Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond 1793646279, 9781793646279

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Devotional Fanscapes

Devotional Fanscapes Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond

Shalini Kakar

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2023 by Shalini Kakar All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kakar, Shalini, author. Title: Devotional fanscapes : Bollywood star deities, devotee-fans, and cultural politics in India and beyond / Shalini Kakar. Description: Lanham : Lexington, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Devotional Fanscapes examines the practices and materiality of fans who worship film stars as divine figures. This book is an analysis of visual culture and star temples that bring cinema, fandom, religion, and politics into undocumented negotiations in national and transnational contexts”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022042776 (print) | LCCN 2022042777 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793646279 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793646286 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures—India—History and criticism. | Motion picture actors and actresses—India. | Fans (Persons) | Motion pictures—Political aspects—India. | Motion pictures—Social aspects—India. Classification: LCC PN1993.5.I8 K35 2023 (print) | LCC PN1993.5.I8 (ebook) | DDC 741.430954—dc23/eng/20221121 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022042776 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022042777 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Mamma

Contents

List of Figures

ix

Prefacexiii Acknowledgmentsxvii Abbreviationsxxiii Introduction: Visual Trajectories of a Cinematic Sacred

1

PART I: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY: STAR AS A DEITY AND FAN AS A BHAKT35 1 “Sorry God, We Worship Amitabh More than You”: Bollywood Deities and the “Publics of Fan-bhakti”37 2 “Star Murtis”: Film Posters as Ritual Objects

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PART II: MATERIALITY AND SPATIAL CONSTRUCTS: DEVOTEE-FAN ART109 3 “Starring” Madhuri as Durga: The Madhuri Dixit Temple and the Performative Fan-bhakti of Pappu Sardar

111

4 Transforming the Object of Art: M. F. Husain and Devotional Fandom

149

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Contents

PART III: CROSSING BORDERS: DEVOTEE-FANS AND THEIR TRANSNATIONAL SOCIOPOLITICAL TRAJECTORIES173 5 Get Rajinified: India to USA, the “God of Style” and his Devotee-fans Conclusion: Devotional Fandom and Its Global Praxis

175 225

Bibliography235 Index259 About the Author

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1 ABFA Members Worshipping the Film Poster of Amitabh Bachchan from the Film TE3N, outside Priya Cinema Hall in Kolkata (2016) 39 Figure 1.2 ABFA Guru Purnima Celebrations, Showing Worship of Amitabh Shoes from Agneepath that Rest on the Chair from the Film Aks, Alluding to the Hindu Epic Ramayan (2005) 44 Figure 1.3 Amitabh Represented as Iqbal, Vijay, and Anthony in the Banner at the Entrance of the Bachchan Dham (2021) 53 Figure 1.4 Sanjay Patodiya Wearing the Amitabh Shawl while the Media Interviews Him, along with other ABFA Members on the Occasion of the Release of Amitabh’s Film, Sarkar 3, May 12 (2017) 55 Figure 1.5 Bachchan Dham, Exterior View (2021) 57 Figure 1.6 Bachchan Dham, Interior View (2021) 58 Figure 1.7 Bachchan Dham, Sanctum (2011) 59 Figure 1.8 Amitabh Murti Installed in the Sanctum of Bachchan Dham (2017) 60 Figure 1.9 ABFA Fans Donating Blood at the Bachchan Dham on World Fans’ Day, (2019) 62 Figure 1.10 Amitabh Bachchan (in the Center) with Sanjay Patodiya (on the Left) and other ABFA Members Watching a Special Screening of the Film Pink at INOX in Quest Mall in Kolkata (2016) 63 Figure 1.11 Sanjay Patodiya Applying Tilak on the Forehead of Fans and Visitors, Bachchan Dham (2018) 66

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1 “Krishna Adorns Radha.” Reproduction of the Miniature Kangra Style of Pahari Painting Representing an Illustration from the Gita Govinda 80 Figure 2.2 Reproduction of Radha Madhav. Original by Ravi Varma (c.1890) 81 Figure 2.3 Reproduction of a Collage, “Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna.” Original Image (c.1940s.) in Indian Popular Culture: The Conquest of World as Picture, 2004, by Jyotindra Jain 85 Figure 2.4 Gandhi; Oleograph (1948) 87 Figure 2.5 Gandhi as Vishnu, Reproduction of a Popular Print 89 Figure 2.6 Reproduction of the Film Poster of Mahaan (1983) 92 Figure 2.7 Reproduction of the Film Poster of Mahaan (1983) 93 Figure 2.8 Amitabh as Vijay, Film Screenshot from Agneepath (1990) 95 Figure 2.9 A Popular Print of Krishna 96 Figure 2.10 Reproduction of the Film Poster of Saawariya (2008) 97 Figure 2.11 Radha Krishna; Half-Tone Print (c.1935) 98 Figure 2.12 Amitabh Shrine in Sanjay Patodiya’s Puja Room, August (2005) 99 Figure 2.13 Reproduction of the Agnivarsha, DVD Cover Showing Amitabh as Hindu God Indra (2002) 100 Figure 2.14 Amitabh as Lord Indra. Film Screenshot from Agnivarsha (2002) 101 Figure 2.15 Amitabh Shrine in Sanjay Patodiya’s Puja Room, 101 August (2005) Figure 3.1 Bharat Mata Temple, August (2005) 116 Figure 3.2 Bharat Mata Murti, Bharat Mata Temple, Haridwar, August (2005) 119 Figure 3.3 A Spectator-Devotee Worshipping an Image, Bharat 120 Mata Temple, August (2005) 123 Figure 3.4 Manohar Chaat, Tatanagar, August (2005) Figure 3.5 Madhuri Dixit Temple, Tatanagar, May 15 (2007) 124 Figure 3.6 Pappu Sardar Performs Puja for Madhuri’s Posters, Holding the Microphone for Star News and Giving Running Commentary of the Event, May 15 (2008) 125 Figure 3.7 Madhuri Dixit Temple (Interior), May 15 (2010) 126 Figure 3.8 Madhuri Fan Yatra, May 15 (2009) 128 Figure 3.9 Madhuri Sanctum (Interior), Madhuri Dixit Temple (2005) 129 Figure 3.10 Madhuri Dixit Temple Displaying Huge Posters of the Actress (2008) 131

List of Figures

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Figure 3.11 Pappu Sardar Showing His Special Voter Awareness Exhibit to Visitors at the Madhuri Dixit Temple (2018) 132 Figure 3.12 Posters of Madhuri Dixit and Durga, August (2005) 133 Figure 3.13 Calendar Showing Pappu Sardar with Madhuri Dixit (2008) 136 Figure 3.14 Pappu Sardar Celebrates Release of Madhuri’s Total Dhamaal with the Kinnar Community of Tatanagar (2019) 141 Figure 4.1 Print of Husain’s Painting, Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala (c.1995) 152 Figure 4.2 Reproduction of Mother-VII, M. F. Husain (c.2008) 154 Figure 4.3 A Print of M.F. Husain’s painting, Madhuri as Menaka (c.1995) 156 Figure 4.4 Reproduction of Saraswati, M. F. Husain, Pen-and-Ink Drawing (1976) 158 Figure 4.5 Reproduction of “Logo” of Madhuri-McBull Creation, Art and Cinema, M.F. Husain (1997) 161 Figure 4.6 Pappu Sardar Worshipping Madhuri Images with a Print of Husain’s Image in His Madhuri Dixit Temple, May 15 (2009) 163 Figure 4.7 A Photograph Showing Pappu Sardar with Residents of Cheshire Home with Posters of Madhuri and Mother Teresa (c.2008) 164 Figure 4.8 Pappu Sardar’s Madhuri Greeting Card with Husain’s Paintings 168 Figure 4.9 Woman with a Gathri, a Sculptural Rendition of Husain’s Painting Remade by Artists Hired by Pappu 170 Sardar (2009) Figure 5.1 Printed Images of Hindu God, Murugan (Lower Right) and Rajinikanth (Center) in North Chennai, Tamil Nadu, March (2008) 176 Figure 5.2 Rajinikanth Fans Performing Milk Abhishekam for the Hoarding of Rajinikanth’s Film, Kochadiyaan, Tamil 179 Nadu (2014) Figure 5.3 Fans Perform Arati, Shanti Theater, Chennai (2007) 180 186 Figure 5.4 Greeting Card with Mahavatar Babaji’s Picture (2008) Figure 5.5 Rajinikanth’s Ritualized Images, Serra Theatre (Exterior), Milpitas, CA (2010) 199 Figure 5.6 Rajinikanth’s Fan-Made Image with a Garland Made from CDs and Computer Hardware Parts, Serra Theatre (Exterior), Milpitas, CA (2010) 200 Figure 5.7 Rajinikanth’s Fans Display a Banner for His Film, Sivaji (2007) 208

Preface

This book is about fans who worship film stars as deities. I examine the devotional practices and artifacts produced by such fans to focus on the significance of popular images and contemporary visual practices rather than on objects of “fine art” that form the basis of normative art history books. This alternate approach builds on recent scholarship on popular art that questions the Eurocentric paradigm within which the historiography of South Asian art history has been conceived and sees it as a historically contingent construction to fit colonial and orientalist frameworks. Instead of focusing primarily on stylistic conventions of traditional artifacts and archetypes of Hindu temples, this is the first study that explores popular temples dedicated to Bollywood film stars and the artifacts produced both by Bollywood and southern Tamil cinema fans who deify them. In examining how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity, I extend my study from India to the United States to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fandom and its artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics within a new transnational framework. Although there have been few studies on fan clubs in India, the Hindu rituals through which fans divinize star images and the performative dimension through which they animate their artifacts to frame the star as a deity have been marginalized. Centralizing such practices and identity formations as a subject of academic enquiry is deemed as perpetuating a “superstitious narrative” of colonial India, taking it further away from the objective of situating fandom in India within the modernizing project of “progressive” nations. The counternarrative to such conceptions of “internal Eurocentricism” is visible by the unabashed display and celebration of their identity by fans, who call themselves bhakts or devotees and color their artifacts with the ideology of worshipping a film star and the social, religious, artistic and political xiii

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ramifications engendered by such an identity construct (Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993). The continued performance of devotee-fan identity in urban spaces decade after decade and the near invisibility of their perspective in academic narratives is what drew me toward the subject of devotional fandom. I have always been interested in peripheral subjects and in people whose status and practices fall outside of dominant discourse. Whether during my stint as a journalist for the Indian Express (Chandigarh) in India, where I covered topics related to eunuchs (hijra / kinnar), the specially abled, slum dwellers, and pottery workers (kumhaar), or later, as part of my PhD coursework on gender, race, and postcolonialism at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the marginal, the peripheral, and the popular somehow seeped into my work. Once, during a discussion with my advisor, Professor Swati Chattopadhyay, at UCSB, I casually mentioned an interesting news article I had read. A group of fans in her hometown in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) were worshipping film star Amitabh Bachchan and planned to build a temple in his name. I told her how as a journalist, I would have loved to delve deeper into the subject and possibly write an article on it. Based on the structure of the South Asian art history discipline, I was aware that there was little opportunity in academia for deeper engagement with it. There was minimal scope to even produce a class assignment, I thought, as the concept of people worshipping film stars would be dismissed as “crass sensationalism” without questioning the reasons and consequences that engender such a formation. The “tacky” and “unoriginal images” produced by fans seemed a far cry from the glistening contours of the ancient sculptures of Indian art housed in museums or the “modern” works auctioned at Sotheby’s that proved that Indian artists had finally “arrived” at the global stage defined and controlled by the West. Accorded the status of “‘real’ objects of knowledge,” it is such artifacts that receive a standing ovation in most South Asian art history books. Deviating from the norm into an unchartered arena that did not even qualify as “folk art” would be a form of academic suicide! As such thoughts raced through my mind, Professor Chattopadhyay, in her characteristic style, unblinkingly looked straight at me and remarked nonchalantly, “Then, why don’t you see what else you can find out about the topic?” My eyes lit up and the rest, as they say, is history. The on-site research for the book was conducted between 2005 and 2014, while phone interviews with fans continued until 2022. This ethnographic research is multidisciplinary and incorporates concepts from art history, religious studies, and film and political theory. It encompasses a wide geographic area: from Chennai in Southern India, to Kolkata and Tatanagar in the east, and, extending beyond national borders, to the Bay Area in California, USA.

Preface

xv

While examining the research material and after interacting with fans for over a decade and half, I realized that this study would not be about providing answers. Rather, through this project, my goal has primarily been to posit new questions regarding our definitions of religion, art, cinema, and politics, and how the discourse is being reshaped by the worship practices of fans. My humble objective is to represent these categories in South Asia through the lens of fans who worship film stars. This study is by no means a comprehensive analysis of devotional fandom in India but is written with the intention of taking the first step in that direction. I hope it will lead to subsequent studies that investigate the convergence of cinema, religion, and fandom to bring forth its myriad dimensions. My intent is to start a dialogue in the discourse of South Asian studies for examining the role of devotional fandom in challenging our institutionalized understanding of such concepts. Some images used in the book are reproductions of popular prints. Even in the case of paintings of renowned Indian artist M. F. Husain, I chose to use copies rather than publish the artists’ original works, primarily because the book’s central argument focuses on popular art, which empowers the copy and follows its interweaving circuits around contemporary Indian religion, culture, and politics. This book has been written with a global audience in mind, so, wherever possible, I have included short descriptions for readers who may not know much about Indian popular art, cinema, and religion. I would like to mention that in addressing the case studies of the fandom around the three film stars included in this book, I have chosen to use their first names. For example, I was introduced to film star Amitabh Bachchan primarily as “Amitabh,” a common way to address him, especially in the 1980s, so I have retained that in the book. I have developed a website that will include years of research material collected in the form of colored photographs, videos, and interview snippets with accompanying descriptions related to larger issues raised in the book. In some images, faces have been blurred for privacy reasons, but clear and colored version of those images can be viewed on the website. In addition, essays, books and websites on current trends in fan worship practices and global movements in devotional fandom will be included and regularly updated. I would like to invite interested readers to contact me at www​.sacredfandom​. com with suggestions and comments, and for contributing material related to new religious formations in global devotional fandom.

NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSLITERATION In the Hindi words used in conversations with fans, in Hindu devotional hymns, and in my own personal musings of film dialogues, I have deliberately

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left out the use of diacritical marks. The same is for Sanskrit words. Considering this book is about popular art, I wanted to use Hindi the way it is written and colloquially spoken in popular parlance in North India. For example, I have used Ramayan instead of Ramayana, or Kalidas, in place of Kalidasa. However, while quoting from other scholars, I have left the diatribes and the spellings in their original format. All translations are mine unless otherwise specified.

Acknowledgments

I owe immense gratitude to all my teachers, family, and especially the fans, without whom this book would not have been possible. Swati Chattopadhyay at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been my mentor, guide, and a towering figure in my academic life. Her razor-sharp intellect and quest for perfection have always kept me on my toes. Her ability to push the boundaries of critical thinking in her students makes her an exceptional teacher. I am grateful for our stimulating discussions and her continued support in helping me navigate the ups and downs of this project. In particular, the conferences and interactions stimulated by the Subaltern-Popular Workshop, a University of California multicampus research group that she steered, helped me engage with wider aspects of marginalized narratives. I am specifically grateful for the opportunities it provided to interact with scholars such as Gyanendra Pandey, Walter Mignolo, David Lloyd, Purnima Mankekar, Dilip Gaonkar, and Sudipta Sen, among others. I am also grateful for the advice and guidance of Barbara Holdrege and Bhaskar Sarkar, who have also been part of the project since its inception and helped me interweave an interdisciplinary dimension into my work. Discussions with them expanded my vision and have shaped many ideas in this book, especially related to religious studies and film theory, respectively. I am indebted to the professors and staff members of the History of Art and Architecture Department at UCSB, particularly the former chair, Peter Sturman, who helped me at different stages of my research. I would like to acknowledge Sylvester Ogbechie for his encouragement and support. A special mention for Laurie Monahan whose exceptional teaching style and approach to modern and contemporary art helped me understand that rather than the answers, which can be many, diverse, and in flux, the framing of xvii

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questions is the most important aspect of art historical thinking. I am thankful for the warmth and help extended to me by the staff members, Bob Ortega, Lesley Fredrickson, and Jackie Spafford. The funding for my research was provided by the following UCSB awards and grants: the Humanities/Social Sciences Research Grant, the ­Subaltern-Popular Graduate Student Dissertation Award, the Dean’s Fellowship, and the Merit Scholarship. As a postdoctoral fellow, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC) provided me with a forum to expand my research and share it with a larger academic community through invited talks and lectures. I was also fortunate to present my work at the South Asia Conference at Princeton; South Asian Religions and Cultures Research Focus Group at UCSB, South Asian Scholars Association (SASA), Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and the European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) in Manchester, UK. I would like to extend special gratitude to John Zavos at the University of Manchester, UK, who was able to recognize the potential in this project much earlier. He gave me the first opportunity to present two papers related to my research at the ECMSAS, 2008. Under the guidance of Deepa Reddy and John Zavos, I published two essays, one in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2009, and the other in an anthology, Public Hinduisms in 2012. During the course of my education, I have been fortunate to have the support and guidance of many amazing teachers whose ideas find an echo in this book. I am grateful to Prem Singh from the Government College of Art in Chandigarh (India), who introduced me to the world of art. Woodman Taylor, David Sokol, Robert Munman, Ellen Baird, and David Margolin were a guiding light during my master’s program in the Department of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). I am deeply grateful to scholars such as Christopher Pinney, Jyotindra Jain, Richard Davis, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Saloni Mathur, and Kajri Jain. Their work on Indian art has greatly contributed to the rethinking of the South Asian art historical discipline in the past few decades and continues to inspire the new generation of scholars in the field. Many concepts introduced in this book have been derived from their astute scholarship. In addition, the work of exemplary scholars from the field of religious studies, film, and political theory, such as Christian Novetzke, Philip Lutgendorf, Henry Jenkins, Carole Cusack, Rachel Dwyer, M. S. S. Pandian, Partha Chatterjee, Madhava Prasad, Sara Dickey, S. V. Srinivas, among others, finds a strong resonance in this book. Their writings have helped to weave together different dimensions of devotional fandom. I would also like to acknowledge the help and guidance extended to me by Madhava Prasad, Kavita Singh, and S. V. Srinivas during my first research trip to India in 2005.

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I would like to express my appreciation for my students for their spirited class discussions on Indian popular art and films that opened my mind to a new way of looking at visual culture in India, especially Bollywood. Similar interactions with students and visitors at UCSB who came to see the first exhibition of Bollywood film posters in the United States, “Bollywood 101: The Visual Culture of Bollywood Film Posters” at the Art, Design and Architecture Museum, which I curated in 2014, provided me with a novel perspective of how Bollywood is currently being seen in the West. As part of the exhibit, we recreated an altar of Amitabh Bachchan based on the one in Kolkata and showcased the practices of two fan associations included in this book. I am thankful to the staff of the museum and to the College of Letters and Science at UCSB for funding the exhibition and a conference related to it. I am also grateful to Jayson Beaster-Jones for his critical feedback and invaluable suggestions, which helped me fill the gaps in the manuscript. I thank Lexington Books for their support. Judith Lakämper, acquisitions editor, has been a thorough professional and a delight to work with. She has helped me through the different stages of turning the manuscript into a book. Julie Lind, with her meticulous editing skills, provided me with useful feedback and insightful comments. I am thankful to her for her help in improving the clarity and flow of my argument and presenting it in a much more clear and precise manner. I am deeply indebted to fans, with whom I have had many meaningful conversations and discussions over the years. Their willingness to share their stories, photographs, and videos provided me with the main content without which it would not have been possible to write this book. I would like to recognize the contribution of Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association (ABFA) in Kolkata to this project. In particular, the fan association’s state secretary, Sanjay Patodiya and its vice-president, Rohit Kumar Bhutoria, for being available for interviews and sharing their perspective. I am also grateful to Amitabh’s fan, Babua Ghoshal, and to other members of the ABFA; Madhuri Dixit’s fan Pappu Sardar in Tatanagar; and Rajinikanth’s fans in Chennai. A special thank you to the LIC Unit of Rajini Fans in Chennai. Sridhar, president of the fan club, and its members and office bearers including Srikanth, Shakul, Selvam, Johny Kanth, Prabhu, Sundar, Suresh, George, Kannan and Neel Narayanan have immensely contributed to this study. I would like to thank USA Rajinikanth fans T. T. Balaji, Rajesh Kannan, and Rajini Vasu, among others, for extending their help. I am thankful to my neighbor, Jegan Candassamy for his help with Tamil translations and for sharing information about Rajinikanth’s fans. I would also like to thank Oxford University Press, Rediff​.co​m, Rajinifans​.co​m, Tresa Tony, and Emily Sodders for the permission to publish their pictures and artworks.

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I am also grateful to the organizers and actors of the Ramlila Committee at the Panjab University campus of Chandigarh, who continue to volunteer their selfless services to keep alive the rich tradition of folk theater and popular religion in Chandigarh. Although as a child watching Ramlila, it never occurred to me to express my gratitude, this is my opportunity to let them know that they make lasting impressions on the minds of the children and people who come to watch Ramlila year after year. I would like to express my gratitude to my late uncle Vinod Gambhir. His enchantment with films, especially for the movies of Amitabh Bachchan in the 1980s (Kaalia, Yaarana, Satte Pe Satta, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, etc.), ignited a deep love in me for Indian cinema in my childhood. The dialogues from the star’s films made our everyday conversations during summer vacations more colorful, and the collective singing of film songs often drenched us in joy during our regular jaunts around the city of Kolkata, especially while we were stuck in the heavy traffic under the Howrah Bridge in the sweltering summer heat. In such ways, traces of the nostalgia of that time, fragrant with deeply cherished memories of growing up with Hindi cinema, have found their way into this book. I am also thankful to my uncle Satish Gambhir, who helped me locate the home of the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association state secretary, Sanjay Patodiya, in 2005. Without any address, in the true spirit of an investigative journalist, he accompanied me and my father, randomly roaming the streets of Kolkata for days, asking people for any information on Amitabh fans. His relentless effort, along with the help from my cousins Gaurav Gambhir, Arti Gambhir, and Archita Gambhir led me to Patodiya’s home. I am also thankful to other members of my maternal family, Varsha Gambhir, Vaishali Gambhir, and Shweta Gambhir. In addition, my brother, Sanjay Kakar, a professor of Pathology at the University of California, San Francisco, offered to take leave from his busy schedule and accompany me on a research trip to Kolkata, Chennai, and Tatanagar in 2008. While I interviewed fans, he happily documented everything, taking on the role of my personal photographer. His deep knowledge of politics, human psychology, art, and philosophy, combined with his sharp intellect, has been a guiding force in my life and has helped shape some of the ideas in this book. I am grateful for our vibrant discussions, especially on the issue of “rational” vs “irrational” (that in the true spirit of siblings, I often disagree with!). Such conversations opened my mind and led me to new ways of thinking about the fan phenomena. I am also thankful to my late father-in-law, M. S. C. Murthy, and my mother-in-law, Ahalya Murthy, along with Uma Girish and Girish Ayya for their support and blessings. My husband, Shashi Mysore, a software engineer by profession, has been a pillar of strength for me all these years, patiently

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reading my drafts several times over. His unflinching support has kept me going and his encouragement helped me pick up the threads whenever I was stalled by the many obstacles that came my way. After what he has gone through to see this project in a book form, I think if not a doctorate, he certainly deserves a master’s degree in art history! This research study blossomed around the time when I was blessed with a daughter. The journey of motherhood intersected with its conception and research. I am forever grateful for the smiles and antics of my daughter, Parnika, who is the center around which my life revolves. Her humor and perpetual inquisitiveness, wrapped in her characteristic animated energy, uplifted me while I was sifting through heavy theoretical ideas. Peering at my screen, she would quickly mug up some convoluted dense theoretical terms and rattle them in one go, which added laughter, freshness, and brightness to my days of writing. More recently, as a teen, her patient listening and feedback helped me fine-tune subtle nuances to increase the readability of the book. Most importantly, I am grateful to my parents, Ramesh Kakar and Savita Kakar, for nurturing me and this book. My father has always stood by my side in all my ventures and my mother, a constant source of inspiration for me, has been an example of utmost strength and resilience. Thank you, Mamma and Daddy, for your unconditional love and continued blessings, for accompanying me on my very first research trip and encouraging me to embark upon this challenging and exciting journey. I dedicate this book to my mother.

Abbreviations

ABFA: AIADMK: BJP: DMK: FDFS: ISKCON: LIC: MGR: NGO: NTR: RBSI: RFA: RMM: RMMNA: SRTFC: U.P.:

All Bengal Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Bhartiya Janata Party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam First Day First Show International Society for Krishna Consciousness Life Insurance Corporation of India M.G. Ramachandran Non-Governmental Organization N.T. Rama Rao Rajini Biggest Superstar Of India Rajinikanth Fan Association Rajini Makkal Mandram Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America SuperStar Rajinikanth Telegu Fans Club Uttar Pradesh

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Introduction Visual Trajectories of a Cinematic Sacred

Drawing a parallel between film stars and gods, Satinder Chohan compares Hindi cinema, known since the 1980s as Bollywood, with religion. She writes, “for millions of Asians both at home and abroad, Bollywood is religion. Its screen stars are demigods, its narratives morality tales” (1999). In a similar vein, during the Indian general election campaign of 2014, in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), Jaya Prada refers to herself and her two political opponents, Hema Malini and Nagma (also Bollywood actresses-turned-politicians), as different forms of Shakti, the Hindu mother goddess, declaring, “we are like the three shaktis in this region-like Mahalaxmi, Mahakaali and Mahasaraswati” (Angre 2014a). What makes such comparisons possible? How can Bollywood actresses be invoked as mother goddesses for electoral success?1 These questions point to the medley of cinema, religion, and politics that define contemporary Indian popular culture. Scholars have investigated the entanglement of cinema and politics, highlighting the persona of star politicians, in the context of Southern India. Many film stars who have played the role of divinities or saviors in films have become successful politicians with the support of their fans, who publicly worship them. In Southern India, “for two generations now major south India film stars have retired as politicians” (S. V. Srinivas 2013; emphasis original). In fact, in the state of Tamil Nadu, since 1967, many chief ministers were associated with cinema in one way or another (Jacob 2009, 9).2 While the emergence of star politicians is a significant outcome of the blending of the star image with fan practices, there are several other dimensions that come into play when cinema and religion collide and interpenetrate. How does one map these complex phenomena? What kind of visual dialogues and idioms are constructed through this interplay? How does this new visual language produce images that crystallize and make visible the trajectories carved by 1

2

Introduction

the intersection of cinema and religion? In other words, what accounts for the convergence of cinema and religion in popular culture, and what kind of social, religious, artistic, and political implications does this produce through the mode of the visual? These are the questions I pursue in this book. The visual culture that fans produce is a novel site that stages the constant friction and mutual assimilation of the triad of cinema, politics, and religion. Key elements of fan artifacts—such as temples, film posters, hoardings (billboards), cutouts, and so on—and fan club activities produce particular social, religious, cultural, and political contexts and consequences.3 Fans build temples for their cinematic deities and conduct daily worship practices for their images. They mark the city space with their devotional activities and ritualize star images in public spaces during the release of films and on his or her birthday. These new sacral, organic spaces in popular culture give rise to multiple permutations that bring cinema, religion, and politics into undocumented negotiations in national and transnational contexts. Contrary to the main body of work produced on fan culture until now, which pivots around the political impact of star worship in Southern India as a primary outcome of such fan practices, this study offers a new approach that examines star worship through multiple modalities. In this book, I foreground the devotional practices of organized fan clubs of Southern Indian stars as well as Bollywood superstars in different parts of India. I examine fan clubs and the conceptual and visual analysis of fan artifacts such as temples, posters, flags, masks, hoardings, cutouts, banners, fan websites, fanzines, and YouTube videos. This is the first detailed study that analyzes fandom in India from a religious dimension and investigates temples dedicated to Bollywood stars. I engage with a detailed account of the structure, ritual practices, and enshrined images of cinematic deities in star temples, along with ethnographies of the fans who worship them. I examine how, as fluid entities, fan artifacts become the focal point of negotiating the domains of cinema, religion, and politics. These artifacts of star worship are tangible markers of the fan’s sacred spatial territory, which extends from the cinematic screen to the visual spaces of the city, including cinemas, sidewalks, fan club offices, star temples, and puja rooms (altars in homes of practicing Hindus), and corporate offices. They impart material legitimacy to their practices. While scholars have primarily focused on the political dimension of fan culture, the purpose of this book is to document and analyze other important aspects of fandom—such as the religious, material, and transnational content that shapes contemporary society—to argue that political activism can be a significant outcome of fan practices, but not necessarily the only one. I examine how a new language of the popular is shaping the emergence of a cinematic sacred, embedded and circulated in artifacts produced by fans who worship the star as a deity. Through the collective expression of devotion

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around such artifacts of celluloid divinities, fans occupy translocal and transnational spaces, in the process, resituating the institutionalized distinctive analysis of cinema, art, religion, and politics. DIALECTICS OF A POPULAR SACRED The concept of worshiping human beings is not new in India. Spiritual gurus, political godheads, film and sports stars, and one’s own parents and teachers have all been accorded the status of reverent subjects of worship within the Hindu ethos. In the Indian context, the realms of the sacred (our notion of the divine) and the temporal (our notion of the ordinary) have never been fixed categories, as one frequently interpenetrates the other (Asad 2003, 25). The dialectics between the temporal and the sacred, or between the “ordinary and the extraordinary” (Albanese 1999, 8), is embedded in the Indian ethos and continuously played out in popular culture. It is constantly negotiated in religious festivals, melas (fairs), temples, oral performances, rituals, mythological tales, and everyday practices. One of the earliest sites of this blurry boundary between the sacred and the temporal is folk theatre. Ramlila is a devotional folk drama based on the tale of the Hindu god Ram, performed as part of the festival of Dussehra. During the performance, a sacred dialectics ensues between the actor on stage and the audience in the theatre, which momentarily dissolves the domain of the celestial into the mundane. A poignant memory from my childhood illustrates this point. The stage is set. The curtain goes up. Lord Ram, his brother Lakshman, and his wife Sita are conversing with the boatman, Kevat, to take them across the river. Lord Ram asks Kevat the boat fare. Kevat folds his hands humbly and says, “Lord, you and I are in the same profession; people in the same profession do not charge one another.” On hearing this, Lord Ram is bemused, knowing well that Kevat is aware that he is the prince of Ayodhya and son of king Dashrath. Lord Ram gently asks him, “My dear Kevat, how is our profession similar? And how can I not pay you for your hard work?” At this Kevat falls to his feet, and says: hamari tumari, Rajan, jata-pata kevat ki vinati maniye hama tuma natha ek biradari ke utarayi deya jata na bigadiye. (Parrikar 2000) (Dear Lord, we are both boatmen. Just as I ferry people across this sea, you ferry souls across the ocean of life and death. When I reach that shore, you can repay me by ferrying me over.)

