these
girlfriends that I talk about. I am very Indian because you are very Indian
and you are an amazing Indian girl, whatever that means. Um, and then in
other places in the film, in one other place in the film his idealized status as
an Indian comes out when when Simran's mother says, look, this situation
that we have going on here, where Raj is trying to marry Simran, this
situation is not going to work out. You guys should elope, you should run
away, get married, live your life. And he says, I'm not going to do that. I'm
Indian. That's not something I do. I'm going to make sure that Simran's
father gives Simran to me again. Proper exchange of the woman has to
happen for Raj to be this ideal amazing Indian. So in these senses, in these
specific ways and you will read more in the reading and as you watch the
film you will notice these spaces where the idea of being Indian is very
pressed in the film in very specific places. It's very central to this film and
it's very connected to the time that India is going through in the 90s. We are
negotiating this opening of the economy, the globalization of the market or
the economy. And we are negotiating what it means to be in very close
contact with the West. How do we do that? How do we do that while we
maintain our own identities and do not completely chastise or do not
completely demonize the West, right? So the West is not necessarily
demonized in this film, but Indianness is really, really pressed, right? So we
could see those as connected, but they're not really. We are not seeing the
West being promiscuous and material and any of that. We are seeing
Indians in a very Western context, but we are seeing and we are shown
how they are very, very Indian still in spite of being in that very Western
context. A very significant scene in this film which speaks to the ideas of
patriarchy and this relationship between women and men in these sort of
patriarchal settings, these being the setting that we are presented in the
film, is this conversation between Simran and her mother. So eventually
Simran has to give up her love for Raj and she ends up in India where she
is going to be married to this guy who kind of is the pseudo villain in our
film. Simran is talking to her mother. The mother is trying to make sure that
Simran accepts her husband. And as a way of doing that, she tells the story
of her own childhood where she thought or she was raised to believe that
she was kind of equal to her brothers. But as she grew older, that belief
kind of shattered and she was almost made to realize that there is a very
different, or there was a very real difference between being a girl in a
family, and between being a boy in a family. Being a boy meant more
privileges, more agency, more freedom of movement, more freedom of
choosing partners, etc, etc. And none of that agency was given to Simran's
mother. As she's telling the story, she tells Simran that when Simran was
born, the mother decided that my daughter would not have to make any of
these sacrifices. But it turns out that in that exact scene with the setting of a
very, very strong idea of doing what you want to do and not what your
parents want you to do or what society at large wants you to do, Simran's
Mother asks her to make this sacrifice and Simran almost agrees, or
Simran actually agrees. This is a scene which presents a conflict. So we
see a mother that is talking to her daughter. That is saying, look, I
understand we are oppressed. Um, I understand that the system is
essentially against us. It does not want us to be individuals. We can only
be, we can only be part of the system in very specific ways, as mothers,
sisters, in-laws, mothers in law and daughters and all of those roles. We
have to find, we have to follow very strict boundaries and we cannot cross
those boundaries. But um, but it is important. And it's important to the
family, it's important to your father. So just go ahead and do it. The scene is
relevant because it shows us a side of how these negotiations happen. It
shows us that it is not as if these two women are not aware of what is
happening to them and what is happening with their agency. They are still,
they have still bought into this project of family building and maintaining
values and maintaining traditions. So that's a very significant scene. The
other and the last thing I will say about the film is at the end of the day, Raj,
our hero, absolutely maintains all levels of patriarchy. His giving in to
Simran's father's desires, his acceptance of the fact that Simran can be his
wife only through proper channels of Simran's father giving her to him,
proper exchange of the woman is really an acceptance of patriarchy. But
more than that, the film is really not a comment on patriarchy. That is how,
that is how it has to be read though. The film is more of a comment on
being Indian. And we are actually shown that somehow following these
these undefined yet very stringent roles is part of following is part of being
Indian in a in a globalized setting. The film does not do a east versus West.
West is evil. East is pure thing. The film does say, to be able to be Indian in
the West, you have to really keep pressing your Indianness and the film
shows us areas or contexts, spaces in which that Indianness can be
pressed."

Using only the lecture content, write a 200 word paragraph that answers the 2 questions:
1. How does he expereince of Baldev (Simran\\u2019s father, bauji) in the United Kingdom compare to that of Raj (Shah Rukh Khan\\u2019s character) in the United Kingdom? Is the difference generational, class-based, or something entirely different?

2. Do you think Simran (the heroine in DDLJ) lacks agency in her own life decisions? Or are her choices (like agreeing to marry a person she didn\\u2019t chose) part of her agency?