4

Introduction

Lord Ram, struck by the simplicity and wisdom of Kevat, blesses him. As a mark of respect and adoration, Kevat and his entire community of boatmen offer to wash his feet. In an act of piety, as devotees or bhakts, they bow down in humility, sprinkling water on Lord Ram’s feet and gently rinsing them.4 After washing his feet, they drink that water in an act of self-purification.5 Once the water has touched Lord Ram’s divine feet, it is considered charanamrit (nectar from the feet).6 As the bowl containing the charanamrit is circulated among the spectators, it is welcomed with the same devotional zeal. While the audience sprinkle themselves with the holy water, the curtain falls amidst deafening applause, followed by adulating chants of “Jai Shri Ram!” (Hail Lord Ram!).7 This episode is part of Ramlila, which is enacted annually in the neighborhood where I grew up, at the Panjab University campus in Chandigarh in Northern India. Each year, I would see the University Health Center compounder (nurse) affectionately addressed as “Uncle Ram” by us kids, playing the role of Ram on stage.8 After so many years, I still ruminate over his momentary divine status on stage, where he was considered the incarnation of Lord Ram. The boatman scene with Kevat and his fellowmen actually drinking water on stage after washing his feet remains fixed in my memory. Why did the actors on stage have to drink the water used for washing their fellow actor’s feet? Was it the actors’ way of adding authenticity to the scene? That raises the question as to why even the audience sprinkled themselves with the charanamrit, water that was washed off the feet of an actor who was just playing the character of Lord Ram but, in reality, was not Ram? Could drinking and sprinkling that water be seen as an expression of reverence, a mode of bhakti (devotion) that imbues the minds of both actors and the audience with divinity in that ceremonious moment?9 Within this mode of bhakti, they envision the actor playing Ram as divine even if in real life he carries out mundane jobs. In this case, “Lord Ram” happened to do blood tests in the University Health Center. I remember, as a child of seven, when my father took me to the University Health Center for a blood test, I was very scared. As “Uncle Ram” approached me, I was initially distracted upon seeing him in everyday garb rather than the glamorous outfit he wore on stage. Without the makeup and flamboyant dress, he looked so ordinary, I thought. However, as he smiled reassuringly at me, I was convinced of the benign nature he displayed on stage. But when he held my arm tight and then gently slid the needle into it, I shrieked in pain and, in panic, kicked him! Afterwards, filled with guilt and at my father’s stern insistence, I apologized to him. When I later told my friends what I had done, they were upset with me not for kicking the compounder of the Health Center, which would have otherwise been a fun story at that age, but for kicking “Uncle Ram,” which was considered no less than a sin!10

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Through this incident, I became aware of the dialectics between the sacred aura of “Uncle Ram” on stage and his everyday persona as a compounder off stage and how one could merge with the other. This possibility of blending the character of “Lord Ram” with “Uncle Ram” originated in the theatrical space. So, within the theatrical framework of Ramlila, is it possible that both the actors and the spectators remain not just actors and viewing subjects but are converted into devotees of Lord Ram? The conversion of the compounder into Lord Ram and the fellow actors and even the audience into bhakts in the staging of Ramlila collapses the realm of the sacred (our notion of god) into the realm of the ordinary (in this case, theatre), making theatre “a space for divine experience” (Pinney 2004, 42). At the end of Ramlila every year, the compounder would become “Uncle Ram” for kids, and for adults he would resume his original personality. But what if that stage persona of Lord Ram lingered on with the audience even after the performance and began to “live” beyond the confines of the theatre? What would happen if the audience fused the image of the actor with the divine character, gradually “replacing” the actor’s own personality? In the celebrated television serials of the 1980s based on the Hindu epics Ramayan and Mahabharat, actor Arun Govil played the role of Ram and Nitish Bhardwaj of the Hindu god Krishna. Both attained a god-like status “with fans worshipping the TV screen each time Ram appeared or when Krishna motivated Arjun in the battlefield” (Bhatia 2013). The television set was temporarily turned into a shrine with spectator-devotees garlanding it, performing arati (waving lamps), and lighting incense sticks (Bandlamudi 2010, 107). When these actors appeared in public, they were treated as deities; people prostrated themselves in front of them to seek their blessings. However, once they moved away from their on-screen divine personas to play other characters, viewers found it difficult to accept them in ordinary roles. Eventually, this led to the diminishing of their acting careers. Nevertheless, the momentary framing of television actors as gods heralded a “teleepic age,” leading to the “transformation of the viewing space into a sacred space” and “the creation of a new Hindu visual regime” (Bandlamudi 2010, 108; Dwyer 2006, 53). This augmented new religious practices and beliefs in which “watching television became for many a religious act,” a medium for the enactment of two central Hindu practices: darshan (process of seeing and being seen by the deity) and bhakti (Cusack 2012, 280, 282; Lutgendorf 1990; Mankekar 1999). If these actors had continued to play godly characters or similar morally upright protagonists on screen for decades, consolidating their sacred image in public memory, then what kind of demigod status might begin to emerge? Under what conditions would an actor’s image on screen and his or her everyday reality in life be fused, transforming that actor into a deity? How would this re-location of the actor into a sacred domain affect the social, religious, and political structure of society?

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Introduction

MAKING OF CINEMATIC DEITIES Years later, one crisp July afternoon in California, I was surfing the internet to get my daily dose of desi (local) news and I came across an interesting snippet from a national daily: “A Temple for Amitabh Bachchan.” The article noted how Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, who “has inspired an enduring cult, will now be worshipped in a temple to be built in Kolkata in his honour by his die-hard fans.”11 It went on to describe the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association (ABFA), a fan club in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) that considers Amitabh Bachchan to be a modern avatar of Ram and themselves his bhakts. Another article carried a story about Hindu rituals being performed by the ABFA for the image of their presiding Bollywood deity and how “[Amitabh’s] worshippers insist that his films are replete with ‘sublime messages from heaven’” (“Jai Guru Amitabh” 2001a). I was particularly struck by the fact that the fans were referring to Amitabh’s film characters and dialogues to frame his identity as a god. In contrast to the scene from Ramlila, where Kevat and the spectators were temporarily transformed into bhakts within the theatrical space, or the momentary devotion displayed for television stars who played divine characters, Amitabh’s fans sought to concretize their piety even outside of the theatre by building a temple for their cinematic deity. Beginning in the 1970s, Amitabh has played the typical “angry young man” in Indian cinema. He has essayed the role of a classic lumpen character who restores order in a corrupt society through his unmatchable strength and unconventional macho ways, ultimately signifying that good (symbolized by Amitabh) triumphs over evil (symbolized by the villain). Amitabh himself talks about his cult image, which he says originates on the cinematic screen: “It’s the medium. It’s larger than life. You see your idol. He seems 40 feet tall, woos beautiful women and lives up to all things correct in the society. It’s mass hysteria. I didn’t know I’d ever be an actor. We grew up watching Ramleela. I’m still stuck in that era” (“We as a Family” 2007). It is this larger-than-life image of the film star that triggers his devotional adulation. It is not that the fans do not understand the difference between the reel and real persona of Amitabh, but the blurring of these two images is intentional, even orchestrated. In the darkened cinema hall lit with the huge screen appears the close-up frontal image of the star, which visually and aurally invades the space of the spectator-fan, becoming part of it. The colossal size and deeds of the star on screen parallel the monumental images of Hindu deities, their sculptural forms showing Hindu mythological themes of good triumphing over evil. Such practices provoke questions about dissolving the distinction between real and reel, which I will address in the course of this book.

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EMERGENCE OF STAR TEMPLES Divinization by organized fan clubs is a relatively new phenomenon for Bollywood stars compared to stars from Southern India. There, fans have displayed their intense devotion for film stars such as M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) and N. T. Rama Rao (NTR) since the 1950s (Pandian 1992). Over decades, national dailies have described temples for several Southern Indian film stars, both male and female. Although it is hard to trace which temple or shrine was the first to be dedicated to a movie star, it seems that MGR was publicly worshipped in small temples and shrines in the 1970s (Pandian 1992). In 1985, a makeshift temple was consecrated for him, but in 2011, his fans built a formal temple in the Tiruvallur district of Nathamedu, on the outskirts of Chennai. The temple houses two idols of MGR, including a six-foot-tall idol of the star installed in the inner sanctum (“MGR Temple” 2011). Huge cutouts and banners of the actor are displayed around the temple, where fans come in large numbers to seek blessings (Saju 2013).12 In addition, a temple in Thanjavur (2016), and another one in Coimbatore (2019) in Tamil Nadu, have also been erected to honor the actress-turned-politician Jayalalithaa, in which a statue of the star is ritually worshipped (“A Temple in Jaya’s Memory” 2016b; “Coimbatore AIADMK” 2019).13 In 2021, a temple dedicated both to MGR and Jayalalithaa was inaugurated in Madurai that has a multi-pillared hall embellished with lifesize bronze statues of MGR and Jayalalithaa (“Temple for AIADMK” 2021). Many other Southern Indian female stars have been reportedly deified in temples dedicated to them. In the past couple of decades, temples for Bollywood stars have also emerged. In the 1990s, Madhuri Dixit’s Temple was created in Tatanagar, and in 2009, a temple was built for Amitabh Bachchan in Kolkata.14 In star temples, fans use religion as a mold to recast their idol as a divine figure. These temples are usually accompanied by an adjoining or in-house museum that showcases the film star’s movies, posters, and audiovisual clips. The rituals performed in these temples consist of Hindu rites of puja (worship), augmented by the chanting of popular film songs or mantras appropriated from Hindu religious practices that are reoriented toward the star deity. For example, devotees recite Amitabh Chalisa and Madhuri Chalisa (in place of Hanuman Chalisa, a devotional hymn dedicated to the Hindu god Hanuman) and perform Amitabh Arati (waving lamps and burning incense sticks in front of the star’s images), Madhuri Puja, and so on, while ritualizing images of their cinematic deities.15 These quasi-religious sentiments are also expressed in puja rooms and shrines dedicated to the god or goddess housed in fan clubs and the homes of their members—the bhakts who worship film stars as modern avatars of Hindu divinities. These fan clubs reinforce the divinization of their chosen star through their activities, primarily worship rituals in the temples and makeshift temporary

8

Introduction

altars inside and outside of cinema halls, where cutouts and posters of stars are worshipped in accordance with Hindu rites. For example, fans engage in ritual activities such as arati, collective chanting, ritual dancing, and distributing prasad (sanctified food) to celebrate the release of their star’s latest film. Through such devotional practices centered on posters, banners, cutouts, and hoardings of their star, the fans animate these images. They invest cinematic artifacts with a sacral aura and efficacy, circulating these objects and, through them, the ideology of worshipping a film star in popular culture. In this book, I interrogate the phenomenon of star worship and the fan as a devotee through what I call devotional fandom. I investigate the manner in which fan club members engage with Hindu religiosity via the mode of the star image to produce a distinct new identity for the star as a deity, or a star deity, and his or her fans as devotee-fans,16 or fan-bhakts.17 The fans as bhakts produce what I term devotional fanscapes,18 creating temples for their star deity and re-appropriating Hindu rituals to claim their space in the city, media, and the cyberspace. Devotional fanscapes are the social, cultural, visual, material, performative, virtual, and political occupation of urban spaces by devotee-fans that frame the star as a deity, and redirect Hindu rituals to worship their images in public spaces. Through this study, I analyze devotee-fan clubs of three important film stars of India: Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit and the Southern Indian star Rajinikanth. Beyond being superstars, these actors have been extolled by the masses and have been worshipped by organized devotee-fan clubs for decades. I examine these new temple spaces in the urban landscape festooned with worship practices of cinematic deities, detailing how they lead to the emergence of new religious and sociopolitical communities of devotee-fans bound together by the devotion for their star deity. My investigation of these phenomena involves a multidisciplinary approach that intersects several scholarly fields: art and architectural history, film theory, religious studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and political theory. Although theoretical ideas of scholars from all of these fields have shaped the conceptual narrative of this book, given my training as an art historian, the predominant critical lens in this study is through a visual studies perspective.

CONTOURS OF “PUBLICS OF FAN-BHAKTI” My exploration of the phenomena of fan culture in which the film star is framed as a god and the fan as a devotee is contextualized within the popular dominant modes of Hindu religiosity. As appropriation of Hindu rituals (arati, puja, etc.) are the primary mode of displaying devotee-fans’ bhakti for the star, these rituals have become the defining parameters of this study.

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But how does one define bhakti? Or, more importantly, in this context, how does one define the bhakti of a fan toward a film star? The notion of bhakti has been explored in myriad dimensions in contemporary religious studies. In Bhakti and Power, Hawley, Novetzke, and Sharma elucidate: Bhakti, as usually translated, is devotion, but if that word connotes something entirely private and quiet, we are in need of other words. Bhakti is heart religion, sometimes cool and quiescent but sometimes hot—the religion of participation, community, enthusiasm, song, and often of personal challenge.  .  .  . It evokes the idea of a widely shared religiosity for which institutional superstructures weren’t all that relevant. (2019, 3; emphasis mine)

The emphasis on participation, enthusiasm, and community as defining aspects of bhakti brings attention to its “socially inclusive nature” and democratic credentials (Hawley, Novetzke, and Sharma 2019, 6). The social dimension in bhakti is further elaborated by Novetzke’s richly nuanced analysis based on the public nature of bhakti. He aligns bhakti with performance, stating that all manifestations of it are public performances that seek to form “publics of reception” (2007, 255). He goes on to define the public “as a social unit created through shared cultural phenomena and reinforced by demonstrations in public of these shared cultural phenomena” (259). In his movement away from a conventional definition of bhakti, he asserts: The sense in which bhakti enters the history of India is not through the private realm but through the .  .  . social world.  .  .  . Bhakti, as a subject for cultural history, must be taken in its social forms and not theorized solely within the sphere of an individual’s consciousness .  .  . [Therefore] any study of bhakti must always be a social or, I would say, a public subject. (Hawley, Novetzke, and Sharma 2019, 5–6)

Novetzke illustrates that the public aspects of bhakti—such as puja, darshan, pilgrimage, the wearing of signs on the body, or the repetition of a deity’s name—are performed in context of an audience. In addition the “public performative expressions of bhakti: the plays, dances, theatrics, and songs that have come to stand for bhakti in modern scholarly discourse,” are performed in context of spectators: “Bhakti seems to need an audience” (2007, 259, 256). He goes on to describe how these shared devotional acts of a community acquire the status of bhakti when performed collectively in public spaces. For example, the act of sharing prasad in itself becomes an expression of bhakti: bhakti as the exchange of food becomes a metonym when applied to religious contexts. It takes on the meaning of sharing food, as a symbol of other kinds of

10

Introduction

social circulation, with both deity and fellow devotees. Here the comestible is “devotion” itself. (262; emphasis mine)

The publics of bhakti also need embodiment, the medium of a living human on which these practices can be projected and activated: “bhakti needs ­bodies” (261). To summarize, Novetzke defines bhakti as a devotional performance by members of a community, manifested in a tangible human form (a guru or deity, among others), which functions as an embodiment and as a visual display of their ritual acts, performed in complete cognizance of an active audience. I propose that it is within this rubric of bhakti that the devotee-fan clubs function; through their repeated devotional acts centered on the star image, fan-bhakts invite the gaze of the popular to their unconventional activities of worshipping a film star in public spaces. Extending the notion of the publics of bhakti to devotional fandom, I would like to term the collective worship practices of devotee-fans in cityscapes, media, and cyberspaces as publics of fan-bhakti, which are anchored around the star image through which they create their devotional fanscapes. The performance-entrenched publics of fan-bhakti become a means for devotee-fans to gain entry into a mutually beneficial relationship with 24/7 news channels and print and social media. The constant showcasing of their ritual activities in the media and on social networking websites helps launch their identity in popular culture while simultaneously imbuing the star image with a super divine aura. The sacral star image (derived from images of the star on posters, billboards, etc.) becomes an epicenter of devotee-fan activities and an embodiment of their bhakti; the human medium around which the publics of star devotion manifest and are synchronized. Moreover, the collective performance of devotional acts projected onto the divinized star image—such as palabhishekam (the ritual pouring of milk on the image of the deity); arati; repetition of star deity’s name; engaging in a pilgrimage to the star deity’s home to seek darshan; seeing his/her film together; breaking coconuts; sharing prasad/cake cutting; throwing flowers, coins, and confetti on the star deity’s image—all become a means to express their devotion. In addition, other activities in and around the cinema halls—such as bursting crackers, dancing to drum beats/flash mob, wearing star deity’s mask, euphoric whistling, engaging in incessant screaming as an expression of a collective form of devotional ecstasy with fellow devotee-fans when the star (or his/her name) appears on the screen, donning T-shirts with the star’s face, waving the fan club flag, and so on—all become vivid expressions that electrify the devotional circuits of the publics of fan-bhakti. This contemporary expression of the religious nestled in the cinematic sacred is not a monolithic concept. The publics of fan-bhakti are sites of

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constant flux. Through collision, friction, fusion, and novelty, they traverse ebbs and swells of hybrid encounters between conventional Hinduism and contemporary devotional practices from “popular Hinduism” (Fuller 2004, 5; Sinha 2005).19 Like a palimpsest, they are layered; in their layers, new devotional expressions (cake cutting, wearing masks, etc.) and traditional practices (puja, arati, raslila, etc.) coexist, merge, and are transformed. The inception of these forms of publics of fan-bhakti stem from multitude perspectives deeply enmeshed between devotion, desire, ritual, power, and performance, which converge on the deified star image and crystalize the identity of the devotee-fan in popular culture. As the deified star image becomes a locus for the creation of the devotee-fan identity, eventually, as I argue in chapter 3, the notion of embodiment that Novetzke outlines expands to the body of the devotee-fan himself, who then becomes a centrifugal point, a visceral stage for the production of the publics of fan-bhakti. Although this study focuses on the cinematic sacred of devotee-fans infused with Hindu rituals, this is not to say that devotional practices toward the stars are not expressed through other means by fans that are Muslim, Sikh, Christian, and so on, within their own ambit of religiosity. When asked how Muslim and Christian fans of Amitabh in the ABFA express their devotion, Sanjay Patodiya, state secretary of the ABFA and chief priest of the Amitabh temple in Kolkata, had this to say: Amitabh fans are all the same irrespective of their religion. Our Muslim and Christian members have the same bhakti as we do and consider Amitabh as God. However, because of the restrictions in their individual religious teachings and practices, they are unable to publicly participate in worshipping his images, although they express themselves in the privacy of their homes. (interview with the author, 2008)

The main objective of this book is to investigate the visuality of devotional fandom within the Hindu ethos of publics of fan-bhakti through which the fans inscribe and ritualize the star persona to carve out a separate identity.20 THE ARC OF DIVINITY As mentioned earlier, spiritual gurus and political icons can also be considered human manifestations of the divine by their followers, and this belief has been an integral part of the Indian cultural and religious matrix. Extensive scholarly work is available on the subject that examines the paradigm of devotion between the guru and the disciple.21 I partially engage with this material in chapter 1 to examine how gurudom converges with devotional fandom. I discuss the significance of the worship of human beings by focusing on

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ABFA’s framing of Amitabh as their guru and the celebration of the Hindu festival of Guru Purnima by devotee-fans as a trope to validate their fandom. Illustrating star worship as a cinematic extension and reconfiguration of guru worship, Rajinikanth fans also refer to him as their Thalaivar (boss/ one who leads). What makes their “style guru” unique is that unlike a conventional spiritual guru who needs some kind of quasi-religious capital (such as knowing scriptures, conducting satsangs [devotional gatherings], and articulating pravachans [religious discourse]) to create his/her persona,22 the deified image of the film star worshipped in star temples is culled from his/ her cinematic image and fused with popular religious practices. In devotional fandom, the guru-god figure is created through the medium of cinema and sustained outside by fans that call themselves devotees. The stars’ cinematic character, along with the songs and dialogues of their films, all become textual, visual, and religious paraphernalia for the fans to work with to construct the star’s devotional image. To provide an example, in chapter 1, I describe the Amitabh Bachchan temple, referred to as the Bachchan Dham (Abode of Amitabh) by devotee-fans, whose walls are embellished with film posters and dialogues that become part of the everyday rituals and chanting. A similar kind of adulation is extended to select political icons, real or imagined—such as B. R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Bharat Mata, and Mother Tamil, among others—who are also worshipped as deities. Chapter 3 analyzes political deities eulogized in spaces such as the Bharat Mata Temple and the Gandhi Temple to understand newer spaces of worship of Bollywood stars, followed by a comparison between a Bollywood star temple (Madhuri Dixit Temple) and a political temple (Bharat Mata Temple) to bring out the differences between the two.

ROLE OF DEVOTIONAL FANDOM IN THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN CINEMA AND POLITICS Another underlying aim of this book is to provide a platform to incorporate the perspective of devotee-fans, their artifacts, and their devotional activities, into academic discourse. In particular, it opens a space to document the terrain of publics of fan-bhakti and chart its impact on multivalent dimensions of religion, art, politics, and transnationalism. How can devotional fandom as a new analytical category enrich our understanding of the interplay between cinema, religion, and politics? There have been several studies on the interweaving of cinema and politics in Southern India by scholars such as Robert Hardgrave Jr. (1971, 1973, 1975a, 1975b), M. Barnett (1976), S. Theodore Baskaran (1981, 1996), K. Sivathamby (1981), M. S. S. Pandian (1992), Sara Dickey (1993a, 1993b,

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2001, 2008, 2019), Madhava Prasad (1999, 2004, 2009, 2014), S. V. Srinivas (1996, 2009, 2013, 2018), and Preminda Jacob (2009), among others. A comprehensive analysis of major theoretical interventions in fan culture, film, and politics in the last two decades has been succinctly articulated in Dickey’s essay, “Cinematic Cultures” (2019). One of the most groundbreaking studies on this convergence of cinema and politics is Pandian’s erudite analysis in The Image Trap, which investigates the emergence of star politicians such as MGR, who used cinema to consolidate his political power. Through their work, Dickey and Srinivas made a paradigmatic shift in star studies by focusing on the role of fans in the creation of the star image in Southern India. The compelling arguments and ethnographic work of both of these studies brought the fan, fan clubs, and their “politics of adulation” into a prominent space in cinema studies (Dickey 1993b, 362). Dickey documented the social welfare activities of fan clubs of film stars and how it relates to issues of class identity to argue that lower class fans elevate their status through their participation, “portraying themselves as helpers and even leaders of the poor” (1993a, 165). The use of the star image by fans for self-promotion and to enhance their own sociopolitical mobility was further articulated by Srinivas. Through his study on fans of Southern Indian superstar Chiranjeevi, Srinivas introduces the idea of “conditional loyalty,” making the interesting observation that in fans devotion coexists with defiance: Fans themselves speak of their relationship to their idols in terms of loyalty, devotion, etc., giving the impression that their actions have to do with extant ways of relating to social superiors and gods. In my examination of the fan-star relationship, I emphasize the conditional nature of the fans’ loyalty to the star. The fan is a loyal follower and devotee only if the star lives up to the expectations the fan has of him. The conditional loyalty of fans is premised on the star’s recognition of their well-defined set of entitlements related to him and his films. This results in a situation in which fans become the guardians of the star’s image. (2009, xxviii)

While Srinivas focuses on conditional loyalty to explain fans’ apparently excessive emotional outpouring for the star in the form of rituals and occupation of the city space, Madhava Prasad points out that what appears to be bhakti is in reality a political activity through his concept of “subaltern sovereignty” in the context of Rajinikanth’s fans.23 Both scholars suggest that although the worship of star images might appear religious, in actuality it is a mimicry of those practices designed for political objectives. Thus, they argue, fan culture is politics by other means. I will get back to this point a bit later in our discussion. Extending the idea of the overlap between the cinematic and political in Southern India, Uma Bhrugubanda (2018) finds this intersection not in fan

14

Introduction

practices, but instead in the space of embodied engagement of the subaltern female spectator of devotional films. Reiterating Prasad’s and Srinivas’s claim that star worship is devoid of any viable form of religiosity, she says, “while I agree that the Chiranjeevi or Rajnikanth fan is not religious minded, I argue that neither is the spectator of the devotionals religious in any simple-minded or reified sense” (2016, 86). She brings attention to the role of popular religion in the intersection between cinema and politics by studying the impact of devotional films on female audiences, noting how the subaltern viewer negotiates the entangled terrain of patriarchy, gender, and caste through her possessed body. Bhrugubanda thereby expands Prasad’s space of the political to female spectators, contending that they reshuffle power hierarchies embedded in Southern Indian society, even if momentarily. In such instances, she argues for a space of subaltern political agency, urging us to read the process as a counterhegemonic expression of normative gender and caste hierarchies rather than dismiss it as an expression of blind faith by underprivileged women. Although such arguments are useful and have their own merit in shaping the political, the disavowal of the religious/devotional as a mode in destabilizing these social hierarchies remains largely unchartered, propelling the discourse in a unidirectional mode where political agency in the cinema/through the cinematic deity can be located by negating the devotional rather than in or through it.24 In The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization, Frederick Smith highlights how possession has been considered “to bear the stigma of primitivism” and has been seen as an expression of the illiterate and lower class in India, “among both academic and indigenous orthodoxies” (2006, 3–4). Instead, he proposes approaching the concept of possession through an emic viewpoint, contending that it is not a single simple experience or practice, but one that “is distinguished by extreme multivocality” (4). According to him, voluntary possession can be seen as an embodied version of “experiential shifts” of the transcendental (2019, 24). He describes deity possession within the context of “oracular” or “divine possession” as the most common and “valued form of spiritual expression in India” (2006, xxv). Within the realm of bhakti, he explains, “personal identification with a deity is often interpreted as possession” in which “the devotee learned how to come into such close contact with a deity that his or her own identity was at least partially erased as the deity and its power to assert agency came to the fore” (2006, xxv; 2019, 36).25 Comparing possession with the meditative practices of a yogi, Smith describes the possessed as one who “finally enters a state in which higher powers can be realized” (2019, 36). In this manner, possession can be seen as a spiritually empowering act experienced through intense devotional emotions that the practitioner can use in multiple ways, including to process and challenge his/ her social and economic hierarchical system.

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15

Christopher Pinney describes possession and the subsequent empowerment of the devotee through an engagement with ritualized printed images. He brings attention to the bodily praxis that ensues between the printed images of Hindu deities and the devotee, which is propelled by the devotee’s “desire to fuse image and beholder” (2004, 194). Pinney illustrates a subaltern visual practice in which the possessed body of a man belonging to a lower class takes the form of a goddess. During a religious procession, in a “frenzied outpouring of ecstatic energy,” Pinney asserts that the subaltern aggressively swirls, displaying the rage of the goddess in front of the house of the upper caste leader of the village (199). Through such socially sanctioned possession rituals, the subaltern “was capable of fracturing the normally hierarchical ordered space of the village” (199). He produced a bodily “engagement with the Krishna murti (via the agency of his own possession and the presence of the chromolithographic form of the goddess in the procession) that threatened the dominant order” (200). Extending such embodied visual practices to cinematic images, how would our reading of Bhrugubanda’s subaltern female viewer of the devotional film change if we position her possessed body in the discursive space of a religious experience or in a state of divine possession engaging with the cinematic figure of the goddess? Seen through the prism of popular religiosity, how would the trope of bhakti reshape the apparently transitory political space of the cinema hall, reclaimed by the possessed female spectator, and what could be its social, religious, and political impact? Philip Lutgendorf’s monumental body of work on popular Hinduism is a rich resource to understand the intersection of religion and cinema from the perspective of religious studies. While analyzing the impact of films such as Jai Santoshi Maa (1975), he centralizes the role of religious experience and meaning in the devotional genre of Indian cinema to illustrate how it subverts existing caste and patriarchal paradigms to open up a non-elite space of assertiveness and agency for its lower-class women audience (2002, 2005). Lutgendorf notes the academic neglect of such devotional genres in cinema studies, emphasizing the apologetic and dismissive approach of film scholars toward “the expressions of a religious vision that is particularly alien to ‘progressive’ and Westernized sensibilities” (2002). He explains: [The] assumption that a “scientific” understanding of cinematic artifice properly precludes the experience of “real” divinity—this despite the fact that Hindus routinely and knowingly impute divinity to iconic materializations of all sorts, permanent and transient, natural and manufactured: from clods of earth to painted surfaces to consecrated human actors.

In Filming the Gods, Rachel Dwyer also challenges this marginalization of incorporating religious experience as a viable analytical category in cinema studies by investigating the relationship between film and religion as a “way of

16

Introduction

examining religious imagination in India” (2006, 1). She explains, “there are clearly many parallels between cinema-going and religious experiences.  .  .  . The mythological film directly combines entertainment with religious purpose” (57). Given the context of avatars or manifestation in Hindusim, Dwyer further argues that, “it is not surprising then that in films divine intervention happens through the image itself rather than a manifestation of the deity in human or part-human form” (145; emphasis mine). She notes how religious practices are also embedded in “non-religious” cinematic genres, which are envisioned within a Hindu imagination (132, 160). Elaborating on Dwyer’s observations, Lutgendorf (2014) in “The Roles of Ritual in Two ‘Blockbuster’ Hindi Films” draws attention to how the representation of rituals is another way religion enters popular cinema and its apparently “secular” narratives.26 Citing the example of Amman (mother goddess) films in Southern India, Kalpana Ram describes the spectators’ sensory engagement through off-screen worship practices, which blurs “the line between cinema, spectatorship and worship” (2008, 56, 10). When cinematic images of stars are incorporated in banners and cutouts, they become yet another instance of how devotee-fans blur boundaries between the cinematic and the sacred, opening up a new site to direct their off-screen worship practices. Abounding the cityscape, especially in Southern India, these images become a visual space for the convergence of cinema, religion, and politics. Taking the example of the political and cinematic imagery of MGR’s successor, Jayalalithaa, Preminda Jacob illustrates how cutouts become propagandistic sites, as “these images depict a trajectory in her charismatic status from that of a popular film celebrity to royalty to an omnipotent goddess of the Hindu pantheon” (2009, 13). She suggests that the “viewing of Indian cinema encourages a dissolution of boundaries between the secular space of modern electronic media such as cinema, and the religious space of puja, or worship,” and it is this “fluidity of perception” that imbues the star images with charisma (13). In spite of such scholarly interventions that bring attention to the interlacing of religion and cinema, the construction of images of the star deity by devotee-fans, the rituals that animate them, and the star temples that become markers of the cinematic sacred not just in the South, but also in other parts of India, have not been examined.27 Although some studies have highlighted the role of visuality to unravel how fandom emerges in Tamil Nadu by focusing on star images in personalized spaces of the fan, the significance of online fan communities, and the role of fan clubs in democratic processes, they have not critically engaged with the devotional aspect of fandom and their focus has been restricted to Southern India (Gerritsen 2014, 2016; Punathambekar 2008; Rogers 2009). Considering that a majority of fans in India who engage in the practice of worshipping film stars belong to the lower and lower-middle classes, it

Introduction

17

is not surprising that earlier studies have characterized them as “subaltern,” “rowdy,” or members of the “urban poor,” describing their worship practices as an expression of uneducated masses (Pandian 1992; S.V. Srinivas 2000, 2009; Dickey 1993a, 1993b).28 Sometimes these “irrational” devotional sensibilities of fans are camouflaged by a “modernist” spin, devoid of the quintessential religiosity that defines them. Madhava Prasad argues that the divinized star persona is an expression of “superstition and other pre-rational phenomena,” thereby describing devotee-fan rituals as “irrational passions of the masses” (2004, 101; 2009, 68). Instead, he suggests viewing the collective worship of film posters by fans as acts of “enthusiasm” (2009). For him, fan clubs are “enthusiastic communities,” and their active religiosity, while borrowed from practices of Hindu rituals, does not have a religious significance. He writes: The use of the term “bhakta” to refer to a film star’s fan may prompt us to equate religious devotion and star-worship and to take seriously the idea that to the Indian mind, no great gap separates exemplary human beings from divine figures . . . the idea, jointly elaborated by western orientalists and Indian nationalists. . . . On the other hand, we might take a more modern approach . . . [to understand] the term “bhakta” . . . [in which] nothing remotely religious is implied. . . . We must learn to see the practice of star worship as an independent site of enthusiasm. (2009, 72–73; emphasis mine)

Prasad’s emphasis on taking a “modern” approach that is emptied of religious meaning to the notion of bhakti is as much a refusal of the orientalists’ position that such activism is “premodern” as it is a critique of nationalist hegemonic visions. Yet, Prasad himself resorts to an essentialist position by disavowing the religious content of these practices. His insistence on “modernizing” devotional fandom reinforces the same essentialist view of religion held by orientalists and nationalists. Considering that a number of fans also come from the middle class and have a significant presence on cyberspace, they are already “modern” by conventional standards, even though the term “modern,” conceived within a Eurocentic paradigm, has become a contentious category in contemporary scholarship.29 It is therefore ironic that in the discourse of fan studies the perspective where fans openly declare the star to be their god and themselves to be his bhakts remains largely excluded. In The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom, Carole Cusack, John Morehead, and Venetia Robertson refer to similar instances of exclusion of fan religiosity in fan studies. Quoting J. Smith, they attribute exclusion to the “exceptionalist model of paradigmatic religion,” which is based on the West’s “reductive categorical dualism” that produces oppositions such as “‘true religion/false religion’, ‘religion/superstition’, ‘religion/magic’ and so forth” (2019, 5, 4). In this context, alternative religious manifestations from popular culture, such

18

Introduction

as worshipping of the film stars by devotee-fans are considered meaningless fan activities. In their compelling argument, they point out: “While texts and participatory cultures might seem sacred, their fans might appear devotional, their activities might resemble ritual celebration, none of this entails the same holiness as ‘true’ religious expression” (5; emphasis original). Likewise, Alderton reminds us that “it is vital that both scholars of religion and scholars of popular cultural products such as film advocate either the seriousness with which we need to treat any religious viewpoint, or the ludicrous and invented elements of all faith-based systems” (2014, 220; emphasis original). It is within this framework of highlighting this new faith-based system of devotee-fans that I approach fan culture. The devotional practices of fans in India are not confined to the three case studies I present in the book, but, as mentioned earlier, have been carried out for many decades by thousands of fans of many other film stars (MGR, Rajkumar, NTR, and Chiranjeevi, among others). For example, Sara Dickey describes how MGR fans ­continue to worship him decades after his death (2008, 78). Devotee-fans have erected new temples in his memory, perform rituals for his garlanded cutouts outside of theaters. Meanwhile, MGR diasporic fans eulogize his images in temple spaces outside of India (“MGR Statue” 2019).30 Jayalalithaa’s temple was also established after her death, and cinematic images of “new/potential cinematic deities” are bathed with “large cans of milk, a massive garland and several rolls of fireworks” outside of many theaters when films of big actors like Kamal Haasan, Ajith, Vijay, Suriya, Dhanush, and Karthi are screened in Tamil Nadu (Karthikeyan 2016). Although none of these stars have attained a status anywhere close to the demi-god image of MGR in Tamil Nadu, nevertheless, the circuits of fan-bhakti that galvanize devotional fandom are becoming omnipresent and gaining momentum in popular culture. Scant attention has been paid to the ritual practices of fans, especially of Bollywood stars. The identity of devotee-fans, both of Southern Indian and Bollywood stars, revolves around the star images they worship. They engage in rituals such as palabhishekam, arati, puja, and so on, which are centered on cutouts and posters of the stars in acts of deification that are similar to the rituals carried out for murtis (god images) in Hindu temples.31 In his study of worship practices in Hindu temples, Richard Davis describes how the image of the deity functions as an embodied space, a receptacle of divine energy animated with the “aesthetics of presence” (1997, 33). Here, the murti is not just a representation of the deity but signifies its presence itself: “the image is ultimately the message” (Davis 1997, 33). Kajri Jain deploys this notion to examine the power and efficacy of calendar images of Hindu deities and contends that the embodied presence of the divine takes the form of a ­preexisting and imagined “transcendental gaze like that of a deity” (2007, 292–94). When the star is envisioned as a deity, his/her posters, hoardings, and so on,

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19

become receptacles of the presence of the divine aura and the transcendental gaze of the star. The rituals conducted on and around these poster images further deepen the relationship between the “devotional eye” of the fan and the perceived sacred aura of the star image (Davis 1997, 38). I will examine this transformation of the film poster into a star murti in detail in chapter 2. By centering such rituals on printed images of film stars such as posters and hoardings, a corporeal dialectics develops between the fan and the image. Christopher Pinney’s discussion of “corpothetics” (sensory corporeal aesthetics) is useful to explain this point. In the context of Hindu god images, Pinney explains that corpothetics emphasizes “not how images ‘look’, but what they can ‘do’” (2004, 8). He describes the rites of corporeal consumption of popular, mass-produced religious images: The consumption of images . . . needs to be understood in terms of these processes of bodily empowerment, which transform pieces of paper into powerful deities through the devotee’s gaze, the proximity of his/her heart and a whole repertoire of bodily performances in front of the image (breaking coconuts, lighting incense sticks, folding hands, shaking small bells, the utterance of mantras). (191)

When the devotee-fan physically engages with printed images of the star by pouring milk, breaking coconuts, chanting, or touching the star’s image and immediately placing the hands on the forehead (another practice appropriated from Hinduism), a corporeal engagement ensues between the fan and the image. Through this process, the blessings and the power with which the image is invested are believed to be transferred from the star deity to the devotee-fan. In this transference, for the devotee-fan, the paper, cardboard, or vinyl image of the star is transformed into an object of veneration, into powerful deities, changing the fan into a devotee and the star into a god. The constant reenactment of these image-centric rituals helps devotee-fans produce their own sociocultural, spatial, and religious constructs, thus affirming their identity in popular culture. As noted above, scholars have largely ignored or dismissed these ritualistic activities and how they shape fans and their worldview. There seems to be a subtle and lingering sense of embarrassment within the scholarly community regarding the “premodern” practices of worshipping a film star. Indeed, the public display of a fan’s devotion—which is a significant component of star worship and of making star politicians—has been accorded, I would say, a prejudiced position. Without examining these worship rituals and their implications, traditionalists, journalists, members of the middle and upper class, and, especially, academia have either marginalized such fan practices or made them a subject of ridicule. Several years back, when I presented my work on fans for the first time at an international conference, the video of a

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Introduction

devotee-fan from Tatanagar frantically dancing with eunuchs in front of a deified image of a Bollywood star was greeted with peals of laughter from some of my colleagues who seemed visibly amused. There is no doubt that from a conventional standpoint and during initial encounters with such fan practices, these videos can appear insignificant, or rather “crazy,” as they have often been described. Hence, through the very nature of its subject— people worshipping film stars—the topic is rendered trivial, unqualified, and unworthy of epistemological thinking in hegemonic discourse. Henry Jenkins, a pioneer in fan studies in the West, brings attention to how unconventional fan practices remain on the periphery of academic discourse. Borrowing from de Certeau, Jenkins suggests that fans reclaim textual material by reappropriating it and making it their own. However, Jenkins observes how such fan practices are marginalized in mainstream academic writing: “Yet, such wanton conduct [of fans] cannot be sanctioned; it must be contained, through ridicule if necessary, since it challenges the very notion of literature as a type of private property to be controlled by textual producers and their academic interpreters” (1988, 86). When devotee-fans blur our definitions between cinema and religion, decade after decade empowering themselves through ritual performances and showcasing their publics of fanbhakti in a globalizing world, it begins to challenge our conceptions. When their contemporary religiosity marks the social, religious, artistic, and political landscape of our times, these acts take on an entirely different meaning. They confront us with their “eccentricity” and make us rethink our known systems of knowledge production. By making these devotional practices and devotee-fan artifacts an object of knowledge, my purpose is, as Michel Foucault put it, “to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking” (1996, 462). My objective is to explore religion and fandom not as two opposed and mutually divorced categories, but as interlaced entities, constantly animating and reconfiguring themselves to produce new spatial constructs and religious identities. I argue that the fans do not mimic popular devotional practices derived from a Hindu ethos, but through the publics of fan-bhakti they manifest a new form of contemporary religiosity in the form of the cinematic sacred, inscribing the star and themselves into it. Through ritual practices and fan-bhakti around star images, they create dialectical spaces, unsettling our institutionalized definition of religion and cinema. While the devotion and ritual fan activities can be read through multitiered trajectories, for the purpose of this book I examine fandom through the worldview of devoteefans and their practices to investigate how popular modes subvert existing power structures, revisioning our understanding of religion, art, fandom, and politics. This alternative approach to star worship, I argue, will also help us rethink larger questions of knowledge production and the consumption of visual culture in the South Asian context.

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In bringing attention to devotee-fan artifacts and their place as objects of knowledge, I am in no way proposing that all fans are devotee-fans or that the element of “excess” in the devotee-fan does not exist (S.V. Srinivas 2009, 46).32 In fact, fans who worship film stars exhibit an unconventional devotion with an exaggerated emotional outpouring for the star whose image as S.V. Srinivas reminds us they fiercely guard and protect (xxviii). Based on my research, I would say that the surge of their devotional outpourings and the charged arguments they present to explain their belief system align with that of devout practitioners of mainstream religions around the world.33 However, by examining their practices within the framework of the ethnography of fans and their active appropriation of Hindu religiosity, I will demonstrate the degree to which devotional fandom and the devotee-fan paraphernalia accomplishes what Pinney, in reference to popular religious images, calls the “rejection of colonial rationalities” (2004, 204). I propose the construction of a conceptual (as opposed to a chronological) narrative that centralizes the logic of the fans who deem it perfectly rational to both deify the film star and cash in on the star image they create. Here, I am emboldened by Dipesh Chakrabarty’s call to understand the contemporaneity of the subaltern worldview. In Habitations of Modernity, Chakrabarty challenges scholarly perceptions of “premodern” practices of the subaltern in India and provokes the question: How do we, for instance, characterize the intellectual worlds of the peasant and the subaltern classes who are our contemporaries yet whose life practices constantly challenge our “modern” distinctions between the secular and the sacred, between the feudal and the capitalist, between the nonrational and the rational? The old imperial option of looking down on them through some version of the idea of backwardness has lost its appeal. Increasingly, we want the process of democratization to be itself democratic. The farther afield the process of democratization ranges, and the more radical that process becomes, the more we are challenged to rethink our stance as self-conscious political subjects of modernity. (2002, xx; emphasis in the original)

By examining fandom through the alternate logic of the devotee-fan, my study demonstrates how the paradigm of the cinematic sacred subverts existing power structures, dislodging the institutionalized hegemonic edifices of our narratives of religion and cinema, becoming a space for constructing a new site of knowledge production and a new topography of power. My approach will be guided by Henry Jenkins’s critique of the “academic distance” of Western scholars. Writing as an “Acafan,” a term he uses to refer to someone who is both a fan and an academic he observes: “Academic distance has thus allowed scholars either to judge or to instruct but not to converse with the fan community, a process which requires greater proximity and the surrender of certain intellectual pretensions and institutional privileges”

22

Introduction

(2011, 1992, 6; emphasis mine). Not being a devotee-fan myself, I do not claim to be the voice of the fans. However, my study is based on years of onsite ethnographic research (2005–2014) and phone conversations with fans (2009, 2010, 2012, 2021, and 2022) in India and the United States. My research includes direct interviews with several fans, the observation of fan club activities, and the documentation of their devotional practices and visual histories. Thus, in this book, I endeavor to “converse with the fan community” in order to present the phenomena of devotional fandom from the point of view of the fans themselves by highlighting the place of bhakti in their self-articulation as devotee-fans. Another theme that I highlight in this book is the social structure of devotee-fan clubs and transnational devotional fandom. Owing allegiance to a single cinematic god, fans consolidate themselves as a strong social group in which they claim to transgress distinctions of class, caste, religion, space, and nation. This framing of a fan as a devotee diffuses Dickey’s (1993a) and S. V. Srinivas’ (2009) respective categorizations of fans as members of the “urban poor” and a “rowdy,” which associated them with people belonging to the lower echelons of society. Instead, my objective is to bring attention to a new community of devotee-fans from both higher and lower classes. This includes devotee-fans from slum areas, middle-class families, and Westerneducated, wealthy backgrounds. The worship practices of the middle-class fans of Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, as well as the software engineers and IT professionals who publicly worship film star Rajinikanth, are the focal point of this book. As I will show, in fan clubs, software engineers, managers, and accountants commingle with autorickshaw drivers, laborers, and waiters to perform worship rituals for their star deity. Through their collective practices and active engagement in social work, devotee-fan clubs have become strong social units and a novel site of popular agency. In addition, I seek to explore the transnational flows in devotional fandom by analyzing the activities of devotee-fans in the United States and their transnational communities. In particular, in chapter 5, I will trace the activities of the devotee-fans of Rajinikanth from Tamil Nadu in India to the Silicon Valley in California. Highlighting their engagement with ritual practices to deify film stars, I situate the publics of fan-bhakti within a larger context of transnationalism.

A “TRASHY, HOCUS-POCUS” CINEMA Before I proceed, I would like to clarify my usage of the term “Bollywood” to refer to Hindi cinema and the star deities that I describe in this book. The term arose in popular culture to suggest a poor shadow of the classy, glitzy,

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and technologically savvy Hollywood film industry. Mumbai-based film director, Karan Johar told the BBC that it emerged in the early 1980s. He explains: song and dance form has always been part of the narrative, but there was a phase in cinema when songs and dances were coming out of nowhere, where [one] or two hundred dancers in sequenced choreography were dancing in the woods, mountains, waterfalls . . . everywhere. (Limaye 2013)

This episodic profusion of exotic locales and dancers in film led to the judgment of Indian cinema as excessively fantastical, sometimes hinging on crass and absurd. Because of its negative connotations in opposition to Hollywood, even superstar Amitabh Bachchan has avoided using the term. He opposes the way it measures Indian cinema against Hollywood, conjuring images of a “trashy, hocus-pocus [plot] . . . interspersed with non-narrative spectacular episodic song” while giving minimal attention to the logic of the narrative as is done in Western film (2013). Other film stars agree with him that labeling Hindi cinema “Bollywood” trivializes the Indian film industry and, in the process, devalues the cultural richness it embodies.34 Instead, Bachchan proposes understanding the distinctiveness of Indian film narrative within the context of ancient Hindu scriptures based on Vedantic philosophy.35 More recently, with the advent of online viewing platforms and the phenomenal growth of the Southern Indian film industry in India, Karan Johar has called for the revision of the term Bollywood. He explains: At one point . . . Bollywood is and was globally known as this brand, but the origin of that was the Hindi film industry, but it is no longer that . . . We should stop addressing it as Bollywood because that is a term of the past now . . . we have to call it the Indian film industry and not Bollywood. (“Karan Johar” 2022)

Several film scholars too have been apprehensive to use the term “Bollywood” to describe Hindi cinema. Ashish Rajadhyaksha seeks to separate the Bollywood industry from Indian cinema (2003). He contends that while Hindi films have existed since 1913, what we understand as Bollywood has been around only for the past few decades; it primarily functions as a cultural industry geared to cater to diasporic Indians (29). Others argue that the term does not represent the other regional cinemas of India, which have their own distinctive characteristics, and that stretching an overarching umbrella of Bollywood across all of Indian cinema erases its inherent diversity (Velayutham 2008). Madhava Prasad, on the other hand, questions whether the term is a derivative of Hollywood or the opposite, indicating an idiom of its own

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Introduction

(2003). He describes “Bollywood” as a hybrid concept “that seems to at once mock the thing it names and celebrate its difference” (2008). Scholars such as Jigna Desai and Rajendra Dudrah bring attention to the contentions around the term Bollywood while emphasizing its increasing transnationalism and impact on global popular culture (2008). Ganti too observes that Bollywood “has been an important accoutrement of India’s resignification in the global arena, one that is deployed both by the Indian state and the corporate sector in efforts to brand the country as an economic powerhouse” (2012, 2). She argues that as a globally recognized brand of cinema Bollywood has often been “posited by the international media as the only serious contender to Hollywood in terms of global popularity and influence” due to its widespread acceptance and “cultural legitimacy” (2, 3). Rajinder Dudrah notes: the naming and popular usage of the Mumbai film industry as “Bollywood” not only reveals on a literal level an obvious reworking of the appellation of the cinema of Hollywood, but, on a more significant level, that Bollywood is able to serve alternative cultural and social representations away from dominant white ethnocentric audio-visual possibilities. (quoted by Vasudevan 2008)

Sarkar and Ghosh call to examine Bollywood within the circuits of the “global-popular” (2022). In this paradigm, “while ‘films’ remain its imputed center, the Bollywood juggernaut now involves a wide array of activities, products, and services from television franchising, music videos, and star concert tours to online fan communities, fashion zines, and gallery art installations” (2). This expanded conception of Bollywood’s global presence provides new channels for the articulation of “local-popular energies” (3). With its global-popular mass appeal, the term “Bollywood” has been moving beyond the stereotypical image of a “hocus-pocus cinema,” carving out a distinct identity of its own. It thrives in Indian media and popular culture, especially in the larger-than-life image of film stars with an international fan following. “Bollywood,” in many ways, has become a glamorous signifier for contemporary India. For example, on a visit to India in 2015, former U.S. President Barack Obama described Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “Bollywood star” (“At Press Meet” 2015). From the political sphere to the religious domain in which “spiritual” gurus are also emulating Bollywood stars,36 the term is also used by the devoteefans whose ethnographies I present. Hence, “Bollywood” is most apt in the context of this book. I would, however, like to point out that only two of the three film stars covered here are associated with Bollywood films/popular Hindi cinema (Madhuri Dixit and Amitabh Bachchan). Rajinikanth, although he has acted in several Bollywood blockbusters, is primarily revered as a

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superstar of Tamil cinema (sometimes called “Kollywood”) of Southern India, which has its own distinctive language, audience, and style.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK This book weaves together religion, fan culture, cinema, and politics to show how multiple trajectories of fandom are produced within the dominant mode of Hindu bhakti. I focus on the phenomena of star worship in which the fan is not only a worshipper of the star image but also its “active producer” (Jenkins 1992, 2006, 2009). By selecting three different stars and examining their fan clubs in a single book, I provide an analysis of devotional fandom dedicated to star deities that are representative of different genders and regions of India. By discussing three case studies—the devotee-fans of Amitabh Bachchan (ABFA) in Kolkata; Madhuri Dixit devotee-fan, Pappu Sardar, and the artist, M. F. Husain who depicted Madhuri in his works; and devotee-fans of Rajinikanth in Southern India and beyond—allows me to map individual trajectories of the creation of star deities and their devotee-fans. This comparative approach helps me examine multiple sites of devotional fandom, identifying the convergence and divergence of each fan club, their practices, objectives, and so on. It is the first step that allows for a deeper understanding of the multivalent layers of devotional fandom. The case studies are organized around a nonlinear conceptual narrative that maps the “journey” of these stars from cinematic icons to Hindu deities and analyzes their significance in contemporary society. The book is divided into three major sections with two chapters each in the first and second and one in the third. In these three sections, I investigate the following issues: first, how fans reconceptualize the identity of the star as a deity and their own identity as devotee-fans and project it spatially (in the city, media, and cyberspace). Second, how they challenge the present boundaries of art and art historical discourse by producing their own fan artifacts, which I call devotee-fan art. Devotee-fan art comprises material objects produced by fans such as posters, hoardings, cutouts, flags, masks, banners, YouTube videos, and fan websites, as well as temples that help to visually frame the identity of the star as a deity and the fan as a devotee. Central to this study is an examination of the efficacy, religiosity, and politics of devotee-fan art and the “discursive frames” within which these images circulate (Jain 2007, 12). My approach to this aspect of fan culture is informed by the existing scholarship in popular visual culture, particularly that of Christopher Pinney, Jyotindra Jain, and Kajri Jain. Their path-breaking work, which emphasizes the significance of popular art as a major site of ideological constructs, has shaped my own understanding of devotee-fan art

26

Introduction

and how it activates and actualizes star worship. Third, I consider the ways in which devotee-fans rethink the idea of community and social work within and across national borders, facilitating the emergence of a new sociopolitical agency from devotional fandom. In this section, I focus on devotee-fans of film star Rajinikanth. The individual chapters, which I will detail in the following paragraphs, conform to these three thematic divisions. Chapter 1, “‘Sorry God, We Worship Amitabh More Than You’: Bollywood Deities and the ‘Publics of Fan-bhakti’,” introduces readers to the idea of devotional fandom and the publics of fan-bhakti. Here, I document the activities of the ABFA in Kolkata, whose members publicly worship the Bollywood superstar as an incarnation of the Hindu god Ram. Using key concepts taken from Hindu bhakti, the chapter focuses on the significance of ritual performance (Amitabh arati, Amitabh puja, among others), visual paraphernalia—the devotee-fan art (banners, posters, etc.)—and active social work of the fan club to examine how the identity of the star and the fan are woven into a sacrosanct relationship. A brief discussion of the Bachchan Dham, a temple dedicated to Amitabh, demonstrates how the consolidation of the identity of the fan as a bhakt is a complex phenomena that entails the fusion of religion, cinema, and consumption in popular culture through media and technology. Chapter 2, “Star Murtis: Film Posters as Ritual Objects,” foregrounds the significance of devotee-fan art, in particular the relocation of the film poster as a ritual object through which devotional fandom is actualized. To examine the process through which a film poster is transformed into a murti and cinematic images are enshrined in the Bachchan Dham, this chapter takes recourse to three lineages in Indian art and political history: the popular art tradition of the twentieth century; the divinization of Hindu divinities and national heroes through posters, calendars, and prints; and the insertion of nationalism as a political movement into the milieu of popular prints. I argue that the visual, conceptual, and historical analysis of deified film posters disrupts conventional categories of religion and cinema, as the star murti fits into neither while borrowing from both. This chapter demonstrates how devoteefans fuse and appropriate religion and Bollywood in the deified film poster to gain legitimacy and further their devotional fandom in popular culture. Chapter 3, “‘Starring’ Madhuri as Durga: The Madhuri Dixit Temple and the Performative Fan-bhakti of Pappu Sardar,” focuses on the devotional fandom of Pappu Sardar, a one-man fan club who has created a temple for Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit in Tatanagar. By analyzing the Madhuri Dixit Temple, I question the repackaging and “re-consumption” of the Hindu temple in contemporary India. I document the visual, structural, spatial, and performative space of the temple and how it provides a material legitimacy to the practices of Pappu Sardar, who worships the film star as a Hindu goddess.

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27

This chapter investigates how the Madhuri Dixit Temple becomes a site for the reimagination of the Hindu temple by juxtaposing the diverse spaces of shop, temple, and a museum-like exhibition in order to examine the consequences of such a reorientation. Through my in-depth analysis of a temple dedicated to a female Bollywood star, I consider the sexual undertones that engender such a divinization. The chapter also demonstrates how devoteefans empower themselves through the medium of devotional fandom. The first three chapters bring attention to how devotee-fans appropriate Hindu traditions and create novel religious architectural spaces through star temples in order to bring attention to devotional fandom. In contrast, chapter 4, “Transforming the Object of Art: M.F. Husain and Devotional Fandom,” examines how the devotee-fan appropriates works from “high” art and the celebrity status of artists to legitimize his devotional fandom. To explore this appropriation, I bring together two disparate personalities: Maqbool Fida (M. F.) Husain, a pioneer of modern Indian art, and Pappu Sardar. Both Pappu Sardar and M. F. Husain have framed Madhuri through the medium of popular religiosity and cinema as an earthly and divine mother revered in the form of a Hindu goddess. I trace the trajectory of some of Husain’s depictions of Madhuri, primarily the painting Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, to analyze how popular prints of these images are relocated as objects of veneration in the Madhuri Dixit Temple, becoming part of Pappu Sardar’s devotional fan paraphernalia. In this manner, this chapter investigates how the relocation and transformation of images of “high” art into ritual objects for mass consumption changes the space, meaning, and audiences of these images. In particular, I question the canonization of the discipline of art history by highlighting the significance of popular artifacts created by devotee-fans. The artifacts, which reside in star temples as god images, present a counter-narrative to acclaimed works of religious art in museums and murtis housed in conventional Hindu temples. In chapter 5, “Get Rajinified: India to USA, the ‘God of Style’ and his Devotee-fans,” I offer an alternative to the activities of devotee-fans of Bollywood film stars presented in the first four chapters, examining both national and transnational devotee-fans of Tamil superstar, Rajinikanth. Although his devotee-fans draw some parallels between Rajinikanth and Hindu gods, in general, they situate their “God of Style” above existing Hindu divinities. In this chapter, I investigate three major issues: the construction of Rajinikanth as a star deity by his devotee-fans in India, his transnational devotee-fans in the United States, and the sociopolitical activism generated by his global devotional fandom. Through an analysis of artifacts of the Rajinikanth Fan Association (RFA) produced in the form of banners, cutouts, billboards, Rajini flags, RFA members’ business cards, and so on, I propose that these objects become vehicles to ­articulate devotee-fans’ social and political desires.37 By tracing the

28

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activities of devotee-fans from Tamil Nadu to the California Silicon Valley, my analysis changes the assumption that devotional fandom is an expression of the underprivileged and the uneducated in India. As a new social and emerging political group, I propose that the RFA can be understood as a reinvented version of Partha Chatterjee’s (2004, 2011) idea of political society, in which masses and classes together function as an emergent form of popular political society. Through ethnographic studies of transnational fans and on-site research in cinemas, the chapter thereby explores a phenomenon that has been publicly occurring since 2007, during the release of Rajinikanth films in the United States. In the past decade, from 2010 to 2020, these public worship practices have become much more visible both in the urban landscape of the United States as well as in the cyberspace through social media. Taking the example of the rituals performed during Enthiran in California in 2010, I document how devotee-fans in both India and the United States have been divinizing huge images of Rajinikanth by performing Hindu rituals such as palabhishekam, arati, puja, and so on. In addition to worshipping images of their star deity in transnational spaces, in 2018 these fan clubs officially transformed into a nonprofit organization, the Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America (RMMNA), with branches throughout the United States (in Boston, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, New Jersey, etc.). The RMMNA has been involved in social projects in both Tamil Nadu and the United States. Taking recourse to Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope as an analytical tool, the chapter suggests that the performative fan-bhakti of USA Rajinikanth fans locates new forms of agency, creating a novel space for transnational community and political action. In the conclusion, I briefly discuss the global dimension of devotional fandom and examine how this phenomenon is deeply entrenched in different arenas of the Western world in which celebrities from sports, popular culture, television shows, and films have been deified. I discuss the frameworks applied by Western scholars to analyze devotee-fans and their manifestations of new deities from popular culture, ending with a brief discussion of the future goals of the three devotee-fan associations presented in this study. By focusing on fan-bhakti as a central point of enquiry to examine fandom in academic discourse, as we sift through different layers of this phenomenon in the next couple of chapters, I would like us to ruminate on Novetzke’s reflections on the status of bhakti in South Asian history: “I have suggested that the multiple manifestations of bhakti in South Asian history are predicated on asking the same questions: who says? And, just as importantly, who listens?” (2007, 268).

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NOTES 1. Actor-politician, Hema Malini, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Mathura, was introduced as a Hindu goddess during campaigning, “Laxmi (goddess of wealth) doesn’t come on a cycle (Samajwadi party’s election symbol), or on an elephant (BSP’s election symbol), she comes on a lotus. Send this Laxmi to Parliament” (Angre 2014b). 2. “The regime of both Dravidian parties saw five Chief Ministers—C. N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M. G. Ramachandran, V. N. Janaki and Jayalalithaa—who were closely associated with the film world. MGR, his wife V. N. Janaki and Jayalalithaa were well-established actors of their time” (Saqaf 2016). 3. A cutout is a term used for large images of film stars and politicians in India. Cutouts are usually hand painted on plywood, cardboard, or made out of a similar material. They are advertising tools displayed outside of cinema halls to enhance the visual appeal of stars and films or used by politicians during election campaigns. A cutout in Southern India can be as large as 70 feet in height. See Preminda Jacob’s (2009) excellent discussion on cutouts of former Tamil actress and former Chief Minister of State, Jayalalithaa in Celluloid Deities. 4. For a detailed discussion of Kevat’s episode in Ramayana, refer to A. Doron’s (2009) “Ferrying the Gods: Myth, Performance and the Question of ‘Invented Traditions’, in the City of Banaras.” 5. Within the Hindu ethos, touching the feet of god images (murtis), spiritual gurus and elders is a way to honor them and is also part of a socioreligious practice. The feet are considered the most polluted part of the body. When a person touches the feet of an elder person, a guru, or a murti, he or she then immediately puts their hands on their own forehead. This gesture signifies that the most polluted part of the holy person’s body is better than their most spiritual part (the forehead, being the center of the “Third Eye” in Hinduism, is considered the purest part of the body). Thus, in the Hindu ethos, touching the feet is a sacred practice believed to purify the soul; it emphasizes humility and loss of ego. Similarly, bhakti, or devotional piety, is expressed when the bhakt consumes milk, curd, honey, ghee, or water that has been poured onto the feet of the guru, resulting in self-purification. 6. Charanamrit means the divine nectar that has been blessed by the deity. It is usually prepared by a mixture of honey, milk, yogurt, tulsi leaves and water. It is consumed as a sacred drink, along with the prasad, after the completion of worship rites by a devotee in a Hindu temple. 7. The audiences who came to watch Ramlila in the open-air theatre at the university campus were clearly divided on the basis of social status. The slum-dwellers would usually sit on a rug on the ground in the front, while the more “respectable” people, primarily the professors and their families (like ours), would sit on chairs on the sides. Although we took the arati (holy flame) when it was circulated among the audience, we never sprinkled the charanamrit from Ram’s feet or consumed it, and neither did we whistle or loudly chant “Jai Sri Ram”—these were/are practices associated with the “uneducated class.” This selective engagement with ritual practices in

30

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public spaces, part of a contextual code of conduct through which religious devotion is expressed according to one’s class and social standing, is common in North India. I will get back to this point in my conclusion. 8. In India, it is common for children to address a person of their father’s age as “uncle” and their mother’s as “aunty” even if they are complete strangers, unrelated to them. 9. In this context, the moment of divinization does not only refer to the time when Kevat washes the feet of Ram, but also to the time frame of the entire performance on stage. Each performance of the nine days was punctuated with several such moments where “Uncle Ram” was divinized by his fellow actors, the organizers, and also by the audience. One example was the arati that was performed before the commencement of each day’s act. The actors stood on stage, almost like murtis in frozen gestures of blessing, while the organizers conducted the arati of Ram, Laxman, Sita, and Hanuman as the audience chanted along. This resonates with the space of the Hindu temple in which the arati of a deity is performed by the priest every day and followed by the devotees. 10. After Uncle Ram retired from acting in Ramlila, the next person that started playing the role of Ram gained the same awe and reverence. Coincidentally, he happened to be Uncle Ram’s son, who continues to play the role of Ram till today. 11. “From a demi-god to god Indian screen superstar Amitabh Bachchan is making the transcendence [sic]. To the deeply religious, this might seem a sacrilege, but 59-year-old Bachchan, whose celluloid image of an angry young man has inspired an enduring cult, will now be worshipped in a temple to be built in Kolkata in his honour by his die-hard fans” (“A Temple for Amitabh Bachchan” 2001b). 12. “Every August 15, the temple celebrates its annual festival with a procession carrying MGR’s idol through the streets. Huge cutouts and banners of the actor are displayed around the temple” (Saju 2013). 13. “The statue, carved out of a single stone weighing around eight tonnes, has Jayalalithaa’s face, a spear, a bell and the two leaves symbol embossed on one side of the stone. . . . The eight-tonne rock has deities Kalabhairavar, Anjaneyar and the symbol of 12 Tamil rasis carved on its other sides. Dayala Kumar, an AIADMK worker in Coimbatore says that the temple is a tribute to the former chief minister. ‘We have built a temple for her in honour of her service to the people in this area. She had sacrificed her lifetime for us and she is considered as a God who can be seen’, he said” (“Coimbatore AIADMK” 2019). 14. In 2020, a temple for another Bollywood actor, Sonu Sood, was reported in the media in Telangana. The actor helped migrant workers during the COVID-induced lockdown and his temple was thereby dedicated to the “Real Hero of India” (Shekhar 2020). Rather than a tribute to Sonu Sood’s cinematic roles or stardom, it is a symbol of gratitude for and recognition of his humanitarian work. 15. “On Wednesday, a purohit will conduct special prayers. An Amitabh chalisa— a new-age Hanuman Chalisa beginning with the lines ‘Hey Harivansh Gyan Gun Sagar/Apse Hue Ek Avtar Ujagar/ Hariputra Atulit Baldhama/ Tejiputra Amitabh Hai Nama’—will be recited” (Dasgupta 2017). 16. Although there are female devotee-fans, especially for male stars, I have only focused on the male fans as devotional fandom remains a male-centric phenomenon.

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17. The term “devotee-fan,” translated as fan-bhakt, was first used in my dissertation proposal in 2005. It was elaborated upon in 2007 in my talk, “Fashioning the Divine,” given at the Subaltern-Popular Graduate Student Workshop, Multi-Campus Research Group (MRG), University of California, Santa Barbara. It was later published in 2009 article, “Starring Madhuri as Durga: The Madhuri Dixit Temple and Performative Fan-Bhakti of Pappu Sardar.” The term “fan bhakti” appears in Madhava Prasad’s (2009) article, “Fan Bhakti and Subaltern Sovereignty: Enthusiasm as a Political Factor,” an extension of his talk, “Subaltern Sovereignty North and South: Govinda and Rajnikanth,” at the Subaltern-Popular Conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005. https://subaltern.ihc.ucsb.edu/events/conferences/ subpop2/program.htm 18. My use of the term “fanscapes” is inspired by the five fluid scapes outlined by Arjun Appadurai (1996), which represent different global cultural flows: ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, financescape, and ideoscape. 19. “By ‘popular Hinduism’, I conventionally refer to the beliefs and practices that constitute the living ‘practical’ religion of ordinary Hindus.” Fuller further differentiates popular Hinduism from “textual Hinduism”; the latter being based on the philosophical dimension of Hinduism elaborated in sacred Sanskrit texts. Sinha through her study of Muneeshwaran veneration in Singapore argues to go beyond the dualism of “Sanskritic” and “non-Sanskritic” categories by rethinking the very concept of the term, “Hinduism” (6,7, 247). Through “Singaporean Hinduism,” she brings attention to contemporary modes of ritualization from other religious practices in Muneeshwaran worship, expanding the idea of popular modes of Hindu religiosity (17). For a more detailed discussion on how devotee-fans engage with popular Hinduism, see chapter 3. 20. Devotee-fans represented in this study have their star deity’s direct or indirect support in some form for their devotional fandom. For example, ABFA has Amitabh’s “blessings” and for decades Sanjay Patodiya has had a close relationship not only with Amitabh but also with his son, Abhishek Bachchan. Bollywood actress, Madhuri Dixit has personally met her devotee-fan Pappu Sardar and she also sent him a “gold rakhi,” endorsing the “brother-sister” relationship her fan espouses in his kind of devotional fandom. See chapter 1 for more on the symbiotic relationship of the star deity and the devotee-fan. 21. See Maya Warrier’s (2005) Hindu Selves in a Modern World: Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission, Tulasi Srinivas’s (2010) Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism through the Sathya Sai Movement, and Amanda J. Lucia’s (2014) Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace. 22. See chapter 5 for Rajinikanth’s “style” quotient and how it impacts his star image. 23. “With such a star, the spectator relates, not as one sovereign to another, but as one element in a collective whose identity depends upon the presence of the sovereign star at the apex. There could be no clearer evidence than is offered by these films, for the fact that the majority of Indians do not occupy the substantive subject position of citizenship. Their subalternity takes the form of dependence on such exemplary entities for any chance of a share in collective sovereignty” (Prasad 2009, 75)

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24. “Like the Subaltern studies, study of public culture entered mainstream academia at the hands of South Asianist scholars.  .  .  . However, as I have said, these studies tend to remain within modernity, expressing the relationship between modern forms of the state (colonial or democratic) and publics, or within modern cultural formations like the public sphere. For this reason, though these excellent studies make lucid use of ideas about the public in modern contexts, they cannot provide a model for understanding bhakti in its broadest, historically richest manifestations. They stop short at the threshold between the pre-modern or non-modern and the modern” (Novetzke 2007, 260–61, emphasis mine). 25. For more on deity possession see Aftab Jassal’s, “Making God Present: PlaceMaking and Ritual Healing in North India” (2017). 26. “Diurnal rites—such as ‘taking darśan’; receiving prasād (auspicious viewing of a deity or holy person and acceptance of consecrated food or water as his or her tangible ‘grace’); performing ārati (worship with an oil lamp and other offerings, often accompanied by a devotional song) in temples and before home altars; and women greeting male relatives with a lamp and auspicious forehead mark (nichāvar), as well as seasonal and life-cycle rituals, such as the annual festivals of Holi and Divali and (especially) the rites of passage attendant on marriage and death—all are recurring motifs in popular films, which have developed certain audiovisual conventions for their representation” (Lutgendorf 2014, 58). 27. S. V. Srinivas includes some objects of fan paraphernalia (such as fan letters, photographs) in his analysis of fans of Southern Indian star Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh. However, he concludes, that such objects come across as “‘pure surface’, lacking textual density that is generally attributed to the art object” (2009, 46). He reiterates that “for the most part there is very little by way of ‘content’ to be analysed in the ‘texts’ they [fans] produce” and terms the materials produced by fans as “meaningless” (47). Meanwhile, although Preminda Jacob explores the visuality of star power by discussing banners and cutouts in Southern India, she does not engage with the production and dissemination of images created by fans and the active role of fan clubs in such reinventions of the star. 28. Referring to the caste distinction in Tamil Nadu, Pandian writes: “Given the ubiquitous nature of this powerlessness of the subaltern classes, institutionalized through codified behavior and naked violence, it is no wonder that the heroes of the folk ballads and MGR on the screen, who in their own way turn this iniquitous world upside down and usurp all those normally elusive signs of authority, endeared themselves to the subaltern classes” (1992, 68). Srinivas describes the fan as “a rowdy”: “The fan is a rowdy not only because he breaks the law in the course of his assertion or his association with ‘criminalized’ politics—the fan becomes a rowdy by overstepping the line which demarcates the legitimate, ‘constructive’, permissible excess, and the illegitimate .  .  . as far as the ‘citizen’ is concerned, the fan is a blind hero-worshipper (devoid of reason) and a villain. The rowdy/fan is an agent of politics which is de-legitimized” (2000, 314–15; emphasis mine). The category of people Dickey refers to as the “urban poor” are those who live with a persistent sense of financial insecurity and lack of sociopolitical power:

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33

“The urban poor are sharply aware of their lack of power. They are convinced that virtually all efforts to combat unjust circumstances are futile. It is in this sense, then that they feel ineffectual and powerless. When combined with a perceived increase in economic and social uncertainties, such feelings create a permeating sense of insecurity and helplessness. Such uncertainty and anxiety are an integral backdrop to the reactions that many viewers have to cinema” (1993, 17). 29. “Words such as these imply value judgments from which most contemporary historians want to distance themselves. If someone is ‘modern’, then he or she is so with regard to somebody who is not. That ‘somebody’ may come to be seen as ‘backward’ or ‘premodern’ or non-modern or waiting to be made ‘modern,’ consigned, as I put it in Provincializing Europe, to the ‘waiting room of history’” (Chakrabarty 2011, 663–64). 30. “A big fan of the former Tamil Nadu chief minister, Koh unveiled the 5ft 4 inch [sic] tall statue (the height of MGR) weighing about 200 kilos in Taiping. With the unveiling, Taiping has now the distinction of being the third city in the world to have a bronze statue of the late MGR, after India and Sri Lanka . . . Damodaram hosted the MGR statue officiating ceremony cum culture show titled ‘Manithanum Theivamahalam’ (Even man can become God) at the Taiping Town Hall” (Etha 2011). 31. For an in-depth analysis of marginalized perspectives in Hindu rituals and how the conception of ritual may transform with globalization, see Penkower and Pintchman’s Hindu Ritual at the Margins: Innovations, Transformations, Reconsiderations (2014). 32. Jenkins writes that the “‘fan’ is an abbreviated form of the word ‘fanatic,’ which has its roots in the Latin word, ‘fanaticus’” (1992, 12). He explains that the term fan originally referred to religious membership ‘“of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, a devotee’” but later acquired a more negative connotation (12). Within the Indian context (especially in Southern India), fans identify themselves with the term rasik, one who derives rasa (juice, quintessence), a connoisseur. In Indian fan studies, the fan as rasik and rowdy (an obsessive, unreasonable lower-class male) has been an ongoing discussion. See, Punathambekar 2007, 2008; S.V. Srinivas 2000, 2009; Mitra 2020. 33. To give an instance of the deep faith of devotee-fans in their devotional fandom, for example, the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association (ABFA) in Kolkata planned to take out a rath (chariot) yatra on October 11, 2009, on Amitabh’s birthday in Mumbai. They called the chariot Vijay Rath, after Amitabh’s famous film character, Vijay. According to Sanjay Patodiya, who invoked the metaphor of the Hindu epic Mahabharat to express his devotional fandom, “Our god Amitabh, as [Hindu God] Krishna was going to sit on the rath while five of us Pandavas [ABFA members] decided to pull the chariot. Since huge crowds began to gather, unfortunately Amitji could not accompany us” (phone interview with the author, 2010). In subsequent interviews, Patodiya continues to align himself with the Pandavas saying that Krishna showed his cosmic form to both Arjun and Duryodhan, but only Arjun could see that he was a manifestation of the divine, an avatar of Vishnu. Patodiya declares, “Mainn Duryodhan nahin banna chahtaa, Maaf kijiyaee.” (I do not want to

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be Duryodhan [villan]), Pardon me (“The Angry Young God” 2012). ABFA members often exhibit a strong passion for their belief system, however, it needs to be noted that the fans’ violent response and “excesses, including criminal acts,” which S.V. Srinivas states as being the characteristic of fan activity that some Southern Indian fans engage in, is completely absent here (2009, 46). 34. Veteran actors such as Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri also consider the term Bollywood as derogatory. Actors such as Ajay Devgan, Salman Khan, Arshad Warsi, and Ritesh Deshmukh, and film directors such as Subhash Ghai too have expressed disappointment at the usage of the term “Bollywood” to describe the Hindi film industry (“Replace ‘Bollywood’” 2011). 35. “here a word I just hate using—‘Bollywood’. Degenerate, trivial, trashy, flashy hocus-pocus. . . . We all know how Indian epic narrative is interspersed with nonnarrative spectacular episodic song. But what about this—it most extraordinarily mirrors our two-fold tradition in ancient Hindu scripture—of smriti, that of remembered, and sruti, that which is revealed. Smriti, the epic narrative tradition of our sacred texts, now speaks to us anew in our overblown film plots. That which is remembered, re-echoed again from memory into recognizable voices. And then the sudden bursts of intermission—non-narrative songs from nowhere. Yes, they are moments of pure sruti” (Bachchan 2013). 36. Controversial gurus such as Radhe Maa and Gurmeet Ram Rahim have represented the glamour and action associated with Bollywood stars in their practice of gurudom (See Rajendra Khatry 2014). 37. RFA is my abbreviation of the Rajinikanth Fan Association; it is not used by fans.

PART I

CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY STAR AS A DEITY AND FAN AS A BHAKT

Chapter 1

“Sorry God, We Worship Amitabh More than You” Bollywood Deities and the “Publics of Fan-bhakti”

WHEN FANS BECOME DEVOTEES The neighborhood of Kolkata on Sridhar Roy Road seems just like any other middle-class area of the city. Walking through the narrow streets, I come across a three-story apartment complex. As I climb the stairs and ring the doorbell, I begin to have mixed feelings. Is this the right place? Dressed in a white kurta,1 a suave middle-aged man answers the doorbell. As he welcomes me inside his home, I cannot help but notice his impeccable manners along with the crispness of his beautifully embroidered kurta. My doubts grow stronger. This all seems too “normal.”2 Maybe I have the wrong address. The interior of the house looks like any other Indian middle-class residence. My eyes wander, trying to size up the place. As I am led through the house, a maze of images surrounds me. Every wall, every corner, is embellished with posters and photographs. Once in the puja room, my gaze is drawn to a huge image that seems to stare at me as if reading my mind. I hurriedly look away only to be tempted to turn my gaze back to the looming image. I feel uncannily drawn to it, at times avoiding “its gaze” and at times meeting it, as though the image is acknowledging my presence, beckoning me to look at it, repeatedly. Is it the vermilion mark between the brows or the string of flowers? Maybe it’s the sheer size of the image that is engaging. The words printed on its saffron border catch my eye: “Jai Shri Amitabh” (Hail God Amitabh) with the word “GOD” printed on the poster image of the film star. Yes, I am in the right place. I brace myself for a conversation with the kurta-clad gentleman, Sanjay Patodiya, who owns a shop and is the state secretary of the All Bengal Amitabh Bachchan Fan 37

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Association (ABABFA or ABFA) of Kolkata, which reportedly has ten thousand members (“Jai Guru Amitabh!” 2001). Amitabh Bachchan fan clubs have existed in India for decades. Eighteen of those are officially registered in the country (Mathew 2007). They proliferated after the actor’s popularity soared with his first blockbuster, Zanjeer (1973), which won him the epithet of the “angry young man.” This success was followed by over two hundred films in a career that spans over five decades, including a brief stint in politics (1984).3 The frenzy and mass hysteria Amitabh evokes, both on and off-screen, can be attributed to his string of super-hit films and his sheer presence in the media. The star seems to be everywhere: on television; in newspapers, magazines, and hoardings; and on the internet. He writes his own blog and is active on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. In spite of Amitabh’s advancing age and the stiff competition from younger stars, he has been able to maintain his presence in Bollywood films for decades. While two of his more recent films, Thugs of Hindostan (2018) and Jhund (2022), did not fare too well at the box office, Piku (2015), Pink (2016), and Badla (2019), among others, were hits. At the age of eighty, he has a slew of films slated to be released in the coming years. Irrespective of the fate of his films, his larger-than-life image remains unaltered, in large part due to his presence on social media and television, where he is affectionately called the “Big B.” His popularity again surged with the hit TV show Kaun Banegaa Crorepati (Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire), and he is also the brand ambassador of a number of advertising and social campaigns such as the Polio Eradication Campaign (2002), “Banega Swachh India” (2014), and “Break the Stigma” (for COVID survivors [2020]), among others, that have helped him remain in public memory, strengthening his position as a national icon. His omnipresence in popular culture has sustained his iconic image through the highs and lows of his career for decades. Amitabh’s enormous popularity in India and abroad has given him legendary status and a stupendous fan following. An example of his widespread appeal is the frenzy that gripped the nation when the superstar had a near-fatal accident. In 1982, when Amitabh was critically injured during the shooting of his film Coolie, the entire country experienced, as one critic put it, a “national catastrophe” (Jha 2005). Media reports described how fans mobbed the hospital in which Amitabh was being treated, offering to donate blood and praying. Some distraught fans even tried to commit suicide (Melvani 2005). In an interview, Amitabh refers to how the incident seemed to ignite his huge fan following: “From the day I was discharged from Breach Candy hospital in 1982, every single day, crowds throng my gate. That’s 27 years without a break. I have never been able to explain this incredible outpour of emotions” (Shah 2009). His

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second hospital stay in 2005 also became a national spectacle, yet another example of the Bachchan mania that has gripped the nation. Mass public prayers and incidents of animal sacrifices in his name were reported. Some fans performed what he called “incredible feats of penance” (Chopra 2006). Again, similar reactions spread across India when Amitabh was hospitalized with COVID in 2020. Despite this kind of passionate fandom, the ABFA considers itself a unique fan association of the superstar. What sets the ABFA apart from other fan associations is that it claims to be the first and only organized Amitabh fan association recognized by the film star. The ABFA members invoke Amitabh as a god, aligning him with the Hindu God Ram, and engage in public worship practices to express their fandom for the star (figure 1.1). Patodiya explains, “For us, Amitji is not just a star but is Kalyug Ka Ram (a modern-day Ram)” (interview with the author, 2008). Babua, another devotee-fan, describes this unconventional relationship with the star: “The first time I touched Amitjee, an electric spark ran in [sic] my whole body. After that every time I touch him, I feel as if my soul has been infused with spiritual vibrations by God himself” (interview with the author, 2005). This transformation from fan to devotee, in which adoration for a film star reaches

Figure 1.1  ABFA Members Worshipping the Film Poster of Amitabh Bachchan from the Film TE3N, outside Priya Cinema Hall in Kolkata (2016). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

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a divine level, is the core ideology of the ABFA and its devotional fandom. But how did this intense devotion to the star begin? Although the ABFA was formed in 1979, it was only after Amitabh’s first hospital stay that the ABFA realized that the close bond they shared with the star was based on much more than adoration. It was a bond of devotion that a bhakt had with his God. Patodiya recounts: The incident of Amitjee’s [Amitabh’s] illness in 1982 was a turning point in our relationship with him. Before, we were just his fans who enjoyed his films and the characters he played in them. But after 1982, when our star was seriously injured on the film sets and hospitalized, we were grief-stricken and prayed for his recovery day and night. At that time, we realized that our love for him went beyond the simple relationship of a fan and a star. That was when we were able to recognize that our deep love for him is actually bhakti, and we consider him much more than an actor and a human being. That realization was a moment of awakening from adoration to shraddha [absolute faith] that was always present in our hearts. His accident just made us recognize it; he is indeed our God and we are his bhakts. (Interview with the author, 2005, 2008)

The infusion of the ABFA’s fandom with shraddha is one of the defining elements that demonstrates the alignment of a reverential vocabulary derived from a Hindu ethos with their devotion for a cinematic god. ABFA members believe that Amitabh is indeed endowed with superhuman qualities, even in real life. After a little pause, Sanjay Patodiya asked me, “Do you know of any other human being who has come from the claws of death not once but so many times? Amitjee was able to rise after near bankruptcy and made a dazzling comeback in his sixties,4 when all that other stars of his age can do is to sit on a wheelchair and sip coffee. Only a superhuman and divine being has the strength to rise over and over again.” As Patodiya spoke those words, an oft-repeated scene from Amitabh’s films of the 1970s and 1980s instantly flashed before my eyes: his bulletridden, blood-smeared body rose from the ground in slow motion, infused with an explosive supernatural power that not only breathed life into him but also empowered him to kill the villain and hence destroy evil, a feat performed by most divinities in Hindu mythology. This quintessential image resonates with many of Amitabh’s famous songs, such as the one from the hit film Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (Emperor of Destiny) released in 1978: “Mar ke jeene ki adaa jo Duniya ko sikhlaayega. Woh muqaddar ka Sikandar Jaan-eman kehlayega!” (The one who will teach the world the way to live through his death, sweetheart, he will be called the emperor of destiny). With their melody and dramatic picturization, songs like this add to the melodrama and visual spectacle of tragic moments in his films, enveloping the actor’s form in a heightened pathos that tears through the heart of the devotee-fan, drawing

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him closer to the image of Amitabh.5 In this process, the star deity begins to function as a vehicle of deliverance, “the primary signature of the possibility of salvation” (Appadurai 2015, 413), thus leading to deeper imbrications between popular religion and cinema.6 Let me explain this point. For many viewers, Amitabh’s mytho-subaltern cinematic figure is a locus for ideas about salvation “in such spheres as housing, love, and justice,” issues the masses deal with on an everyday basis (Appadurai 2015, 413). The dialogues and the screen presence of Amitabh further impart a “religious nature of charisma” to his persona of a victim of injustice, whereby even if his characters do not inspire worship, by performing the role, he does (Dwyer 2015, 21). Such narratives of modern mythology woven around Amitabh’s “energized subaltern” and “proletarian hero” image fueled his “angry young man” persona, which was seen to be reflective of the social and political factors of the times (Jain 2001, 11; Prasad 1998, 144; Kazmi 2002; Lutgendorf 2002; Saayan Chattopadhyay 2013; Dwyer 2015, 2019). The role of the scriptwriters Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar has been instrumental in creating this image. In most of Amitabh’s films of the 1970s, donning a mantle of righteous indignation, the star played the protagonist, Vijay, a victim of the corrupt system of a postcolonial state, which the masses could relate to, owing to the social and political upheaval in the country at that time, who, as Prasad asserts, “is at the same time a representative of the state” (1998, 144). He explains, “it is the act of switching sides, positioning himself on the side of the ‘illegal’ (but morally upright) margin, that gives the figure its power.” However, Dwyer reminds us against building a reductive narrative of framing Vijay’s anger only as a product of the politics of the times. Instead, she expands the idea of Vijay’s anger within a wider sphere of cultural, moral, and political dimensions, locating it within the domain of righteousness, as one that stands for a good cause. It is this higher form of emotion, a “purifying anger” with less emphasis on the “spectacle of violence,” and more on personal ethics and the “cult of a martyr,” which she asserts “had a particular resonance with the audiences” through which Vijay became a “powerful mobilizer” (Dwyer 2015, 19, 18; Sen 2013, 3). As an embodiment of courage and righteousness, imbued with a “sacrosanct masculinity,” Vijay fights against injustice, eventually acquiring the exalted status of a superhuman mythical figure, both in the film and in the eyes of the fans watching him on the screen (Saayan Chattopadhyay 2013, 28).7 While the figure of Vijay may rekindle a similar desire in the struggling masses, it is his reigning moral authority and ultimate triumph against all odds that inspires lasting awe. In such cinematic renditions, Amitabh is not simply the “star,” or even the protagonist Vijay; he also begins to inhabit the space of the superhuman, one that provides the possibility of salvation from their everyday struggles. As a modern messiah imbued with a complex hybrid of purifying anger, sacred vengeance, and righteousness,

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attributes that he displays on the screen, Amitabh begins to resonate with the gods in Hindu epics and mythological narratives that reside in the collective subconsciousness of the audience watching the film. This larger-than-life image has been translated to real life through the constant reference to Amitabh’s screen image in his dialogues, songs, and dances, all of which are replayed and glorified in popular culture. However, the ABFA crystallizes his mythic image outside of the cinematic space through public veneration in which the star has been transformed from a reel emperor of destiny to a real living god by devotee-fans. This transformation of a film star into a Hindu deity and of his fan into a devotee is a complex process that involves the juxtaposition of religion and cinema and their convergence in the devotional ideology of the cinematic sacred. The layering of these two discourses entails appropriating Hindu ritual and worship rites and mapping them onto the cinematic body of the film star in popular culture. Amitabh’s cinematic image becomes the locus of Novetzke’s idea that bhakti requires bodies, a tangible form that can be imbued with devotion. By investing Amitabh’s star images with a sacral aura and rallying around them, the ABFA claims its space in the cityscape, the mediascape, and cyberspace, which is instrumental in establishing its devotional fandom in popular culture.

INVENTING A CINEMATIC SACRED AND PUBLICS OF FAN-BHAKTI Iss Kalyug ke Bhagvaan ho Aap [Amitabh Bachchan] Hum Sab Bhakton ke Teerthdham ho Aap (You [Amitabh Bachchan] are the God of this era, You are the pilgrimage site for devotees like us.) –Amitabh Mantra, ABFA

The ABFA appropriates dominant modes of Hindu rituals to frame Amitabh as their star deity (figure 1.1). Rituals appropriated by the ABFA include puja, arati (encircling the image of the deity with oil lamps while chanting devotional hymns), bhajans (the collective chanting of devotional hymns to the deity), darshan (a visual interaction that consists of “seeing” and “being seen” by the deity), and yatras (religious processions). These rituals are followed with scrupulous precision and fused with cinematic images and references. For example, the ritual of arati for a Hindu divinity becomes Amitabh Arati, where the God Ram is replaced by Amitabh. Similarly, murti puja is redirected to the worship of Amitabh posters and images, and mantras for

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Hindu deities are rephrased and directed to Amitabh. For example, “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail God Ram) becomes “Jai Shri Amitabh” (Hail Lord Amitabh), and the Hindu ritual of puja is re-christened as Amitabh Puja. Using key concepts taken from Hindu bhakti, the first part of this chapter is a detailed documentation of the ABFA’s ritual practices. I describe the significance of modes of ritual performances—such as the chanting of Amitabh arati and Amitabh mantra; the recitation of Amitabh Chalisa; the performance of Amitabh puja, fan yatras, and cinematic darshan, among others—to examine how the ABFA constructs its identity in popular culture. In the second part, the visual paraphernalia or devotee-fan art of the ABFA that aids in the construction and staging of this performance—the Amitabh shawl, Amitabh banners, Amitabh posters, and so on—are examined to illustrate how they become material signifiers of the ABFA’s devotional fandom. This kind of ritual performance in which material cinematic objects become divinely invested entities produces a reciprocity between the material and the performative, activating the ABFA’s publics of fan-bhakti and increasing their visibility in popular consciousness. In the last part of the chapter, I examine the most striking example of the ABFA’s devotee-fan art, the Bachchan Dham, a temple dedicated to the superstar where morning and evening pujas are conducted for the enshrined images of Amitabh and in which the performative and the material converge to become a dynamic epicenter of the ABFA’s publics of fan-bhakti. RITUAL PERFORMANCE: GURU-GOD FUSION AND IDEOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY The ABFA conducts Amitabh puja on festivals such as Guru Purnima (a Hindu festival in which disciples worship their spiritual leaders or gurus (figure 1.2)), on the birthday of the film star, at the release of his movies, on “World’s Fan Day,” his wedding anniversary, among others.8 The ABFA takes out fan yatra, sometimes called the Vijay Rath (alluding to Amitabh’s iconic cinematic character Vijay), in which a chariot/bus/jeep is decorated with ritualized images of Amitabh and circumvents the streets of the city.9 Public pujas have also been carried out for Amitabh when he has been ill, as well as for his son, Abhishek Bachchan, and for his deceased parents on their death anniversaries. Among these various pujas, the most significant is the one performed during the Hindu festival of Guru Purnima, which is celebrated every year in July and consists of devotee-fans worshipping Amitabh as their guru and God. In Hindu traditions, spiritual gurus are revered and often equated with the divine. The relationship between a bhakt and a guru evokes a link between

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Figure 1.2  ABFA Guru Purnima Celebrations, Showing Worship of Amitabh Shoes from Agneepath that Rest on the Chair from the Film Aks, Alluding to the Hindu Epic Ramayan (2005). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

a god and a devotee; the guru is envisioned “as a conduit of spiritual power” who helps in the liberation of the human soul (McKean 1996, 1). By passing on religious knowledge, the guru becomes a “locus for worship” and is revered as a god (Mlecko 1982, 33; emphasis original). To quote a popular couplet of Kabir, a fifteenth-century saint: Guru Govind Dono Khade Kake Lagu Paay Balihari Guru Aapki Govind Diyo Batay. (Guru and God both appear before me. Before whom should I prostrate myself? I bow before the Guru who introduced [gave] God to me).

During the Guru Purnima celebrations since 2001, ABFA members have publicly recited this couplet while performing puja before the image of Amitabh Bachchan. This fusion of Amitabh’s star image with that of a guru and a god sets the ABFA apart from other fan associations. As Patodiya remarked, “Indians worship their gurus on this day, and as tradition goes, guru has been accorded the position of god. For us, Amitji holds the same

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place in our hearts, showing us the good from the bad through his portrayals in innumerable films” (“Fans Wish Big B” 2002). The framing of Amitabh as a guru by alluding to his filmy (overtly melodramatic) characters and fusing his images with age-old Hindu traditions of guru culture shows how the transformed star image of Amitabh begins to function as a devotional trope for the ABFA. Investing him with the status of “guru-god” infuses him with divine significations, directly integrating the film star into the Hindu pantheon. By juxtaposing their fan activities with those of Hindu devotional practices and festivals, the ABFA latches onto the age-old cultural and religious appeal of Hinduism, thus legitimizing their fandom in popular consciousness and lending credibility to their phenomena. The integration of the ABFA’s cinematic deity into the Hindu pantheon through the medium of guru puja and Hindu rituals gives ideological flexibility to the ABFA’s devotional fandom. This point becomes clear in the following statement from Sanjay Patodiya: “Whenever ABFA fans are in any trouble, we worship God Amitabh and conduct puja in front of our guru’s image. But when our God [Amitabh] is in need, then we worship his [Hindu] gods” (interview with the author, 2010). In this way, the ABFA negotiates a power dynamics in their devotional fandom, introducing the hierarchy of divinities into their belief system. In their devotional matrix, the Hindu gods seem to preside “above” Amitabh. But, Patodiya claims that they invoke Hindu gods only for “their God” (Amitabh) and not for themselves, thus privileging the star deity’s proximity to his ABFA devotees over that of other Hindu gods. The status of Hindu deities within the ABFA’s devotional fandom remains ambiguous, as it is not clear when their privileged position is superseded by Amitabh and vice versa. For example, in 2008, when Amitabh was rushed to the hospital with abdominal pain, ABFA members simultaneously worshipped Amitabh and the Hindu Goddess Kali for the well-being of their star deity: “We performed a yagna at the Amitabh Bachchan temple and also prayed for his health at Kalighat on Sunday. We have couriered the ‘prasad’ as well as a piece of Goddess Kali’s holy attire to Jaya-di on Monday. We have requested her to keep the holy cloth under Amitabh’s pillow” (“Kolkata Fans Worry” 2008). By investing in the spiritual healing powers of the piece of cloth from the Goddess Kali’s attire, the ABFA shifts the power dynamics. It is clear that devotee-fans give greater power to Hindu deities than to Amitabh, whose healing depends on the intervention of the Hindu Goddess Kali. The same act of invoking Hindu deities to bless Amitabh with good health was repeated in 2020 when Amitabh was again admitted to the hospital after contracting COVID-19. Thus in the ABFA’s worldview, both Hindu divinities and star deities dwell in harmony, imparting an ideological flexibility to their devotional fandom. Within the context of the devotee-fan, devotion toward the star deity is not seen as a rupture

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from past traditions or belief in the Hindu pantheon. Rather, in framing Amitabh as Kalyug Ka Ram, they conceptualize devotional fandom as a contemporary expression of a continuing tradition of Hindu bhakti extended to a cinematic avatar.

AMITABH ARATI: COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE The ritual of arati is one of the major modes through which the identity of the film star is refashioned into that of a deity. The Amitabh arati, which was composed by Patodiya himself and is recited by all ABFA members, usually marks the beginning of any puja for Amitabh. It is duly recited at the beginning of worship rituals and at all private and public pujas, especially, as noted earlier, on Guru Purnima. Each morning and evening, Patodiya performs the arati using a saffron shawl printed with the Amitabh mantra.10 Intrigued by this mode of fan-bhakti, during an interview I asked Patodiya if it was possible for him to conduct an Amitabh arati in front of me, so that I could experience it. He politely refused, saying, “The Amitabh arati is a spiritual journey for us that connects bhakts like us to our God. Even when we perform it outside, it is not a spectacle or an entertaining performance for us; we do it with a deep reverence for our God. At home, I do the arati twice every day.”11 He did, however, offer to play the Amitabh arati on his CD player and agreed to pose for pictures in his Amitabh shawl. With a bell in one hand, a stack of perfumed incense sticks in the other, and a vermilion-smeared forehead, I could see that Patodiya would look every bit like a Hindu priest as he performed worship rites for his God in front of a wall plastered with Amitabh posters. The arati sounded like a traditional Hindu arati, both in tune and lyrics, except the name of Amitabh was used in place of that of Hindu gods. A few verses from the Amitabh arati below describe the power and wisdom the ABFA attributes to their God, suffused with the devotion of his bhakts: Samne tasveer hai, aae merae bhagvaan Prem tumhara jo mila, ho gaya main dhanvaan Teri pratiksha main khadi, premiyon ki bheed Aao na Amitabh jee, sab ki mitao peedd KBC ke manch sae, sabko siksha dee Bankee guruvar ki taraha, buddhi pareksha lee Poori dharti par prabhu, pujain tera naam Aise layak putra ke, maat-pita hain mahaan

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Sita jaise Jaya milee, Ram jaise Amitabh Dhanya huae Bharatvasi, jodein milkar haath. (In front of me, oh my Lord, is your image. Ever since I received your love, it has enriched me. Standing in waiting for you is a crowd of devotees. Come, my Lord Amitabh, take away all our pains. On the stage of KBC, you delivered sermons to all. By becoming our teacher, you tested our mental skills. On the entire earth, people worship your name. For having an able son like you, your mother and father are great. Jaya is like [Goddess] Sita, Amitabh is like Ram. People of India are fortunate and collectively honor you with folded hands.)

Laced with praise of their star deity, his wife, and his parents, the Amitabh arati also rhapsodizes Amitabh’s hugely successful television show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). The fusion of so many elements—the star into God Ram; his wife, Jaya, into the Goddess Sita; the Hindu arati into a hymn for a Bollywood star combined with a television show; and, above all, the strong undercurrent of bhakti that flows through the arati—entirely blurs the distinction between divine and cinematic imagery. All public pujas and aratis conducted by the ABFA conclude with the chant “Bolo Amitabh Bachchan ki Jai. Iss Kalyug ke Bhagvan ki jai” (Hail to Amitabh Bachchan. Hail to this era’s God). The ABFA’s constant reiteration of mantras, Amitabh arati, and Amitabh bhajans through collective singing in front of huge posters of the star helps to consolidate the devotee-fan ­association into a community and becomes a dominant mode of the ABFA’s publics of fan-bhakti. As a fan association bonded by their worship rituals for their star deity, they become “communities of practice” that share a common passion for divinizing their star deity and learning to find new ways of mobilizing the ABFA for collective goals (Wenger-Trayner 2015).12 Another shared activity that furthers this identity is the collective viewing of films. ABFA members liken the experience of going to the cinema and watching films of their star deity to a sacred act, similar to visiting a temple or going on a pilgrimage. Such experiences often entail several hardships. In an interview with me, Babua reminisces: “In the 1970s, we would stand in line for two days to get the ticket for watching the film of Amitji. Seeing our God’s film, first day, first show, was a religious vow for us. No matter how hard it was to get the ticket or what it took for us to see it, whether it was missing work or getting beaten up by the police, we always got to see the movie the same day it was released” (2005). Pausing for a moment, Babua looked at me and continued, “Humare liye Amitjee ki picture dekhna koi

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teerthsthan ki yatra sae kam nahin hai” (For us, watching Amitabh’s films is no less than going on a pilgrimage). Back in the 1970s and 1980s, standing collectively in the queue for hours, sometimes days, to watch their star deity’s film was equated by fan association members to the hardships (such as harsh weather and terrain) of a traditional Hindu pilgrimage. Another characteristic unique to fans is the “repeat viewing” of their star deity’s films (L. Srinivas 2016; Appadurai 2019). Describing the audience reaction in Indian cinema halls, Laxmi Srinivas contends that for Indian viewers watching the same film multiple times perpetuates an “interactive and participatory style of viewing” that allows them to “shout out comments to the screen, talk to characters, give them advice and take sides” (2002, 170). Sometimes, the fans are known to watch a single film of Amitabh more than fifteen, twenty, or even thirty times. Appadurai (2019) argues that this repeat viewing is unique to Indian film audiences; it evokes a palpable sense of pleasure that he locates in a domain of alternative modernity and recalls the centrality of repetition in the retelling of religious epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat (through folk idioms of Ramlila, Pata Chitra, etc.). In the context of devotee-fans, repeat viewing is applicable to all three case studies presented in this book. This collective practice, which is accompanied by dancing, hooting, and whistling together in the cinema hall, generates a sense of friendship, solidarity, and community. Inside the cinema hall, the publics of fan-bhakti reach a crescendo, especially when the first close-up shot appears on screen, laying the ground for a cinematic darshan of their celluloid deity. CINEMATIC DARSHAN The identity of the devotee-fan is also reinforced with the mutual “exchange” of gazes between the fan-bhakt and the star. In Hinduism, an “exchange of gazes” occurs when a devotee sees the deity or murti in a temple and is in turn “seen by it,” which forms the basis of the concept of darshan (Babb 1981; Eck 1998; Elison 2014, 2018; Collins 2019). Diana Eck describes darshan as a reciprocal process based on the convergence of gazes of the devotee with the divine: “The prominence of the eyes of Hindu divine images also reminds us that it is not only the worshiper who sees the deity, but the deity sees the worshiper as well. The contact between devotee and deity is exchanged though the eyes .  .  . the gaze of the huge eyes of the image meets that of the worshiper, and that exchange of vision lies at the heart of Hindu worship” (1998, 6–7). Following this tradition, devotees go to the temple to seek darshan, or “visual worship,” also described as a “visual dialog/visual intercourse” with the deity (Elison 2018; Lutgendorf 2006).

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The Hindu religious tradition of going to the temple to seek a direct darshan of the murti is intrinsic to defining the relationship between the deity, who is believed to reside in the murti, and the devotee. Through this process, deities “are encountered and intensively ‘seen’ through a reciprocal transaction that is potentially empowering to the human participant” (Lutgendorf 2006). The resultant exchange is seen as a form of “paradoxical vision of seeing and seen as a single fact” and has a transformational impact on the devotee; this process is also experienced by devotees in front of spiritual gurus (Collins 2019, 10, 94; Babb 1981). In reference to the experience of darshan by the followers of modern-day “deity-gurus,” Lawrence Babb describes the process as a form of divine telescopic vision bestowed on the devotee: “the devotee’s own visual power has in some sense been altered, increased, augmented—which may explain the poet-devotee’s curious assertion that he has acquired a durbin, a ‘telescope’. The devotee sees as he could not see before, and a wholly new universe comes into view. Most important of all, however, he now sees his guru as he truly is; that is, as the Supreme Being” (1981, 387, 390). Through darshan, Babb explains, the devotee “comes into contact with, and in a sense becomes, what one sees” (396–97). In other words, the difference between the see-er and seen is erased.13 In the context of the ABFA, members go all the way to Mumbai from Kolkata a couple of times each year to seek darshan of their guru-god, particularly on Amitabh’s birthday. The star is also known to “give darshan” to his fans on Sunday evenings, when he waves from his house while they seek his blessings. Through their exchange of gazes, the bond between the star deity and the devotee-fan is deepened. Such darshanic exchange also occurs when the devotee’s reverent gaze meets the gaze of the deity/star god in film posters, imparting a sacral aura to two-dimensional images, which I will discuss in detail in the next chapter. Darshan is also experienced by the devotee-fan who goes to the cinema hall to watch the star’s films. In Amitabh thrillers of the 1970s, the introductory scenes present him in a towering frontal position where the camera slowly zooms in on his face, which stretches across the entire screen. This is a popular Indian cinematic technique called frontality, which Hindi cinema borrows from Parsi theatre. It is widely used in mythological movies and refers to a direct view, a sort of super close-up of the character imparting an iconic stature, through which he invokes the viewer (Kapur 1993).14 Ravi Vasudevan explains: At one level frontality would mean placing the camera at a 180° plane to the figures and objects constitutive of filmic space. These may display attributes of direct address, as in the look of characters into the camera, but a frontal, direct

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address is relayed in other ways, as in the way the knowledge of the spectator is drawn upon in constructing the scene, through the stylized performance, ritual motifs and auditory address that arise from a host of Indian aesthetic and performance traditions. (2012, 231)

In relation to the spectator’s position, the frontal mode in which the character is visually aligned is of special importance for the reaction it evokes in the viewer. In several scenes of Amitabh’s films, the star appears with his gigantic image covering the screen while everything else blurs into the background. The monumentality of his face, akin to the huge sculptures of gods in many Hindu temples, is cinematically framed to inspire awe. Sitting in the dark embryonic space of the cinema hall, the viewer can be likened to a devotee entering the inner chambers, the garbhagriha (inner sanctum, literally the “womb chamber”), of a Hindu temple. The inner sanctum is not only a space for housing the main deity of the temple but is also an arena for the exchange of darshan between the deity and devotee. In some Hindu temples, the only source of light is from the flickering earthen lamps. It is through this quiet and contemplative mediation of darshanic gazes experienced by the devotee while standing in front of the murti in the regenerative space of the garbhagriha that the devotee can achieve a “rebirth,” a reawakening of the self. Enveloped in a nebulous mystical light, the murti symbolizes the only source of energy in the dark universe. In the cinema, a similar experience of darshan occurs when the colossal image of the star’s face appears on a 70-mm screen. It consumes the entire visual field of the devotee-fan sitting in the darkened chamber, where the only source of light radiates from the screen, thus converting the cinema hall into the garbhagriha of devotional fandom. Moreover, the piercing, intense gaze of Amitabh’s iconic “angry young man” character establishes a mode of “direct address” with the spectator (Vasudevan 2012). It appears as if the star is not just interacting with the protagonist of the film, but also addressing the viewer in the movie hall. In this manner, the technique of frontality opens up an interactive, cinematic darshanic space between the screen image and the viewer, investing the star image with a power associated “with the traditional granters of darshan, notably kings and gods” (Dwyer 2002, 33). Within this framework of cinematic frontality, the devotee-fan envisions having a “personal,” one-to-one dialogical relationship with Amitabh that transforms the cinematic space into a religious one, effectuating cinematic darshan. The space between the cinematic image and the devotee-fan is further activated by the exchange of gazes between the star deity and the devotee-fan. In context to cinematic darshan in a devotional genre, Vasudevan explains:

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Visuality is, however, most clearly defined by the question of iconicity. Here, figures address audiences inside the fiction but also, implicitly or explicitly, outside it too. This is rendered by highlighting them within the frame or the space of the scene and through a motif of direct address. This is a mode of address constructed out of looks into the camera and to an elevated off-screen space. Such features are more generally observable in Indian popular cinema but are perhaps most pronounced in devotional genre. (2005, 238–39)

He goes on to say such a technique “is not simply an issue of all being able to access the sacred, but of being changed, collectively, into an image of the sacred” (2005, 239). In this manner, for ABFA members, viewing Amitabh films becomes a way to access their star deity and also provides a stage for the performative visual validation of their collective devotee-fan identity. On seeing their star deity’s face on the screen for the first time in a film, they reciprocate with collective screams and whistles, a euphoric recognition of the cinematic darshan: of seeing and being seen by their deity. The devotional frenzy of ABFA members upon seeing their star deity’s image on the screen could be in part attributed to the cinematic construction of the darshanic gaze; from the viewpoint of the devotee-fan, the deity’s image is seen to eternally “preexist” in the cinematic space of the film. Frontality produces and reinforces this belief. Hence, every time a frontal shot of Amitabh is projected on the screen, the devotee-fan feels that the “interactive” cinematic image extends beyond the screen in the form of the dialectics of darshan, personally engaging him while he is also being acknowledged, seen, and addressed by the star deity. The synergy between frontality and darshanic gaze facilitates the metamorphosis of the relationship between fan and star into that of devotee and deity within the cinematic space. A symbiotic relationship ensues between Amitabh’s on-screen images and those worshipped by fans outside of the cinema—they feed on one another, reinforcing the claims of the devotee-fan. This dissolves the distinction between cinematic and lived reality, collapsing the distance that separates the two into ABFA’s world of devotional fandom. The ABFA carries this cinematic darshan beyond the film screen and mobilizes it to reinscribe the identities of fan and star alike. DEVOTEE-FAN ART ABFA members also create devotee-fan art that gives their fandom material presence and establishes their identity in popular culture. Objects of devotee-fan art, the fan-bhakti apparatus of the ABFA, include banners (used in all public pujas), devotee-fan videos and CDs, pamphlets, invitation cards printed for Guru Purnima, ABFA stationery (business cards of ABFA

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members, letter-head of the ABFA, etc.), cinematic artifacts (such as the chair used by Amitabh in the film Aks [2001] and the shoes he wore in Agneepath [1990]), Amitabh posters (e.g., from the film Agnivarsha [2002]), saffroncolored Amitabh shawls, forehead bands that ABFA members tie during devotional processions, Amitabh t-shirts, Amitabh masks, ABFA ID cards, and so on. For decades, the ABFA has been collecting and creating these objects, converting them into devotee-fan art. Sacralized with the ABFA’s devotional fandom, they function as tangible visual signifiers of their ideology. In addition, photographs and objects used by the star in films, such as a chair from Aks and shoes from Agneepath, have been ritualized both in public and private spaces. To elucidate, during the 2005 Guru Purnima, Patodiya performed a puja of the chair that Amitabh had used in Aks. Surrounded by huge film posters of the star in the background, amidst the chants of “Jai Shree Amitabh,” the chair was transformed from a piece of furniture into a ­devotional artifact through an elaborate dual process that emulated and reinvented Hindu rituals. In 2008, the ABFA already owned more than fifty items of fan memorabilia, many given to them by the star deity himself, which have been transformed into objects of veneration and display. During the ritualization of the chair from Aks, the worship of the chair was followed by a puja of the Amitabh shoes, conducted by Patodiya and other members of the ABFA. By putting the white leather shoes worn by Amitabh in Agneepath on the chair from Aks and ritualizing the objects in a public space, the ABFA converts these everyday objects into ritual paraphernalia of fan-bhakti, invoking a common religious metaphor from the Ramayan (figure 1.2). In this epic, the Hindu God Ram is exiled while his younger brother, Bharat, is asked to rule as a king. Bharat refuses and instead keeps Ram’s shoes on the throne for fourteen years as a symbol of his sovereignty until Ram returns and is proclaimed king. The epic conveys Bharat’s love through his unrelenting devotion to his elder brother, Ram, and portrays him as an ideal bhakt. By emulating this particular part of the Hindu epic and fusing it with cinematic objects of their star deity, ABFA members fortify the status of Amitabh as “this era’s Lord Ram” and, at the same time, equate their mode of fanbhakti with that of Bharat. Patodiya explains, “Just the way the Lord Ram’s younger brother, Bharat, worshipped him by venerating his shoes, Amitji rules our hearts, and by worshipping his shoes we accord him the position of god and guru, in accordance with Hindu tradition” (interview with author, 2005, 2010). By relating the divinization of Amitabh’s shoes to the Hindu epic, the ABFA elevates its own status, projecting its members not only as devotee-fans, but also as the “brothers,” or “Bharats,” of their avatar of Ram, Amitabh. The fact that the star gave the chair and shoes to the ABFA further authenticates their Ram-Bharat narrative, now concretized by being

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permanently installed in the Bachchan Dham. This adds yet another layer to the complex relationship between the star deity and the devotee-fan. Banners also form a significant part of the fan-bhakti apparatus of the ABFA and they are printed and displayed in public spaces for all their pujas (figure 1.2). Serving as advertising paraphernalia for the ideology of the organization, banners sometimes display the fan association’s name along with its address and contact information. As visual mobile signifiers of the ABFA, they glorify the star deity, and become textualized material versions of devotional fandom. For example, one reads: “We believe in the best, we believe in Bachchan”; the words strengthen the superior status that ABFA members believe themselves to hold. Other examples shower praises on the star, such as “Amitabh is the prism of the film industry, from which all light is refracted,” and “Long live the divine man, the cult figure, the greatest star of the millennium.” One of their most coveted banners reads “Sorry God, we worship Amitabh more than you,” a famous ABFA tagline displayed through city streets during celebrations and in the Bachchan Dham. Another banner reads, “Vijay, Iqbal, Anthony: yeh teeno naam hain merae, Allah, Jesus, Ram, hai merae” (Vijay, Iqbal, Anthony: These three names are mine, Allah, Jesus, Ram are mine). In this example, the ABFA carefully combines the names of three protagonists Amitabh has played with different religious affiliations (Hindu, Muslim, and Christian) with the religious figures of “Allah, Jesus, and Ram,”15 reiterating not only the god-like status of Amitabh, but also representing him as a presiding deity of three major religions of India. A similar attempt can be seen on the exterior of the Bachchan Dham, where film stills of Amitabh in these three different cinematic avatars are displayed (figure 1.3). The images come with an added tagline, appropriate religious colors of green, saffron, and white, and the insignia of each religion associated with the corresponding character: “Mainn Iqbal Hoon,” “Mainn Vijay Hoon,” “Mainn Anthony Hoon” (I am Iqbal, I am Vijay, I am Anthony). This representation of Amitabh as a divine ambassador of three major religions is reinforced through devotee-fan art year after year. In 2020, on Amitabh’s seventy-eighth birthday, a poster placing him at the apex of Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam was displayed outside of the Bachchan Dham with the words, “The sound of temple bells, the call of azaan in

Figure 1.3  Amitabh Represented as Iqbal, Vijay, and Anthony in the Banner at the Entrance of the Bachchan Dham (2021). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

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mosques, the hymns in churches, Amitji’s birthday evokes such holiness” (“Happy 78th Birthday” 2020). Another banner inside the Bachchan Dham written in Bengali claims, “Hindura jope radhe keshto, Christian Probhu Jishu Krishto, Moder dhara Onnyorokom, Amitabhi-ishto,” (Hindus worship Radha-Krishna, Christians worship Jesus Christ, we are different and for us Amitabh is the Lord) (Dasgupta 2017). Through these banners and posters, the ABFA displays their religious acceptance and tries to establish their secular credentials in society. They project their devotee-fan association as a novel space of devotional fandom, yet one that is multi-religious, open to all, including fans from Islam and Christianity who can respectively relate to Amitabh as Allah and Jesus.16 However, as is apparent in their rituals and the framing of Amitabh as Ram, the religious identity of non-Hindu ABFA fans is subsumed within the bigger ideology of a Hindu-centric fandom. The devotee-fan art around which fans congregate and perform their devotion facilitates the construction of a devotee-fan identity and is crucial to the existence, manifestation, and sustenance of devotional fandom. If the ritualized image (poster, banner, etc.) were taken out of this complex matrix of devotee-fan and star, the ideology of devotional fandom would be deflated. The ritual performance orchestrated around devotee-fan art activates and invigorates Novetzke’s concept of the human medium, which converges on the figural representation of the star. Hence, devotee-fan art is the pivotal point around which the narrative of a celluloid god and his devotees is woven, providing a material platform for staging the publics of devotee-fan bhakti.

ROLE OF MEDIA Along with devotee-fan art, ABFA members engage in a multimedia deification project to express their devotional fandom. Different types of devotional practices, temple rituals, social work, and so on, have been judiciously recorded in the form of a fan library in Patodiya’s house, comprising CDs, photographs, newspaper clippings, devotee-fan registration files, and so on. Since 2000, widespread media coverage has been given to every event conducted by the ABFA. Footage of ABFA members performing puja for Amitabh regularly airs, along with exclusive interviews with association members, especially Patodiya, who has been seen on several national television channels for over two decades (figure 1.4). In addition to highlighting the devotional fandom of the ABFA, the media also provides members with a platform to project their superior status compared to other fans of the star. Over the course of his interviews with various media outlets and journalists,

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Figure 1.4  Sanjay Patodiya Wearing the Amitabh Shawl while the Media Interviews Him, along with other ABFA Members on the Occasion of the Release of Amitabh’s Film, Sarkar 3, May 12 (2017). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

Patodiya has distinguished ABFA members by clarifying, “We are his devotees, not fans” (interview with the author, 2005). On camera, Patodiya has repeatedly claimed that ABFA members consider themselves a step higher than regular fans, not only because of their status as devotees but also for owning original cinematic objects (clothes, shoes, etc.) that have been graced by the divine touch of their star deity. The ABFA’s worship of a Bollywood star as an incarnation of a Hindu god makes a sensational story, drawing reporters to all ABFA celebrations. The media presence of the organization also helps to consolidate the ABFA’s identity in popular culture. When interviews are printed in national dailies or aired on television channels and social media, the devotional fandom of the ABFA gains momentum in national and even transnational popular consciousness. I will come back to the role of the media later in the chapter. In addition to the news media, the ABFA also has a strong presence on the internet. Their website, abfa​.in​, YouTube channel, and Twitter and Facebook pages declare them to be a social organization and are regularly updated with the fan association’s various devotional and social work activities.

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EXPANDED CINEMATIC SPACE AND MARKING THE SACRED The ABFA’s use of public space extends far beyond cinema halls and the display of devotional fan paraphernalia. By conducting their devotional activities in the public arena of the modern city, they mark secular urban spaces such as sidewalks, streets, public parks, and cinema halls as the sacred domain of devotee-fans. This occupation is visible during the celebration of public pujas and fan yatras, the performance of rituals in movie theaters, and the implementation of social work projects in the name of Amitabh. The ABFA also creates star temples that can be either mobile (temporary ritualized spaces outside and inside of the cinema hall or other places in the cityscape) or immobile (Bachchan Dham), but both transitory and permanent structures function on the same concept of facilitating the worship of a star murti in a public space. Examples of mobile museum‑­ temples constructed by the ABFA are the public spaces that they occupy during Amitabh pujas. Huge open spaces of the city, such as the maidaan (similar to a public park), are rented and a pandal (temporary stage) is set up and decorated with ABFA banners and several life-sized posters of Amitabh (figure 1.2). The main poster is bedecked with flowers, emulating a murti in a temple space, around which devotee-fans gather, draped in Amitabh shawls and chanting, “Jai Shri Amitabh.” Once the festivities are over, the space that was momentarily ritualized “reverts” to its secular city status, but not before making a tangible mark on the popular consciousness of the ABFA’s devotional fandom. The ABFA’s religious practices also occur in private spaces. For example, in Patodiya’s home, an Amitabh shrine is placed in the puja room. In fact, every room and corner of his house displays posters and photographs of Amitabh. The multi-spatial darshanic ambiance within which the devoteefan functions in his everyday life also becomes an omnipresent zone of star devotion, which I will discuss in detail in the next chapter. BACHCHAN DHAM In this section, I will describe the visual, structural, and ideological aspects of the Bachchan Dham to examine how it becomes a permanent marker and tangible space of devotional fandom. Different elements of this star temple include the murti of Amitabh in the sanctum around which ABFA members congregate for ritual practices, the temple space as a museum showcasing ABFA’s social work, and a space for staging media events. I will investigate how these different dimensions are bound together by the publics of

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fan-bhakti, making the temple an active site of codification and interpellation of their devotional fandom. After years of unsuccessful attempts to acquire land to construct a temple for their star deity, the ABFA finally designed Bachchan Dham in 2009 on the premises of Patodiya’s own apartment complex (interview with the author, 2010).17 As one approaches the Bachchan Dham from the outside, the structure does not look like a conventional temple or a shrine. Rather, it looks like any other apartment building in the neighborhood, except that its

Figure 1.5  Bachchan Dham, Exterior View (2021). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

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exterior is plastered with huge banners and posters of Amitabh (figure 1.5). A black and white stepped entrance is followed by a red and gold colored metal gate pasted with and flanked by images of the star deity. An ornate turquoise framed tapestry of prints from Amitabh’s film stills frames the upper part of the entrance gate. Above it is a banner identifying the temple, “Bachchan Dham,” in bold text, with yet more images from film stills, carefully chosen from Amitabh’s different cinematic characters. The banner also introduces the ABFA as a social welfare organization.18 Furthermore, saffron-colored stoles with the words “Jai Shree Amitabh” flutter from the windows of the apartment above the temple (not seen in the picture), along with a clothesline for drying clothes that demarcates the ordinary living abode from the extraordinary devotional space of the ABFA. However, this boundary does not mark an official inauguration of a dichotomy between the sacred and the ordinary. Rather, it becomes a celebratory space where the two merge together in tandem, dislodging the discourse of religion and cinema from its institutionalized domain and relocating it to newer sites of the cinematic sacred. A few steps inside of the temple, beyond the metal gate, the dark staircase area that I had climbed when I visited the site in 2008 has been transformed into an open-lit space, adorned with large images of Amitabh (figure 1.6). Every inch of the space is plastered with huge posters, film stills, iconic film dialogues, ABFA slogans, and mantras, all of which animate the sacral, filmy terrain. There are designated areas for Amitabh’s CDs and montages. A label

Figure 1.6  Bachchan Dham, Interior View (2021). Photo Courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

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reading “Divine Attire” displays costumes and other memorabilia from the star’s films, along with images of ABFA fans and their activities. Finally, there are also posters of Amitabh’s extended family, including his grandchildren and a poster of his parents that is ritually worshipped by adorning their images with a tilak before major ceremonies. The open, museum-like space of Bachchan Dham has a marked area with transparent doors that functions as the garbhagriha or the inner sanctum. When it was built in 2009, the entrance to the garbhagriha was framed with (the now gone) bright, parrot-green pillar-like structures on both sides that faintly echoed the structure of ancient Hindu temples (figure 1.7). Saturated with strong hues of saffron, the color of Hinduism, the wallpaper is printed with the Amitabh mantra. However, the bright palette of saffron with green, purple, blue and white that enlivens the temple seems to be more inspired from poster art,19 resonating with an installation, or a three-dimensional film poster that introduces Amitabh’s new role as God Ram, converging on the enshrined murti of the star deity. In 2009, the murti that was placed inside the garbhagriha on the Aks chair was actually a ritualized printed image from Amitabh’s film, Agnivarsha.20 The garlanded poster was duly worshipped with the Hindu rituals of puja

Figure 1.7  Bachchan Dham, Sanctum (2011). Photo courtesy, Sanjay Patodiya.

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and arati, transitioning Amitabh’s cinematic image into a murti. I will discuss the transformation of the poster into a murti in greater detail in the next chapter. The murti is adorned with the white shoes that the star wore in the film Agneepath. Placed near the feet of the star deity are different accouterments of worship generally found in a conventional temple, such as the puja thali (a plate for performing arati); camphor; red vermilion for applying tilak to the murti and devotees; a cymbal; a ringing bell; a flywisk (used in Hindu rituals); and the booklet of hymns for the star deity, the Amitabh Chalisa. Although the Amitabh Chalisa is read in the temple, reciting dialogues of Amitabh as part of the rituals becomes a part of the puja: “For us, Amitabh Bachchan’s spoken word, his dialogues, show us the way in our life. In his temple, we [ABFA members], the priests of the temple, chant them” (Patodiya, interview with the author, 2010). Although other ABFA members also perform arati on some occasions, Patodiya is the chief priest of the temple. In 2017, the sanctum of the Bachchan Dham was graced with a life-like statue of Amitabh (figure 1.8). According to ABFA’s vice-president, Rohit Bhutoria, “For us, he is nothing short of God and a statue is the right way to worship him. Only someone with divine powers can wield such charisma and keep the nation mesmerized for five decades. That is why we literally worship him . . . and offer puja” (“Amitabh Bachchan Gets his Throne” 2017). With a towering size of six feet, two inches, a little taller than the actual

Figure 1.8  Amitabh Murti Installed in the Sanctum of Bachchan Dham (2017). Photo Courtesy, Rohit Bhutoria.

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height of Amitabh, the twenty-five kg fiberglass statue was ritually placed on the Aks chair and is now installed as a three-dimensional murti of the film star. The murti’s dress, the posters, the devotional material objects, and even the physical space both inside and outside of the Bachchan Dham change in accordance with the real-life events of Amitabh, his film releases, and the festivities celebrated in the temple. One of the most striking representations of the murti is in its anointed Sarkar gear, the black kurta that Amitabh wore in the film Sarkar 3 (2017) with the trademark rudraksh mala (necklace with holy beads) and a bright red tilak on the forehead. ABFA members donning similar garbs surround the murti, conducting rituals and posing for cameras. Chanting ABFA slogans and the mantra of “Jai Shree Amitabh,” they make the cinematic and the sacred dance to the symphony of their devotional fandom. Through the Bachchan Dham, the ABFA combines the idea of a museum with that of a temple. Patodiya says: Our temple caters to different fans of Amitabh. For those who admire him as an actor, we have the museum where they can see his film stills and posters from various roles that he has portrayed. For devotees like us, who consider him God, we have the adjoining murti where worship rites are conducted and Amitabh Chalisa is read for our deity. (interview with the author, 2010)

By referring to the temple as a museum, Patodiya converts the Amitabh murti not only into an object of worship but also into an object worthy of aesthetic contemplation, as an artifact housed in a museum. In doing so, he claims the Bachchan Dham as a museum‑temple and situates himself and ABFA members inside of this devotional exhibition space. This concept of the museum‑temple is further discussed in chapter 3. Although this space is dedicated to displaying images of the film star, it also becomes an extended visual display of the ABFA. Slogans and mantras in English, Hindi, and Bengali and photographs of fan association members with Amitabh Bachchan abound. In particular, one photograph exhibit, titled “Down the Memory Lane,” chronicles the close proximity of ABFA fans to Amitabh over the years. ABFA’s social activism is also displayed in the temple through a special photographic collage exhibit titled “Action Speaks Louder than Words.”21 This exhibit illustrates how the ABFA engages in community work through their social welfare wing, Vijay. Social work activities, carried out by devoteefans validate their identity and their devotional fandom, endearing them to the local community. Their focus on welfare projects helps define the presence of the association in the social space of the city. Often, local politicians and celebrities are invited to ABFA events, whose presence helps in projecting and reinforcing devotee-fans’ image as ideal citizens, further strengthening

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their position in society.22 Specific ABFA social projects include organizing eye camps, free medical check-ups, blood donation drives, distributing books and clothes to underprivileged children, and distributing food to the poor (including communities on the periphery, such as the kinnar (transgender/ eunuch) community they fed during the COVID pandemic in 2020–21). PreCOVID, many of these activities were conducted in the Bachchan Dham, especially the distribution of food and blood donation camps, which were carried out in front of the Amitabh murti (figure 1.9). In addition, ABFA engages in programs related to creating a healthy environment, planting trees, and the maintenance of parks for curbing pollution and issues related to maintaining ecological balance, which helps to project a positive and socially aware image of the fan association among locals, especially the urban youth. One of the ABFA’s most significant social projects was launched in 2016, named AmitAkshar, after their star deity. It has also been chronicled in the form of photographs and has become an exhibit in the temple. In 2016, for this initiative, ABFA raised thirty lakh rupees (around $40,000) for the education of girls. Amitabh attended the event, which became known for being graced by the presence of their “God himself” (ABFA 2016), and mentioned it on his blog post: “I have initiated the fan club to perform, instead of just screaming accolades at airport arrivals and public demonstrations on release of films.” Fully cognizant of the divine status bestowed on him by

Figure 1.9  ABFA Fans Donating Blood at the Bachchan Dham on World Fans’ Day, (2019). Photo Courtesy, Rohit Bhutoria.

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the ABFA—both through their activities and through the construction of the Bachchan Dham, where his personal items are displayed—Amitabh encourages devotee-fan social work and uses the close interaction he has maintained with the association to support it (figure 1.10). Such an active fan base also helps the star in creating a hype for his movies in addition to glorifying his star image off-screen. In the Bachchan Dham, the symbiotic relationship between the image of the star deity and devotee-fans fuels the devotional fandom of the ABFA.23 The site becomes an official, permanent, and legitimized public space of devotional fandom, marked, defined, and amplified by the ABFA. The temple also functions as a space that illumines the narrative of the devoteefans’ privileged status. During an interview in 2016, bringing attention to the photo exhibit titled, “God and his Devotees,” Patodiya proudly points to the photograph in which Amitabh is seen hugging him, saying, “I had a major operation. . . . Two months [later] I went to see him [Amitabh]. I couldn’t bend down to touch his feet. . . . I was in a lot of pain. So he just hugged me!” (“The Amitabh Bachchan Temple in Kolkata” 2016). Several other images in this section show ABFA members in different modes of bhakti posing for cameras with their star deity. Through the display and dissemination of

Figure 1.10  Amitabh Bachchan (in the Center) with Sanjay Patodiya (on the Left) and other ABFA Members Watching a Special Screening of the Film Pink at INOX in Quest Mall in Kolkata (2016). Photo Courtesy, Rohit Bhutoria.

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information in the media and through the images housed in the Bachchan Dham, ABFA members continually bring attention to themselves, performing their own identity in mediascapes, and reinforcing it in popular culture. S. V. Srinivas (2009) has examined the way fans promote themselves through the star image in the context of Southern Indian film star Chiranjeevi.24 He describes the star image as a means for fans to gain self-promotion and empowerment as they become self-appointed guardians of that image (2009, xxviii).25 Through what he terms “conditional loyalty” (2009; discussed in the introduction of this book), the star constantly heeds to the demands and desires of the fans who try to fit him into the glorified star image they create. They coerce the star, the director, and the writer of the film to create cinematic characters that help to enhance the star’s demi-god image. Instead of pressurizing their star deity, ABFA members eulogize their mode of devotion and defend every decision the star/their God makes. Their devotion and loyalty is not conditional or based on the star’s behavior, choice of film roles, or even life events. For example, in spite of the fact that Amitabh played the character of Azaad, a commander of thugs, in Thugs of Hindostan (2018), the ABFA still celebrated and worshipped his film posters. Banners accompanying the posters in the fan yatra were accordingly rephrased “Long Live the Thug: Who Robbed and Rules Billions of Hearts” (“Thugs of Hindostan” 2018). Instead of critiquing Amitabh’s choice of taking on a role that could tarnish his off-screen divine image, members celebrated it as yet another versatile quality of their actor-god, using it to continue to animate their devotional fandom. As Patodiya once remarked while discussing the films and acting credentials of stars in Bollywood, “Amitji is a great actor, but that is his profession. There are other actors greater than him in the industry such as Naseer-ud-din, Om Puri. . . . We do not worship him [Amitabh] because he is an extraordinary actor, but because, for us, he is a form of Bhagvaan [Lord] Ram” (interview with the author, 2008). In this manner, regardless of the type of roles Amitabh plays, devotee-fans continue to remold the star image, resituating his identity from film star to Hindu God. Their actions constantly shift him from the temporal to the celestial, from the cinematic to the cinematic sacred. Because the ABFA celebrates Amitabh as a god no matter what type of filmic choices he makes, the issues Srinivas addresses in the context of Southern Indian cinema in regards to reigning in the star and disciplining him in accordance with his image have little resonance for them. To reiterate the god-like status Amitabh has for devotee-fans, during their celebrations on the streets and in the Bachchan Dham the ABFA has for decades flashed the banner “Thank you God for being among us as an Actor.” For them, Amitabh is an avatar of God Ram, and a god’s image cannot be tarnished, not even by the actor himself. Since they believe that Amitabh is a deity who just happens to be a film star, the negative or positive roles he chooses for his films have no impact on his image. While a human being, even of iconic stature, can fall from grace, a deity

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does not. By anchoring their star deity to Ram, who has been worshipped for centuries in India, the ABFA stabilizes their identity as devotee-fans. Within the religious context of devotional fandom into which they insert Amitabh, a critique of the star would be akin to a critique of God Ram. It is this notion that is projected in the media and through which ABFA members defend their star deity’s actions and choices. In effect, the configuration of Amitabh as God Ram and of the ABFA as his Bharat-cum-fan-bhakts allows for more control over the star image and a relative independence from the personal decisions and personality of the star, assuring longevity for their kind of fandom and creating a comparatively “self-sustaining model” of the star deity. Through the fan-bhakti for Amitabh as Ram, the ABFA articulates its religious identity and acquires social agency that empowers the fan. In Bhakti and Power, Hawley, Novetzke, and Sharma demonstrate how bhakti enables agency in communities: Bhakti serves to mediate, moderate, and generally address power through the mind and heart of an individual who is linked to a community or an imagined collective of like-minded devotees. In this view, the power of bhakti is that it enables people—often quite ordinary people—to imagine an alternative world and to participate in that very world in the course of imagining it. (2019, 7)

In the case of the ABFA, imagining an alternative worldview has been actualized through their devotional acts in public spaces, especially in ­ the Bachchan Dham, where their ideology is visible, knowable, concrete, and codified. The walls and the space of the temple thus become a visual ­repository of the ABFA’s empowerment. The Bachchan Dham primarily attracts two kinds of visitors: devotee-fans and the general masses, which include journalists and tourists. Once inside the temple during Amitabh arati, all spectators are subsumed in the matrix of worship rituals performed for the star deity. Anyone who visits—be it a curious traveler, a passerby, a fan, or a critic—cannot avoid being interpellated into the ABFA’s system of devotional fandom. The temple becomes an active site of articulation of devotee-fan identity. Interpellation is defined by Althusser (1971) as a process through which ideology makes individuals complicit in their own domination as subjects so that they incorporate themselves into the power structures of the state (Nguyen, n.d.). Althusser gives an example of interpellation on a public city street when a police officer shouts, “Hey, you there!” Upon hearing this exclamation, an individual turns around, and “by this mere one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject” (Althusser 1971). The individual’s self-imbrication into the power structures of the state apparatus becomes visible; “in the act of acknowledging that it is indeed he who is addressed, the individual thus recognizes his subjecthood” (Nguyen, n.d.).

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When rituals are being conducted in the Bachchan Dham and a visitor enters, he or she witnesses Patodiya with fellow ABFA members reciting the Amitabh Chalisa and performing the arati of the murti, followed by the chanting of mantras. Patodiya then adorns the forehead of the visitor with a tilak using the same vermilion applied to the Amitabh murti (figure 1.11 ). He then asks the person to extend cupped palms in a reverential gesture to receive the prasad (a common practice in Hindu temples). Caught in an awkward moment, the unassuming visitor complies and bends forward. Through the visitor’s participation in tilak and prasad, a “physical conversion” occurs, and, willingly or unwillingly, the visitor transforms from a mere spectator into an Amitabh bhakt. As noted before, Novetzke points out that the sharing of food (prasad) with both deity and devotee is an integral part of bhakti: “Here the comestible is ‘devotion’ itself” (2007, 262). When the prasad is collectively consumed in the shared space of Amitabh Dham, it becomes devotee-fan bhakti itself. Although the distribution of prasad is not an everyday part of temple activities, during special occasions, and especially for the birthday celebration of Amitabh, a cake is cut on the temple premises amidst the chants of Amitabh mantras. It is then distributed among devotee-fans, the visitors, including the underprivileged (who are invited to receive gifts from the ABFA). By reconfiguring these common Hindu rituals in a temple for a Bollywood star, the ABFA facilitates the “complicit participation” of visitors, interpellating

Figure 1.11  Sanjay Patodiya Applying Tilak on the Forehead of Fans and Visitors, Bachchan Dham (2018). Photo Courtesy, Rohit Bhutoria.

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them into the ideology of devotional fandom and identifying them with other devotee-fans of Amitabh. Although for many visitors, particularly journalists and tourists, this identity construct is likely momentary, while they inhabit the shared ritual space it envelops them and they become co-performers of the ABFA’s publics of devotee-fan bhakti. Unlike open spaces of the city, where devotee-fan events occur simultaneously with other activities (ongoing traffic, people walking on the streets, etc.) and one can choose to either be a devotee or a spectator, the Bachchan Dham is an enclosed space, firmly inscribed within the ideology of the ABFA. If we continue to view the temple through Althusser’s theory of interpellation, we can identify visitors as being already inscribed within the identity of devoteefans of Amitabh. Even before they enter the temple, they become co-producers in ABFA’s sanctification project, as they approach the Bachchan Dham from the outside. As in the case of Hindu temples, visitors in the Bachchan Dham sometimes encounter people selling incense sticks, fruits, and even Amitabh Chalisa outside the entrance of the temple.26 As Althusser points out “the individuals are always-already interpellated as subjects which necessarily leads us to one last proposition: individuals are always-already subjects” (1972, 175– 76). By merely approaching the temple, visitors prepare to partake in its rituals and perpetuate the religious ideology of the ABFA even if only for the duration of the time they are inside the premises. Or, as in many cases, knowingly or unknowingly, they propagate ABFA’s devotional fandom by buying a copy of the Amitabh Chalisa, and by sharing their experiences of visiting the temple with their families and friends, and also in the social media.27 Thus, as more and more people visit the temple, the ideology of the ABFA gets stronger. In this way, devotional fandom performed within the enclosed walls of the Bachchan Dham has an inescapable centripetal and a defined centrifugal material presence, saturated with the ideological power of the ABFA’s publics of fan-bhakti. The colorful collage of the cinematic sacred that converges on the Bachchan Dham permanently frames the analogy of Amitabh as Ram and the ABFA as his Bharat-cum-fan-bhakts. Imbued with reworked Hindu religious narratives and rituals, Bachchan Dham is a multisensory transforming space that functions as an action-packed billboard for the ABFA, a performative temple space for ritual engagement with the star deity, a museum-like exhibition space that displays and celebrates devotee-fan art, devotional fandom and devotee-fans, a charitable space to conduct social work, and a media space bustling with photojournalists and video cameras vying to get a byte from Patodiya during special events. By aligning the star image of Amitabh with Hindu gods in the Bachchan Dham and constantly reinforcing it through ritual, language, materiality, and performance in public spaces, in the media and the cyberspace, ABFA members inaugurate a new religious identity becoming the harbingers of devotional fandom for a Bollywood star.

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EPILOGUE: RE-CONSTRUCTING THE “NORMAL” A close examination of devotee-fan activities and artifacts, along with interviews with ABFA members, especially Patodiya, brought to light my own prior presumptions about fans. Honed by my Western system of education and through the newspaper reports and academic books I had read, I imagined a devotee-fan as a rowdy, uneducated, superstitious, lower-class male bachelor.28 Instead, I found that Patodiya came across as a soft-spoken father-of-two with a stable business—in short, a person leading a “normal” life—whom one would assume to follow a conventional lifestyle and belief system. My initial encounters with him and other devotee-fans brought attention to my own prejudices about the “normal” and the “rational,” allowing me to process how my idea of the “irrational” had been framed by my convent education, which was based on Enlightenment logic. The notion of what is “normal” or “logical,” and what is not, is conditioned by ideological structures of “right” and “wrong” imposed by the dominant class of the society. Foucault calls this “normalizing judgment,” which becomes a method to control our minds and establishes conditioned ways of thinking (1995). In an interview, he describes three categories that people are put into when they break away from dominant modes of thought: “if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal, then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing” (2004). Devotee-fans do not fit into the recognized categories or norms of any established religion or, for that matter, of regular fan clubs. The fact that they choose a living film star as an object of worship, as opposed to an already established historical, religious, or mythological figure, on one hand is what precludes them from being recognized by conventional religion, delegitimizing their devotion. On the other, their emphasis on bhakti and worship practices excludes them from the generally accepted definition of a fan. Since they do not fit into either recognizable category, their fan activities are labeled as “bewilderingly irrational” and dwelling in the realm of “superstition” (S.V. Srinivas 2009, 46; Prasad 2004, 101). One of the main focuses of my research is to unpack the dichotomies between what is considered normal, logical, and naturalized and what is considered abnormal or illogical—that which seems alien to us at a particular place, time, and in a certain cultural context, and hence is labeled under the rubric of the bizarre. My aim is to reconceptualize these categories, showing that they are not in opposition to one another, within the context of devotee-fans, who see them as complementary.

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In the ABFA’s worldview, the framing of Amitabh as God Ram does not dislocate conventional religious beliefs; neither does it discredit the divinity invested in Ram in Hindu thought. Instead, they insert their ideology into the preexisting concept of avatars of Hindu deities in which the divine can descend in an embodied form—such as Ram, one of the avatars of the Hindu God Vishnu—or dwell in the divine bodies of gurus.29 From the devotee-fan perspective, the idea of framing Amitabh as Kalyug Ka Ram is a contemporary embodiment and expression of Hindu religiosity in which Ram’s avatar appears as their God and guru in a cinematic form. This explains why the ABFA remains undeterred by negative publicity and is unconcerned with labels put on them by the elite, specifically traditionalists and the intelligentsia. Conversations with Patodiya helped me understand that rather than feeling alienated, derided, or misunderstood, the ABFA feels empowered and enabled in its identity. For them, their fan-bhakti is not entangled in a space of contradiction: In a tussle between the binaries of the “pre-modern” and “modern” that haunt Indian cinema and fan studies. The divine image of their star deity is culled from the cinematic screen and anchored into popular Hindu traditions, to carve out a separate space for their own kind of religiosity based on the elements of bhakti and shraddha, which for them is the quintessential defining mode of their devotional fandom. Armed with the power of their fan-bhakti, which they have consolidated in the media and cyberspace, ABFA members do not need the stamp of approval from traditionalists and scholars to establish the validity of their belief system. Although their unusual religious practices may not fit into dominant structures of the society, their publics of fan-bhakti are not emotionally enslaving attachments cloaked in irrationality and superstition, as understood by their critics. Rather, for them, fan-bhakti is liberating. It helps them carve a space of agency through which they empower themselves and strengthen their community. As institutionalized religio-social units, devotee-fan associations become dynamic sites of mobilization, capable of wielding a positive impact on society with their social work projects. They have a significant impact on the cultural politics of their time. I will further explore the impact of devotional fandom in the subsequent chapters.

NOTES 1. A kurta is a knee-length, generally loose-fitted garment worn by men and women in India. 2. The notion of what is “normal” or “logical” and what is not is conditioned by ideological structures of “right” and “wrong” imposed by the dominant class

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of society. I will revisit this point in the context of devotee-fans at the end of this chapter. 3. “Bachchan had a patchy tryst with politics when the former prime minister and Congress party leader Rajiv Gandhi persuaded him to run for parliament in 1985. He won resoundingly on his star power but stepped down as MP midway through his term, after a report of alleged involvement in financial irregularities of which he was completely cleared later. ‘I know I should have never got into politics. And I’ve learnt my lesson. No more politics’, he told Stardust magazine” in an interview reported by the BBC. (“Amitabh Bachchan: The Comeback Man” 2005). 4. “‘There was a sword hanging on my head all the time. I spent many sleepless nights. One day, I got up early in the morning and went directly to Yash Chopraji and told him that I was bankrupt. I had no films. My house and a small property in New Delhi were attached. Yashji listened coolly and then offered me a role in his film Mohabattein’, Bachchan told an attentive gathering at Mumbai’s Intercontinental The Grand Hotel. ‘I then started doing commercials, television and films. And I am happy to say today that I have repaid my entire debt of Rs 90 crore and am starting afresh’, Bachchan said” (Ashraf 2003). 5. See Ravi Vasudevan’s discussion of melodrama in Hindi films in “Melodrama” (2021). 6. Appadurai explains, “Cinematic life in Mumbai is also religious in another sense, and this has to do with what we might call cinematic soteriology. By this I mean that Bollywood films represent the city as a site in which salvation takes particular embodied and embedded forms. The cinematic version of the problem of salvation is also tied up with the cinematic representation of the problems of evil, injustice, and corruption in urban life. Thus salvation in Bollywood cinema can be seen as redemption from forms of darkness and injustice that are both urban and cinematic in form” (2019, 403). 7. Saayan Chattopadhyay formulates a framework of what he calls a spiritual and sacrosanct masculinity to examine the dual concepts of violence and virtue that the figure of the angry young man encapsulates—one that “embodies both militant and benign aspects” (2013, 32). 8. The ABFA celebrates the birthday of Amitabh Bachchan twice a year: On October 11, when he was born, and on August 2, when he recovered from his neardeath experience in 1982, which they call his “Rebirthday” or “World’s Fan Day” (“World’s Fan Day 2018,” 2018). 9. “They go all out on Big B’s birthday on October 11, when he grants darshan to a handful. ‘Last year we brought out a Vijay Rath in Mumbai drawn by the same horse that Abhishek Bachchan rode on his wedding’, beams secretary Sanjay Patodia” (“Fan-tastic” 2010). 10. The shawl is printed with the mantras “Har Har Amitabh,” “Jai Shri Amitabh,” and “Amitabh Namha.” 11. In the Hindu temple, priests perform arati in the morning and evening only. The afternoon is reserved as rest time for the deity, when most temples in India are closed to the public so that the gods can slumber in peace.

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12. “Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope. In a nutshell: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger-Trayner 2015). 13. “In the Hindu world ‘seeing’ is clearly not conceived as a passive product of sensory data originating in the outer world, but rather, seems to be imaged as an extrusive and acquisitive ‘seeing flow’ that emanates from the inner person, outward through the eyes, to engage directly with objects seen, and to bring something of those objects back to the seer. One comes into contact with, and in a sense becomes, what one sees” (Babb 1981, 396–97). Collins describes this union of the seer and the one being seen within the Samkhya and yoga philosophy. He elucidates, “Sāṃkhya and Yoga embody—and hold out as a possibility for the practitioner—a complex, endlessly evolving mystical experience that is best understood in its own language as darśana, the slowly explosive self-recognition within prakṛti of being seen by a puruṣa who—she knows, in the moment she finally knows herself—sees her” (2019). 14. Kapur states that the technique of frontality is deployed in different forms of Indian popular art, including theater. She writes, “Frontality is also established in an adaptation of traditional acting conventions to the proscenium stage as in Parsi theatre, where stylized audience address is mounted on an elaborate mise-enscene” (2000, 234). 15. To read more about the character of Anthony played by Amitabh, see William Elison, Christian Lee Novetzke and Andy Rotman’s (2016) Amar Akbar Anthony Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation. 16. Patodiya claims, “Our fan association members belong to different religions and we have Hindu, Sikh, Christian, and Muslim bhakts of Amitji, since we are all bonded by one god—Amitabh Bachchan” (interview with author, 2008). 17. In several media reports, Patodiya states that the temple was created in 2000 or 2001. That was the time when he set up the Amitabh shrine in his puja room and later expanded it to the public space of Bachchan Dham in 2009. 18. For a virtual tour of the temple and its most recent look as of November 2020, see the video “Welcome to Bachchan Dham,” uploaded to ABFA’s Youtube channel on February 15, 2020. 19. The first exhibition of Bollywood film posters in the United States, “Bollywood 101: The Visual Culture of the Bollywood Film Poster,” was curated by the author at the Art, Design and Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara in 2014. www​.news​. ucsb​.edu​/events​/bollywood​-101​-visual​-culture​-bollywood​-film​-poster. A reconstruction of Amitabh’s altar (from the Bachchan Dham) and his deified film poster was part of the exhibit on Bollywood posters. To read more about poster art, see Ranjani Mazumdar’s, “The Bombay film poster” (2003). 20. The ABFA replaced the central murti, a two-dimensional profile image of their star deity, with a poster showing a frontal image of Amitabh. One can get a detailed view of the murti and the temple, including how they have changed over time, in these

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YouTube videos: “The Angry Young God—ABFA from 3rd Perspective” (2012) and “The Amitabh Bachchan Temple In Kolkata” (2016). 21. The social work of the ABFA is described in detail on their website and also features on their Facebook page. abfa​.in​/abfa​-2​/social​-responsibi​lity/. www​.facebook​ .com​/All​-Bengal​-Amitabh​-Bachchan​-Fans​-Association​-ABFA​-249222758440977/ 22. During ABFA’s celebration of World’s Fan Day on August 2, 2017, they invited and felicitated West Bengal’s Minister for Electricity, a Member Mayor in Council and Secretary of the Bengal Olympic and Hockey Federation. Having dignitaries from the local government at ABFA events further reinforces the privileged status claimed by the ABFA, providing a governmental stamp of approval for their devotional activities. See the YouTube video “World Fan’s Celebration Day By . . . ABFA” at www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=L0i3fbdMsZk​&t​=193s. 23. I would like to mention that although Amitabh has maintained a close relationship with ABFA for many decades, he has not visited the Bachchan Dham. I asked Patodiya why it is so and he responded by saying that he has never asked the star to visit the temple. “Aap bhagvaan ko kabhi unke mandir mein chal kar aanae ke liye nahin kehtee hainn, vahan bas unki puja kartee hain” (You never ask God to walk to their own temple, you just worship him there), he remarked (interview with the author, 2010). In another interview, Patodiya reinforced the consent of the star for their activities, “‘When media informed him that he is worshipped as god over here, Amitabh Bachchan said he is a human and should be considered as human and not god. I do not want to hurt his sentiments as he is a god to me’, says Sanjay, adding, ‘However, he highlighted in front of media about the social work we do. This incident is also mentioned in his book—Main Amitabh Bachchan Bol Raha Hoon’.”(Sharma 2017) 24. In his ground-breaking work on fandom, Henry Jenkins, in the 1990s, was one of the first scholars to bring attention to how fans use icons/TV shows to further their own interests; his analyses changed the notion of fans from passive consumers of media to active creators of it. I will discuss this point in the conclusion. 25. S. V. Srinivas notes, “Fans deploy the vocabulary of excess, hyperbole, adulation/devotion/admiration often in order to articulate their own social-political cultural and economic aspirations” (2000, 299). As I have shown, the ABFA situates the divinized images of Amitabh in a similar way to articulate and validate their identity as devotee-fans. However, there are marked differences between fans in Southern India and the ABFA, which I briefly discuss in the conclusion. 26. ABFA’s vice-president, Rohit Bhutoria said that ABFA does not support commercialization of the temple, hence they do not want to set up their own shops or vendors ouside the premises of the Bachchan Dham (interview with the author, 2022). 27. Author, Ashwin Sanghi shares his experience of visiting the Bachchan Dham. See this video: “Amitabh Bachchan Mandir in Kolkata—HONEST EXPERIENCE of Visiting” www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=POaiSYinTFg

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28. Although my research primarily focuses on middle- and upper-middle-class fans, a number of devotee-fans, especially for Southern Indian stars, belong to a rural and underprivileged background. 29. To read more about the avatars of Vishnu see Tracy Coleman’s, “Avatāra: An Overview of Scholarly Sources.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies (2017).

Chapter 2

“Star Murtis” Film Posters as Ritual Objects

In Lineages of Political Society, Partha Chatterjee (2011) foregrounds the dissonance between religiosity and modernity. Citing the example of Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated Indian poet, Chatterjee describes how the highest form of adoration—even for a person such as Tagore, who was guided by “reason” and “rationality”—is translated into deification after death. He observes: Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 and went on to become by far the most eminent literary figure in Bengal. In his long and active career, he held steadfastly to his early commitment favouring an ethical life of public virtue, guided by reason, rationality, and dedication to a modern spirit of humanism. Since his death in 1941, however, he of all modern literary figures has been the one to be deified. On the day he died, when his body was taken through the streets of Calcutta, there was a huge stampede: people fought one another to collect relics from the body. Since then his birthplace has been turned into a place of pilgrimage where annual congregations are held every year—not religious festivals in their specific ceremonial practices, and yet not dissimilar in spirit. (89; emphasis mine)

The divinization of Tagore speaks of a quasi-religious and cultural ethos based on the age-old Indian tradition of worshipping human beings (ancestors, spiritual gurus, etc.). However, as Chatterjee notes, fifty years before Tagore’s death, the death of another famed writer, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, sparked discussion among nationalists as to the appropriate manner of bestowing respect on a cultural icon. Tagore himself had supported the Western form of public mourning: a condolence meeting. This type of meeting—modern, reasoned, and rational—did not allow for private grief or the traditional marks of mourning a beloved member of the community 75

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(77–78). However, as postcolonialists have argued, a different concept of modernity has been forged in non-Western nations, one that is fueled by another logic, an alternative modernity (Chakrabarty 2000). This vision of modernity “helps us imagine an alternative location for ‘reason’ . . . by giving reason a place different from the one assigned to it from the historicist and modern thought” (254). The worship of Tagore in contemporary India can be regarded as such a form of alternative modernity. The Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association’s (ABFA’s) deification of a film star, fusing modern technology with devotional fandom, may be seen as being forged from such a sensibility, and yet as one that goes beyond the dualism of “tradition/ modernity,” “rational/irrational,” opening the discourse into the generative space of the cinematic sacred, offering new sites of knowledge production and ways of knowing.1 As discussed in the previous chapter, ABFA members publicly divinize Amitabh, worshipping him as a modern incarnation of the Hindu God Ram. They center their worship practices on posters of the film star that assume the status of objects of veneration. In this chapter, I will focus on how the film poster, a mechanically produced object, is transformed by the ABFA into a star murti, an object of devotion.2 I will also trace the “journey” of Amitabh’s star murti from the private space of the Amitabh shrine (in the puja room) in Patodiya’s home (2005), to the public domain of Bachchan Dham (2009), where it was housed until it was replaced with the statue (three-dimensional murti) of the star deity in 2017. Every year, ABFA members worship Amitabh posters and images on several occasions. Typically, rituals entail a garlanded poster or image of Amitabh surrounded by ABFA members performing arati, reciting his film dialogues, chanting Amitabh mantras, and offering prasad to the poster.3 The rituals are often conducted with other accouterments, such as the conch shell and vermilion-filled arati thali (a plate for conducting worship rites), and occur in public spaces of the city, such as parks, streets, outside film theaters, and in the Bachchan Dham. The ABFA conducts fan yatras to movie halls before the release of Amitabh’s films and ritualizes his film posters outside of the theater. For example, in 2016, they performed public worship of the film poster of Amitabh’s movie, TE3N outside of a theater in Kolkata (figure 1.1). In the poster, Amitabh is shown riding a scooter on the streets of Kolkata. Once devotee-fans begin their worship rites for the image—applying tilak, circumventing the film poster in the darshanic “exchange of gazes” between the star deity and his devotee-fans, conducting arati and offering prasad—it is transformed into an object of devotion. The garlands and devout fans surrounding the ritualized poster—including Patodiya, who holds the puja

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thali—demarcate a sacralized space around the cinematic artifact, which is accentuated by a box of ladoos (sweets) offered as prasad to the star deity. The cinematic sacred space continues to expand and consume the space around the movie hall, as devotee-fan club members congregate around the divinized image of the film star. Their collective chanting enhances the ritualization process and aids in aligning the star with Hindu Gods Ram and Shiva. With folded hands, they chant in unison, “Jai Shri Amitabh” and “Har Har Amitabh,” as Patodiya performs major Hindu rituals for the image of Amitabh in the poster. The active participation and absorption of ABFA members in this deification project is also evident through their focused collective gaze on the ritual fire; with their vermilion-marked foreheads, and their hands folded together in a devotional mode that further grounds the poster in a sacred domain, framing it as an object of devotion. The process through which a mass-produced image such as a film poster is re-located in the domain of devotional fandom by the ABFA marks the fusion of cinematic imagery with Hindu religiosity. In chapter 1, I argued that this divinized cinematic imagery and its constant circulation and occupation of space in popular culture gives material legitimacy to the ABFA’s devotional fandom. By deifying cinematic objects such as film posters that are ritualized through Hindu modes of worship in public spaces, the ABFA creates its own spatial and visual worldview. They occupy city spaces and engage in publics of fan-bhakti anchored around the poster of the star, making themselves visible not only in the shared physical space of the urban landscape but also within “mediascapes” (Appadurai 1996). Devotee-fan activities are regularly reported in newspapers and magazines and on television news channels and become etched onto popular consciousness via the mode of the visual, the deified film poster. In the transmission of the visual image of the star deity through print and electronic media, the fans mobilize the gaze of popular sensibility toward their practice of devotional fandom and their selfconstruction as devotee-fans. The material legitimacy of devotional fandom is derived by positioning the divinized film poster, a tangible material object, at the center of ABFA practices. By appropriating a mass-produced image and transforming it into a ritual object of devotion in public spaces and in the media, their devotee-fan identity is actualized, naturalized, and mobilized in popular culture. To help us understand the ABFA’s devotional fandom, we need to take recourse to three lineages: the popular art tradition of the twentieth century that made commercially produced images available for mass consumption, the divinization of Hindu divinities and national heroes through printed images, and the insertion of nationalism as a political movement in the milieu of popular prints.

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PRINTED MURTIS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE HINDU GOD IMAGE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Before I proceed further with my discussion of printed images of divinities, a brief history of popular art in the twentieth century is useful. Traditional Indian painting schools, such as the Pahari Miniatures, were dwindling at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century when the work of artists such as Ravi Varma and Abanindranath Tagore emerged (Guha-Thakurta 1992). While Tagore and his Bengal School were inspired by ancient Ajanta paintings and Indian miniatures, merging their idioms with the Japanese wash technique (Banerji 2010),4 Varma developed a realist idiom in oils based on Western naturalism. Although Varma was severely criticized by art critics for producing “crass,” tantalizing figures of Hindu gods and goddesses and humanizing them for easy consumption, his lithographic press sold thousands of copies of his paintings, making his artwork accessible to the masses. It was art critic Geeta Kapur, who reintroduced Varma as “the indisputable father-figure of modern Indian art” (2000). Varma’s art influenced other artists and, more importantly, created a disjuncture between fine and popular art; his artistic oeuvre combined elements of an academic style of painting with dazzling colors and vivid sensuality that appealed to a popular sensibility. The subject matter, which dealt with Hindu mythology, was also familiar to the masses. One of the most significant impacts of Varma’s work remains in Indian calendar art—or bazaar art, as Kajri Jain (2007) calls it—that helped in the reframing of the parameters within which modern Indian art has been defined. Calendar art paved the path for Indian popular art to officially enter the art historical discourse, fracturing the categories of high and low art within which the discipline of Indian art history had been conceptualized. Like Kajri Jain, Pinney also seeks to address the significance of popular art by emphasizing the engagement of everyday religious practices with images through his concept of “corpothetics” (2004, 19). Both Kajri Jain and Pinney are interested in the circuits of popular art and their scopic regimes, interrogating the sociocultural and political spaces within which images function and that they, in turn, construct. With the circulation of prints of Hindu deities, the concept of murti in its new avatar of mass-produced, two-dimensional images became fluid and was disseminated on a much larger scale. Printed images of Hindu deities subsequently led to the reappropriation of the film poster as a murti. To investigate this trajectory, let us first address the concept of murti. The word murti broadly refers to a concrete sign of a god in Hinduism, which can be either aniconic or iconic. It is a ritually ­consecrated, three-dimensional image that has a key function in Hindu religious p­ ractices (Grieve 2003). Grieve argues that murtis are “humanly constructed deities

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dominated by their material element” that are “brought to life by being enmeshed in a net of social practices” (57). Exploring the identity of a Hindu murti, Richard Davis asserts: The identities of these icons [murtis] are never so fixed or permanent. As Hindus recognize, divine images enter into a host of complex ritual, personal, material, and spiritual relationships with the human devotees who worship and attend to them. Even as the images hang on to their distinctive insignia they may find themselves carried off to new places, where they encounter new audiences, who may not know or appreciate their earlier significances. Or, even staying in their original locations, the images may take on new roles and new meanings in response to the changing world around them . . . [murtis] have been repeatedly relocated, reframed, and reinterpreted by new communities of response in new historical settings. (1997, 261)

Thus, according to Davis, a murti—the three-dimensional sculptural form enshrined in Hindu temples—can be seen as a mobile entity moving between the social, religious, cultural, and historical spheres that transform its identity. The miniature paintings of Rajasthani and Pahari in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contributed to the arrival of what I term printed murtis or two-dimensional murtis. These paintings depict Hindu gods and goddesses within a distinct visual convention. A miniature painting from a precolonial school such as Pahari Art compared with a later print produced by Varma illustrates this point. Scenes of love between Radha and the Hindu God Krishna were a central theme in many of the Pahari Miniatures. In a painting belonging to the Kangra School of Pahari Art, Radha and Krishna are represented in an idyllic landscape, seated beside the Yamuna River under a willow tree (figure 2.1). The delicate rendering represents blue-skinned Krishna in his characteristic peacock-feather crown and flower garland as he engages with Radha in divine love-play. Enchanted by Radha, Krishna lovingly fixes her earrings. Draped in a brightly colored dress, Radha coyly turns away from Krishna. The stylized rendering of the trees and the river, executed in flowing schematic strokes, instills an ethereal charm to the painting. The sinuous “Kangra line,” known for its delicacy in delineating the figures and the landscape, also adds flatness and a decorative quality to the painting. In the late nineteenth century, scenes like these began to be depicted via mechanically produced prints. Varma made several oil paintings based on Hindu religious themes. In 1894, he set up his printing press, mass producing his work in the form of oleographs and chromolithographs. Though he produced several prints with secular themes, his images showing Hindu gods and goddesses became very popular. They depicted Hindu deities in a “humanized” way, embedding them in everyday settings and, in the process, locating them

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Figure 2.1  “Krishna Adorns Radha.” Reproduction of the Miniature Kangra Style of Pahari Painting Representing an Illustration from the Gita Govinda.

in popular culture. In one of his prints, Radha Madhav (figure 2.2), the divine couple appears as earthly and scintillating. With her flowing dark tresses, slipping pallu, head swinging back and arms open, Radha invites Krishna to a seductive rendezvous.5 In contrast to the miniature painting, in Radha Madhav both the couple and the landscape look worldly and terrestrial. Krishna is depicted in fleshy tones that reinforce his everyday appeal instead of the conventional iconographic blue seen in Pahari Miniatures. Sensually massaging the shoulders of Radha (figure 2.2), he is made to look like a local Romeo belonging to the age in which this print was produced. The fullness of their bodies imparts a kind of palpability, a “touchable” quality executed within the artist’s oeuvre of temporal realism. Pinney asserts that Varma transformed Indian imagery from the realm of fantasy into a “historicized realist chronotope” and “‘gave’ India its Gods in a real form, so real that they have been endlessly replicated over the past century” (2004, 61). Though his technique of “realistic” forms is borrowed from the West, when applied to sacred Hindu themes and the representation of Hindu gods and goddesses, it creates a hybrid space of “magical realism” (20). Tapati Guha-Thakurta elaborates on the construction of Hindu deities within this new mode of representation, noting that Varma imparted a “lifelike quality” to his figures in which “the gods and goddess, even as they

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Figure 2.2  Reproduction of Radha Madhav. Original by Ravi Varma (c.1890).

embodied the spirit of Indian canonical or literary descriptions, had to remain within the parameters of the ‘natural’ and ‘real’” (1992, 106, 132). Varma’s temporal realism influenced other artists, who began to produce images of Hindu divinities in tandem with Varma’s idiom on calendars, posters, and prints that are popular to this day. Since these mass-produced prints render the sacred and celestial world of Hindu gods and goddesses as earthly, they make it more accessible, which is one reason for their stupendous success. Imbued with vivid colors and set in everyday backdrops, the “realistic” rendition of Hindu deities enhances their popular appeal. In spite of iconographic differences, people connect easily with the images; Hindu deities appear to be “one of them.” Yet, despite their realism

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and accessibility, these prints also undergo a process of transformation shifting from their status as mere commodities sold by street vendors into their role as devotional objects. Kajri Jain (2007) addresses the relationship between religious imagery and its commercialization in popular prints. Taking the example of calendars and popular prints, she states that commercially produced images of the divine simultaneously dwell in the “private” sphere of religion and the “public” arena of the market (2007). Calling this particular articulation of commercial, sacred, and libidinal economies in calendar art the “ethos of the bazaar,” Jain (261) claims that from the late nineteenth century onward there has been a nexus between print capitalism and popular religiosity. After it is purchased from the market, the printed image of a Hindu deity is either formally (through a priest) or personally (by the devotee) “seated” (installed) where it is to be enshrined. Pinney examines the concept of “seating” Hindu divinities in printed images through his conversation with a devotee: When asked about pictures of deities lying on market stalls . . . she responded: “It’s just paper . . . [they haven’t been] seated”. She then pointed to the images in her own domestic jhanki [shrine]: “You see those pictures that are seated? Those are paper but by placing them before our eyes, energy (shakti) has come into them.  .  .  . We entreat the god and the god comes out because the god is saluted. That’s how it is.” (2004, 191)

Here, the devotees’ “worship is addressed to the deity whose power is in an image and also to a deity as an image” (Fuller 2004, 61; emphasis original). The divinity in the image is established by framing it in a matrix of Hindu rituals including puja, arati, and darshan to “seat” it, known in Hindu temples as pranapratishtha (consecration) rituals conducted for murtis to endow them with divine power or shakti. Through this process of “seating,” “man-made lifeless artifacts, are ritually infused with divine life force, becoming thus the focus of prayer, worship, and other religious activities” (Keul 2017a, 5). In Consecration Rituals in South Asia, Keul describes how images of deities are invested with divine power. Quoting Jan Gonda, Keul notes: If a Hindu makes or purchases an image of a deity it is his invariable practice to perform certain ceremonies, called prāṇapratiṣṭhā, “the establishment or instalment of vital breath, of life, endowment with animation.” It has often been said that by going through this process of “consecration” the nature of the images changes, that they are no longer merely the materials of which they are constructed, but become containers of life and supranormal power. (4)

As a receptacle of the life force of the divine, the murti provides a seamless flow of darshanic exchange between the deity and the devotee, investing the image with potency. Likewise, in the case of two-dimensional murtis, after

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being “seated,” the printed image is invested with a divine power, as darshan ensues between the gods in the printed image and the devotee engaging with it. By reproducing consecration rituals reserved for the murti in a Hindu temple, the devotee performatively inscribes the printed image into his or her space of the sacred, transforming it into an object of devotion. The constant ritualization of mechanically reproduced images of Hindu divinities thereby transfigures them into printed murtis, endowing them with accelerated mobility, efficacy, and visuality in the public space. Echoing Walter Benjamin’s (1936) notion of the democratization of art through the mechanical reproduction of images, printed murtis of Hindu deities “bring” the Hindu murti from temples to people’s households, hotels, taxis, offices, and scores of other places, where they become part of everyday life. The conceptual and visual expanse of the murti finds a new, tangible embodiment and a novel omnipresence through the mechanical production of images. But printed murtis are invested with much stronger mobility than images showing secular, or even mythological, scenes that are not “seated” or divinized. Their combination of the visual accessibility stemming from Varma’s “realism” and the print technology that makes them commercially viable commodities allows them to occupy a wider space in popular culture. Through Hindu rituals, printed murtis acquire an added mobility and “enter” into sacred public (shrines, temples, buses, hotels, taxis, etc.) and private (puja rooms) spaces of Hindu worship. Leveraging the mobility of printed murtis both in the market and the public and private sacred spaces, printed images of national heroes capitalize on this established market—economically, visually, and ideologically. Figures of national icons of the freedom struggle are superimposed on the sacred realm of Hindu gods. Mass production and consumption of nationalist popular prints depicting Bharat Mata (Mother India) and national heroes of the freedom struggle represented along with Hindu divinities have inundated the market. Through Varma’s prints of Radha Madhav (figure 2.2), we have observed the manner in which printed images show Hindu divinities beginning to embody temporal realism in the rendering of figures, and also beginning to inhabit “realistic” domestic settings within which they are placed. Quoting Anuradha Kapur, as Pinney points out, in Ravi Varma prints, “‘representationally, the past and the present almost look the same’: the time of the Gods appears to be ‘our’ historical contemporary time” (2004, 66). Set within a similar realist idiom as Varma’s prints, the figure of Bharat Mata is shown as a form of Hindu goddess—the Goddess Durga—and becomes mythic, contemporary, religious, and political at the same time. A similar multivalent identity has also been bestowed upon national heroes such as Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, and Bhagat Singh. To illustrate the convergence of Hindu divinities with national heroes in printed images, I will examine a few images from popular art that depict

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national heroes with Hindu deities. Some of these images, such as Mahatma Gandhi Being Blessed by Rama (c. 1940s) and Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna (c. 1940s), are collages assembled by cutting and pasting images of national heroes and Hindu deities from popular prints and other visual sources.6 These cuttings are then glued on a background painting done in the traditional style of Nathadwara art (Jyotindra Jain 2019). Even though they do not completely qualify as printed images, our main concern here is to show how national heroes are being inserted, both “physically” and conceptually, into the sacral space of Hindu divinities in popular art and, in the process, reconfiguring both the identity of the deities and of the heroes. In Mahatma Gandhi Being Blessed by Rama, Gandhi is shown in the same space and time zone as Ram, a third-century BCE Hindu god (Jyotindra Jain 2003).7 The visual imagery collapses distinctions between celestial and temporal, god and human, ancient and modern, and distance between time and space. Most importantly, it effaces the difference between political and divine, converging them in the realm of nationalism, which is meant to transcend all these categories. Though the figure of Ram is a central part of the composition, the deeply contemplative figure of Gandhi becomes the focal point of the viewer while the Hindu god, Ram recedes into a contemporarylooking architectural background. Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna has a similar nationalist agenda that is more explicitly represented ­(figure 2.3). It shows the Bengali freedom fighter dressed in his hallmark military attire offering his head to Bharat Mata. The figure of the national hero is framed by two Hindu deities, Krishna on the right and Durga in her avatar of Bharat Mata on the left. Krishna is shown with his iconographic peacock crown, blue skin color, and flute. Bharat Mata is represented as the Goddess Durga through her iconographic symbol, the trident, accompanied by her vahana (vehicle), the lion. In a departure from traditional iconography, a mythical crocodile-like beast with a British flag tied around its neck hungrily slithers around her feet. The central part of the image is dominated by Bose, who is shown offering his decapitated, blood-dripping head to Bharat Mata. Other slain martyrs lie on the ground in the form of a mangled garland of decapitated heads floating in a pool of blood (Jyotindra Jain 2004). The fantastical beast (representing the British) that lies at the feet of Bharat Mata opens its mouth as if waiting to swallow the decapitated heads to satiate its greed. In a mode of visual dialogue, Bose extends his severed head not only to Bharat Mata but also to the beast. The suffering and physical pain of the violence is ideologically erased and, in many ways, abetted by the presence of the Hindu deities in the image. For instance, the figure of Krishna remains unmoved while witnessing the bloody carnage, playing the flute on a serene moonlit night, while Bharat Mata raises

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Figure 2.3  Reproduction of a Collage, “Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna.” Original Image (c.1940s.) in Indian Popular Culture: The Conquest of World as Picture, 2004, by Jyotindra Jain. Image Courtesy, Tresa Tony.

her hand and is actually shown blessing Bose for his sacrifice, legitimizing the act of “feeding” the “British monster” with Indian blood. Through their mute, frozen gestures, the Hindu deities lend credibility to the concept of nationalism, sanitizing and thereby naturalizing the violence and bloodshed that accompanies it. One can make the connection that only by satisfying the hunger of the beast with the sacrifice of freedom fighters will Bharat Mata continue to stand in glory and eventually overpower or domesticate the beast, the power-hungry British, as her vahana from Hindu iconography, the lion, stands back, unable to protect her. Represented as a deflated form of Durga, the symbols of her power—the lion and the trident—are both ornamental and immobile, and hence rendered useless. While the notion of Bharat Mata is typically used to initiate nationalistic fervor, here it is relocated as a figure who, though revered, needs to be protected by its most valorous citizens, the freedom fighters. Similarly, the figure of Krishna is also rendered powerless. Frozen in his historical time and with outdated iconography, he is merely able to provide background music with his flute as this new mythopolitical drama unfolds. The interplay between Bharat Mata (as Durga), Krishna, and Bose in the image reverse the idea of the divine, rewriting and subsuming it in a new rhetoric of popular nationalism generated through printed images. In the construction of this new visual iconography of the nationalist mythological regime, human figures in

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the form of freedom fighters are endowed with immense power while Hindu gods are rendered either as passive spectators (Krishna) or as powerless and in need of protection (Bharat Mata). It is the national hero, Bose who charges the whole image with an unsurpassable potency through his unflinching bravery and sacrifice, mobilizing the political ideology of nationalism that the image professes. In this manner, the diminishing power of Hindu gods is re-located in national heroes. This role reversal serves the project of nationalism, showing that humans are now in charge and even begin to protect the gods. Unlike the miniature paintings (such as the one from Kangra, figure 2.1) and Ravi Varma’s prints (such as Radha Madhav, figure 2.2), where the gods are centrally positioned, in this image the sacrifice of the freedom fighter is the main subject. Thus, national heroes are positioned in the central part of the image, surpassing the elevated, all-powerful status of divinities—the figure of Krishna appears off to the extreme right and the figure of Bharat Mata occupies the left part of the painting. While the two gods remain pictorially grounded in the terrestrial domain, the immortal soul of Bose, who sacrificed himself for the nation, hovers in the celestial arena, symbolized by the tranquil moonlit sky. This visual imagery creates a perfect setting for constructing the myth of nationalism and the cult of worshipping national heroes. The visual dominance of national heroes over divinities and the project of deifying contemporary cultural icons through mass-produced images are reworked in a 1948 oleograph entitled Gandhi, where the figure of Mahatma is centrally positioned among the Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna (figure 2.4). In the composition, Gandhi dominates the visual space as the largest figure, diminishing all of the gods, who appear smaller in comparison. The Buddha and Jesus hover above him while the comparatively diminutive figure of the sleeping Krishna that is placed in the foreground, is killed by an arrow from the hunter Jara on the right. Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger emphasize the image’s juxtaposition of Gandhi and Krishna: The mythological hunter, Jara, with a smoking pistol in one hand and his bow in the other, reinforces the analogy drawn between Gandhi’s violent death and the prophesied, though inadvertent, death of Krishna at the hands of Jara. To establish a parallel between the predestined death of Krishna at the hands of a hunter, and the violent death of Mahatma at the hands of a Hindu chauvinist, Nathuram Godse, and to describe it as a work of destiny appears to be a perfidious view of history. (2003, 139)

The narrative of Jara in the print, as pointed out by Neumayer and Schelberger, evokes a parallel between Gandhi and Krishna by anchoring their deaths in a single narrative that connects god and human and religion and contemporary politics. Like Mahatma Gandhi Being Blessed by Rama, this

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Figure 2.4  Gandhi; Oleograph (1948). Image Courtesy: Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger, Popular Indian Art: Raja Ravi Varma and the Printed Gods of India, 2003, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

image collapses the notion of time by conflating two worlds. A new concept of temporality manifests in the clock hanging from Gandhi’s waist, which shows the time of ten past eleven, just fifty minutes before India gained freedom at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. Thus, religio-historical time is replaced by the “empty, homogenous time” of the emerging nation (Anderson 1983), where older gods are being overtaken by the newly ordained divinities of the modern nation. The figure of Gandhi becomes the cynosure of the spectator not only because of his size and pivotal central location, but also, his frontally positioned face is the only one that “returns the gaze” of the spectator, unlike other figures in the composition. As the “father of the nation,” he stands majestically, and his smiling visage greets viewers

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with folded hands, communicating with them even as numerous bullets puncture his body and blood oozes out in continuous streams. Unlike the bloodbath of mutilated bodies and violence of Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna (figure 2.3), Gandhi remains animated and energetic. The image directs the viewer to his superhuman attributes that transcend human pain and suffering. Around him, Krishna sleeps, his body listless and devoid of life; the Buddha awkwardly blesses him; and Jesus floats in mid air, the misery of his suffering writ large over his face. But, only the figure of Gandhi exudes energy, life, charisma, and divinity. Standing erect, he smiles as if completely unharmed and able to “conquer” death that even gods cannot escape. His supernatural aura subsumes the figures of the other gods, whose stiff gestures and postures render them immobile, powerless, and insignificant. In this manner, national heroes and leaders in printed images are not only elevated to the level of gods but also transcend it, establishing a new national space in which cultural icons reside above celestial divinities. In other popular images, the sacred status of freedom fighters and political leaders, deities of the new nation, is even more pronounced and visually expressive. For example, Bharat Uddhar (1931) appropriates a Hindu religious narrative within a new nationalist allegory, replacing the figure of Shiva with Gandhi and Yam, the Lord of Death, with the British (Pinny 2004, 114). As anti-colonial artifacts in the garb of religious tales, such prints also provide a visual channel for Indian freedom fighters to enter celestial spheres of popular imagination. Another example that shows how national icons become indexical forms of Hindu deities in popular art is Gandhi as Vishnu (figure 2.5), which is derived from an image of the Hindu God Vishnu reclining on the coils of Anant Nag, a serpent resting on the cosmic ocean, while his wife, Goddess Laxmi, gently massages his feet. From Vishnu’s navel, Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, blossoms on a lotus, encapsulating the conception of the universe in the Hindu ethos. However, in the nationalist narrative portrayed in Gandhi as Vishnu, Vishnu has been replaced by Gandhi, who reclines while his wife, Kasturba, gently massages his feet. Instead of Brahma, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, springs from Gandhi’s navel, exemplifying the construction of a new nation with its new gods. Popular prints have also depicted the direct worship of political leaders. God of Indian Children, for instance, portrays a child with folded hands venerating the portrait of Nehru (Kajri Jain 2007, 283). The print is devoid of Hindu deities, who are no longer needed to legitimize the “holy” status of political leaders and freedom fighters. Rather, the divinity of the political leader is established through the print’s title, the worshipful mode of the child, and the frontal image of Nehru, all of which inscribe him into a “sacred economy” in which the direct worship of political leaders has been

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Figure 2.5  Gandhi as Vishnu, Reproduction of a Popular Print. Image Courtesy, Tresa Tony.

naturalized (281). Through the veneration of freedom fighters and political leaders, these printed images imply that national heroes transcend everything in our lived and imaginative reality and reside in a supreme realm that even gods cannot reach. When such prints are ritually “seated” and divinized through Hindu modes of worship, they become charged as objects of devotion or printed national murtis. Their depiction of national heroes in such sacred roles captivates the mythic-political space of popular culture, making national heroes the modern gods of the nation. Since the first half of the twentieth century, printed murtis have been a significant channel for the reappropriation of Hindu deities and the deification of national heroes. Fused with the contemporary discourse of nationalism, they occupy the cityscape, marking sacred spaces in restaurants, offices, shops,

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hotels, taxis, temples, and so on, and also in the private domain of residential puja rooms. The phenomenon of divinizing human beings in the physical and conceptual space of the printed murti has been extended to include gurus and ancestors, who were likely worshipped in the form of photographs after printed murtis became omnipresent. This kind of popular culture facilitates the emergence of a new sacred space, a fluid category with shifting meanings, simultaneously inhabited by gods, heroes, gurus, and ancestors brought together with technologically produced images. The emergence of this space thus naturalized the worship of human beings within the space of Hindu deities. The entry of the film poster—and, through it, of the cinematic stars and their deified images—into this sacred spatial construct of printed images seems the next logical step in this trajectory of visual history of popular prints in India. FILM POSTER AS A MURTI The emergence of star murtis, or divinized posters of film stars, is closely linked to that of popular religious prints. As I have proposed, Varma’s popular prints of Hindu deities transform into printed murtis when re-situated, consecrated, and ritualized. His renditions also influenced popular theatre and cinema of the early twentieth century. As Pinney (2004, 72–73) emphasizes, D. G. Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, was deeply inspired by Varma’s visual rendition of Hindu divinities and emulated them in films such as Lanka Dahan (1917) and Shree Krishna Janma (1918). Through the constant circulation of Varma’s prints and their translation into a cinematic medium, the representation of Hindu deities became so visually convincing that when Lanka Dahan was released in theaters, audiences prostrated themselves in devotion before the cinematic screen (72). Quoting J. B. H. Wadia, Pinney provides an account of the audience reaction: “Lanka Dahan” was a minor masterpiece of its time. The spectacle of Hanuman’s figure becoming progressively diminutive as he flew higher and higher in the clouds and the burning of the city of Lanka in table-top photography were simply awe-inspiring .  .  . devout villagers from nearby Bombay had come in large numbers in their bullock carts to have darshan of their beloved God, the Lord Rama. (73)

After independence, the devotional frenzy generated through the mythological film Jai Santoshi Maa (1975) received scholarly attention. The film became a cult phenomenon in itself (Lutgendorf 2002). Spectators commonly engaged in ritual and devotional behavior during its screenings, and temples and shrines to the Hindu Goddess Santoshi soon began to appear in

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many parts of India. Anita Guha, the actress who played Goddess Santoshi, said: “Audiences were showering coins, flower petals and rice at the screen in appreciation of the film. They entered the cinema barefoot and set up a small temple outside. . . . In Bandra, where mythological films aren’t shown, it ran for fifty weeks” (Lutgendorf 2003, 19). On such occasions, these mythologicals, as they are called, erased the difference between a Hindu temple and a cinema hall and, by extension, between a spectator and a devotee. The conceptual reconstruction of the cinema hall as the dark chambers of the inner sanctum in a temple made it a performative zone for ritualizing the cinematic image with Hindu modes of worship. Thus, Indian cinema began to be embedded in the discourse of popular religiosity augmented through mythological films, which in turn were influenced by popular prints showcasing similar subject matter. While very different from Lanka Dahan and Jai Santoshi Maa, the masala films8 of the 1970s and 1980s that were instrumental in making Amitabh a superstar also had references to Hindu religious narratives as discussed in chapter 1. Though not directly set within a Hindu idiom, these films repeatedly invoke the theme of good triumphing over evil, which forms the quintessence of the two major Hindu epics, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat. In both these texts, the Hindu gods Ram and Krishna are represented as ideological carriers of truth and goodness; they vanquish the evil in the world with their divine power. In a postcolonial modern setting, Amitabh, mostly playing the virtuous but oppressed lumpen proletariat, is endowed with similar superhuman attributes. He singlehandedly fights the corrupt system of the State and becomes victorious in reestablishing peace and righteousness in the world. His larger-than-life character resonates with the earthly avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu in his incarnations of Ram and Krishna. Thus, as a cinematic avatar of Hindu gods, Amitabh as Vijay (meaning victory) reinforces the moral message entrenched in Hindu epics that good triumphs over evil.9 In several film posters of Amitabh, visual hints emphasize the superhuman stature of the film star, equating him with Hindu divinities. Let us examine two film posters of a popular Amitabh film, Mahaan (1983; figures 2.6 and 2.7). In the first film poster, he is the pivotal figure of the whole composition (figure 2.6). His striking triple visage, one frontal and two side profiles, clearly resonates with the colossal sculpture of the trimurti of a three-headed Shiva, found in the Elephanta caves (c. 5–6th century AD). The multiple heads represent key aspects of Shiva: creation, preservation, and dissolution. In the second film poster of Mahaan (figure 2.7), Amitabh is once again represented multiple times. In the foreground, he is depicted fighting the villain of the film, Amjad Khan. Like most films of this era, Amitabh triumphs over evil at the end of the film. Positioned against a red backdrop, the film star

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Figure 2.6  Reproduction of the Film Poster of Mahaan (1983). Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

“radiates” golden rays, a visual technique used to emphasize the divinity of Hindu gods in popular prints (figure 2.9). Amitabh’s powerful status is further enhanced by his larger-than-life image, which occupies the major part of the composition. The use of the technique of hieratic scaling is also evident in his film posters (figures 2.6 and 2.7). This technique, seen in many paintings and sculptures, including that of Hindu gods and goddesses, enlarges a composition’s central figure to show his/her superiority over others, which are much reduced in size. In popular prints of Hindu deities, hieratic scaling highlights the power invested

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Figure 2.7  Reproduction of the Film Poster of Mahaan (1983), Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

in them, as we also observed in printed national murtis, where national icons dominate the composition (figure 2.4). The use of this technique creates a visual resonance of the figural construction of cinema stars on film posters with that of Hindu gods and national heroes in popular prints. In addition to representing the star as a symbol of divine power, there are parallels between the landscapes made in popular prints and Bollywood song and dance sequences. Jyotindra Jain (2004) observes that the dreamlike condensation of settings, people, and events in Hindi films is comparable to the scenes of Krishnalila, the divine pastime of Krishna, depicted in collages made with readymade printed pictures. The similarity between popular prints

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and Bollywood song and dance sequences is visible not only in the way the background has been constructed, as suggested by Jain; often the posture, gesture, and even the costumes of Bollywood heroines have an uncanny resemblance to the Hindu goddesses envisioned by Varma and in popular prints inspired by his works. For example, the dallying of Radha and Krishna in Varma’s Radha Madhav (figure 2.2) has a counterpart in the romantic and titillating rendezvous of the hero and heroine in several Bollywood numbers. Many songs of Madhuri Dixit films in the nineties, show her jiving to the pulsating Bollywood numbers with her co-stars (Prem Granth, Beta, Khalnayak, etc.). The seductive pose of Madhuri with her midriff-baring dress and her amorous positioning with the hero is reminiscent of the dancing pose of divine couples like Shiv-Parvati and Radha-Krishna in popular prints. In this manner, it becomes clear that in addition to the historical connection between cinema and popular prints discussed before, there is also a direct visual link between representations of Hindu divinities and cinematic renditions of film stars. Similar to the performative space activated through Hindu rituals around printed murtis, the pictorial space of cinematic images on film stills and posters becomes a site on which Hindu rituals can be invoked. For instance, the enactment of darshan, discussed in chapter 1, can be seen in the context of cinematic images and printed murtis. A visual analysis of a film still of Amitabh from Agneepath (1990; figure 2.8) and a popular print of Krishna (figure 2.9) illustrates this point. Despite differences in dress and iconography, the images of Amitabh and Krishna in the respective still and print share formal similarities. The employment of an iconic mode of frontality to depict Amitabh replicates the direct frontal gaze of Krishna. Amitabh’s face, shorn of all accessories, becomes the focal point of the entire seventy mm screen while everything in the background fades into oblivion. He directly addresses the audience as his gaze “pierces” through the screen and “meets” the eye of the spectator in the cinema hall. Linking frontality with darshan, Madhava Prasad quotes, “‘Pulling towards the static, the gaze pulled towards [the] idealist, purely specular frontal aspect of the image’” (1998, 18). He adds, “The frame’s ability to ‘directly’ apprehend the real was thus constrained by an idealization, offering the image as an anchor, a resting point for the gaze .  .  . is related to the institution of darsana”(19). Within this space activated by the exchange of gazes between the actor on the screen and the spectator in the darkened cinema hall, the devotee-fan experiences an individual darshanic experience similar to the experience of devotees in front of Hindu murtis in temples or in front of the printed murtis described earlier. As discussed in chapter 1, Hindi cinema commonly employs frontality in film, especially in the first shot that introduces the hero. The moment the hero appears on screen, the camera zooms in on his face, where his eyes become the focal point, making “visual contact” with every viewer in the cinema hall.

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Figure 2.8  Amitabh as Vijay, Film Screenshot from Agneepath (1990).

Devotee-fans, on their part, welcome cinematic darshan not only by absorbing and returning the gaze, but also by performatively acknowledging it with catcalls, whistles, and euphoric screaming. Drawing a parallel between Hindu temples and cinema halls as “the temples of modern India,” Vijay Mishra notes: They are designed to seduce: monumental spaces gleam with light and color, vestibules are plastered with posters of gods and goddesses, red carpets exude desire and wantonness. Devotees come in huge numbers to worship, “to take darsana,” at the shrine of the new image, the oneiric image that will create their new gods and even their new beliefs. (1)

The mode of frontality opens up and orchestrates a performative cinematic darshanic space of celluloid divinities. The constant circulation of printed images of film stars in the form of posters ensures a continued interaction between the spectator with the star beyond the cinematic screen. The film poster becomes a dialogical site for an extended cinematic darshanic space, beyond the cinematic screen into popular religiosity, relocated into the cinematic sacred. An example of this process is evident in a poster from Saawariya (2007), which shows the film stars in an “eternal” Bollywood romantic pose repeated over decades in film songs and posters depicting the love-struck hero and heroine gazing into each other’s eyes, very much like printed images of the

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Figure 2.9  A Popular Print of Krishna.

divine couple, Radha and Krishna (figure 2.10 and figure 2.11). As Neumayer and Schelberger point out: “The lovers, Radha and Krishna, [have been depicted] in the style of the movies of the early 1930s. These prints were widely distributed during that time, partly as advertisements of mythological movies, but also for their value as religious icons” (2003, 99). Even today, images of Radha and Krishna remain a converging point, augmenting the confluence of cinematic and religious sensibility in the domain of the cinematic sacred. The continued overlap between the cinematic (film posters) and the sacred (religious icons) in printed imagery is accentuated when charged with Hindu rituals of puja, arati, and darshan. The film poster as an advertising material is recontextualized when activated with publics of fan-bhakti of the devotee-fan and begins to function as a star murti.

“STAR MURTI”: MOBILIZING CINEMATIC DARSHAN Like the murti, the film poster is endowed with an efficacy that allows it to be framed in different contexts. M. S. S. Pandian elucidates that film artifacts such as posters can be reappropriated in different sites and function in multivalent forms. He states that “the visual artifacts, though brought to life

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Figure 2.10  Reproduction of the Film Poster of Saawariya (2008). Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

by the commercial intent of the film industry and beyond, have lives of their own. They circulate in unintended domains and perform unintended tasks” (2005, 57). Seen in the light of devotional fandom, film posters of Amitabh are invested with a sacral aura by devotee-fans and reappropriated by the ABFA. The cinematic darshanic space evoked through printed murtis and screen images of Amitabh is expanded and relocated on them. When I met Patodiya in 2005, he had an exclusive shrine dedicated to the film star set up in the puja room of his home (figure 2.14). Although housed in the privacy of his home, the shrine was accessible to other ABFA members. The walls of the Amitabh shrine, adorned with the divinized posters of the film star, also exhibited a poster of the Hindu Goddess Kali and a photograph of Patodiya’s deceased mother. All three pictures were frontally positioned that directly gaze at the viewer, inviting a darshanic exchange (figure 2.12). The display of these images in the same location aligned three worlds—Hindu divinities, ancestor worship, and film stars—within a hybrid space that effected a natural transition of the cinematic image into an object of worship framed within Hindu modes of rituality by the everyday practices of Amitabh puja, Amitabh arati, and so on.

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Figure 2.11  Radha Krishna; Half-Tone Print (c.1935). Image Courtesy: Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger, Popular Indian Art: Raja Ravi Varma and the Printed Gods of India, 2003, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

Within the Hindu ethos, the divine is considered omnipresent and omnipotent, and can be embodied into any locality or container that is considered adequate “if the deity chose to do so” (Keul 2017b, 386). So, the “idea of agency and autonomy of superhuman protagonists in consecration rituals” is paramount. In the context of the devotional fandom of the ABFA, Amitabh’s constant engagement with devotee-fan club members over decades is seen as him blessing their worship practices and consecrating cinematic artifacts (an idea further enhanced when he donates personal items to devotee-fans). Furthermore, for the ABFA members, the installation of the main image of

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Figure 2.12  Amitabh Shrine in Sanjay Patodiya’s Puja Room, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

Amitabh in the puja room/sanctum of Bachchan Dham is seen as an embodiment of the celestial power of their star deity; who chose to dwell in it. Thus, the cinematic image of Amitabh is reconfigured as a deified image. In the next few pages, I will describe how Amitabh’s murti is framed as that of the Hindu God Ram. The central murti of the shrine in Patodiya’s home (figure 2.15) was an image of Amitabh as Lord Indra in the poster and DVD cover from the film Agnivarsha (2002) (figure 2.13), the only film in which Amitabh played the role of a Hindu god.10 Indra is considered a comparatively “minor” god in Hinduism as compared to Ram and Shiva. A close observation of the film still of Amitabh as Lord Indra reveals how the star’s image has been framed with the technique of frontality, setting the mode for cinematic darshan (figure 2.14). The iconographic features of Indra, symbolized by his crown, jewelry, tilak, and dress, are striking. He also emanates a “divine” light that pierces the dark background as he appears on the screen. Although the figure of Amitabh seems more similar to Christ than a Hindu god, his expressive frontal face and open arms are positioned to indicate that he is not only interacting with the protagonist, Arvasu, but also with viewers. The direct address of Amitabh as Lord Indra to the protagonist in the film still is understood as an individual

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Figure 2.13  Reproduction of the Agnivarsha, DVD Cover Showing Amitabh as Hindu God Indra (2002). Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

interaction between the devotee-fan spectators and the cinematic image. Needless to say, out of all available images of the star, the ABFA chose the print from Agnivarsha as the central image of worship in the Amitabh shrine (figure 2.15). Even though as Indra, Amitabh is on screen just for a couple of minutes, for his devotee-fans it represents a cinematic visual moment of recognition of the star deity as a Hindu god, further legitimizing the ABFA’s devotional fandom. The star deity embodies a reel presence of how the ABFA perceive him in real life. It is this visual moment that Patodiya seized when choosing to transform the image of Amitabh as Indra into a star murti. “I saw this picture of Amitji

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Figure 2.14  Amitabh as Lord Indra. Film Screenshot from Agnivarsha (2002).

Figure 2.15  Amitabh Shrine in Sanjay Patodiya’s Puja Room, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

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as Indra in a magazine, and immediately decided to install it in my puja room,” he said (interview with the author, 2005). The process of metamorphosing the image into a star murti began when Patodiya made three copies of the same image and pasted them next to one another. Gesticulating toward the star murti, Patodiya explained, “It is actually a collage made by replicating and joining together three images of Amitji as Indra” (interview with the author, 2005). Framed as a devotee-fan artifact, the image shares and recreates Varma’s photographic temporal realism, making it more accessible to fan-bhakts who are used to worshipping Varmasque-style Hindu deities in the form of calendars and printed images in their own puja rooms, cars, and so on. Instead of the frontally positioned face in the film still (figure 2.14), the poster shows a three-quarter view of Amitabh as Indra. Though the gaze of the star deity is deflected to the side, tripartite replications of his face inaugurate a modern Hindu cinematic triptych, a trimurti, evoking the concept of the Hindu Trinity; the star murti of Amitabh fuses and embodies the power of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva in a single image (figure 2.15 and figure 2.6). The seriality of the image also multiplies the pairs of eyes and with it opens a wider darshanic field, connoting the star deity’s all-pervasive presence. To intensify the spectrum of his gaze, frontally positioned posters of the star abounded the space around the puja room. The posters on the left, below, and in front of the shrine were all frontally positioned images, enhancing the effect of darshan in the shrine. To further examine the cinematic darshan experienced by devotee-fans in this Amitabh shrine, it is helpful to consider the concept of scopic regimes. French film critic Christian Metz (1982) refers to scopic regimes to explore the perception of a cinematic image by the spectator. Martin Jay (1988) broadens the term, fracturing the traditional view of vision as a universal and natural phenomenon and arguing that visual experiences are mediated and vision is a constructed, pluralistic process based on culturally specific ways of seeing. Merleau-Ponty explains how scopic regimes relate to the exchange of gazes between the image and the spectator: “the seer and the visible reciprocate one another and we no longer know which sees and which is seen” (Baldwin 2004, 256). Lacan also describes this scopic field, stating, “I see only from one point, but in my existence I am looked at from all sides” (1986, 72). Hence, as Courtney Tunis notes, “the scopic field is not limited to the subject’s view, but indicates all visual angles, which is difficult to get around when the medium for experiencing this field is limited to the eye” (2007). Understood in the context of cinematic darshan, the ideas of scopic regime and scopic field become charged with reciprocity between the star murti and the devotee-fan that involves the engagement of sensory organs other than vision. As noted earlier, devotee-fans constantly touch the star murti and then immediately place their hands on their forehead or the heart, a process

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through which the blessings and power from the star murti are understood to be transferred to the devotee-fans, through the medium of darshanic gaze and reciprocal touching. The impact of this process was enhanced in the puja room, where every wall displayed deified poster images, making the darshanic experience different from that in the cinema. While engaging with and “corporeally ritualizing” the star murti, the devotee-fan was also being “looked at” not only by the image in front of him, but also by the one to his side, at his back, and so on. In this manner, the devotee-fan was “perceived” simultaneously from multiple angles by the omnipresent star deity, creating a scopic regime of devotional fandom. The multi-spatial darshanic grid within which the devotee-fan was “caught” generated a panopticon of circular darshanic gazes, dynamically charging the whole space with devotional fandom. A similar darshanic grid has been established in the Bachchan Dham (discussed in chapter 1), where almost every inch of the temple space is populated by the star deity’s images, saturating the visual space of the onlooker such that the devotee-fan is pierced by the penetrating gaze of the star deity from all sides (figure 1.6). However, being distilled through a museum display, the publics of fan-bhakti and the “omnipresent” media gaze, in the Bachchan Dham, this darshanic grid instead converges on the body of the devotee-fan.11 In the puja room, this network of darshanic gaze converging on the triple image of the star deity was intensified through textual references (figure 2.15). The word “God” followed by the phrase “In the First Person” was printed three times on the poster, providing a textual base for the image. The word “Bachchan” was also replicated vertically, framing the right side of the image. The relationship between the image and the text within which the star deity operated in the murti verbally and visually linked the idea of Bachchan with the idea of a god. To further interrogate the relationship between the image and the text, it is useful to see how Kress and Van Leeuwen emphasize the connection between subjectivity and sign-making or—in this context— between the producer of the image and the written word: [Sign-making] rests on the interest of sign-makers, which leads them to select particular features of the object to be represented as criterial, at that moment, and in that context . . . The interest of the sign-makers, at the moment of making the signs, leads them to choose an aspect or a bundle of aspects of the object to be represented as being criterial, at that moment, for representing what they want to represent and choose the most plausible, the most apt form for its representation. (1996, 11–12; emphasis original)

Thus, in the printed image of Agnivarsha, Patodiya chose not to include any textual references of the film, such as the film’s name and cast, and other images

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that did not fit within the ABFA’s parameters of star divinization. Through the process of selection, the image and the text were framed into the devotional paradigm of ABFA, on which their star devotion could be projected. The textual materiality used to evoke a sacred Hindu space was further legitimized with the saffron band bordering the star murti. Evoking the saffron shawls often worn by priests in Hindu temples, the saffron band in the Amitabh shrine replaced the words “Jai Shri Ram” with “Jai Shri Amitabh” (“Hail God Amitabh”). In this manner, words functioned as ideological visual signs not only framing Amitabh within the pantheonic space of Hindu divinities but also legitimizing the status of the ABFA as his devotee-fans. Since Indra is considered one of the minor deities in Hinduism, textual references to the Hindu God Ram were invoked to further validate the star deity’s divinity and indicate his “higher” pantheonic status. As mentioned in chapter 1, a pair of white shoes from the film Agneepath (1990; figure 1.3), which are currently worshipped in the Bachchan Dham, were also part of the star murti in the shrine. The juxtaposition of the shoes with the star murti naturalized the ritualization of everyday objects and also invoked a common religious metaphor from the Hindu epic Ramayan, discussed in the previous chapter, which reframes ABFA as Bharat-cum-fanbhakts of the star deity, metaphorically linking them to the lineage of the star. By inserting themselves into the star deity’s family, ABFA members enhance their own status, making themselves a part of his pantheon. Other ritual-based accessories—such as the incense burner, arati thali, and flowers that were routinely kept next to the divinized shoes and printed image of the star—further accentuated the ethos of Hindu religiosity framing it as a star murti. Though the image of Amitabh as Indra is an offshoot of the film, in the Amitabh shrine it became a primary component of the fan-bhakti apparatus. In 2009, when the Bachchan Dham was created, the ABFA refashioned the star murti and other devotional objects to fit into their conception of the star temple. The murti was reframed into a single garlanded image of Amitabh as Indra as it entered a dwelling space in the public domain (figure 1.7), as opposed to the triple images housed in the puja room. In the transformation from three images to one, the new star murti alludes to the tradition of a single murti in the garbhagriha of the temple. To amplify the sanctity and exclusivity of the murti, the walls of the garbhagriha were covered with a wallpaper printed with the Amitabh mantras. In this manner, the cinematic darshan converges on the main murti of the temple, animating it with divine power. The Amitabh shoes remained in front of the murti when it was relocated to the Bachchan Dham. Devotional accouterments were added to create a more authentic feeling of a Hindu temple, significantly the temple bell at the entrance of the sanctum and the Amitabh Chalisa. As mentioned in chapter 1, this two-dimensional star murti was replaced with a three-dimensional statue of Amitabh in 2017 (figure 1.8).

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As we have seen throughout this chapter, printed images in the form of posters allow devotee-fans to recreate the cinematic darshan of the star deity in the Bachchan Dham, in puja rooms, on the streets, outside of film theaters, and even virtually, through cell phones and laptops. The darshanic experience of gigantic, often life-sized posters and hoardings of Amitabh is amplified when these images are ritualized with Hindu practices. Another example of how the ABFA incorporates such images into their activities is clear at an ABFA blood donation camp organized on Guru Purnima. In an ABFA video of the event, Patodiya is shown donating blood while venerating and seeking blessings from an image of Amitabh on his mobile phone (“ABFA Gurupurnima” 2005). With a needle in one arm, he waves his phone in front of his eyes with the other, seeking virtual cinematic darshan. He then touches the phone to his forehead as a mark of respect to his star deity. This type of practice is replicated in the Bachchan Dham by ABFA members, during blood donation camps. Unlike the temporary moments of cinematic darshan that take place within the darkened interior of the closed cinema hall, this mobilized cinematic darshan makes visible the bhakti of the devotee-fan to the entire world through the medium of news channels, photographs, and websites. In this form, cinematic darshan becomes visible, communicative, and easily accessible, bringing the focus not so much on the star, but on his bhakts, the ABFA. In this way, cinematic darshan is extended beyond the screen to a wide public realm. Unlike transitory screen images of Amitabh in the cinema, printed images allow ABFA members to freeze a single frame from a film and repurpose it as a murti of a Hindu god. The re-location of the film poster from the world of capitalistic consumerism into the devotional orbit of the devotee-fan further concretizes the identity of the star as a Hindu god and that of ABFA members as his bhakts. The constant circulation of the star murti through the ABFA’s devotional practices, which are regularly reported by the media, reinforces their collective identity, creating a particular form of religiosity centered on the cinematic sacred. Hence, the poster, a technologically produced object transformed into a star murti through Hindu rituals, not only helps the AFBA consolidate its devotional fandom in popular culture but also redefines both cinema and religion in contemporary India. NOTES 1. Examining the concept of the cinematic sacred within the trope of alternative modernity can help us examine how devotee-fans negotiate modernity and tradition in their performance of devotional fandom. However, this analytical lens still functions

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within the larger Eurocentric hegemonic paradigm of locating modernity as the centerspace of academic discourse. As Holdrege reminds us that Eurocentric paradigms provide the implicit standard against which other cultures and religious traditions are compared and evaluated. They “have perpetuated hierarchical taxonomies that privilege certain categories—such as rationality, modernity, progress, capitalism, freedom, and individualism—that together constitute the ideal type ‘European’. Such taxonomies provide an explicit or implicit comparative framework against which the ‘non-European’ Other is judged and excluded by a series of absences—as non-rational, non-modern, non-progressive, noncapitalist, and so on” (2010, 158). Also, see Dirlik’s discussion of the critique of the idea of “alternate modernity” in “Thinking Modernity Historically: Is ‘Alternative Modernity’ the Answer?” (2013) and Ghosh and Sarkar’s “The Global-Popular: A Frame for Contemporary Cinemas” (2022). 2. An earlier version of this chapter, titled “Poster as a Murti,” was presented at the 20th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS), Manchester, July 8–11, 2008. A talk, titled “Bollywood Deities and Star Murtis: The Amitabh Bachchan Temple and Devotional Fandom in Indian Popular Culture,” was presented at the IHC’s South Asian Religions and Cultures Research Focus Group, the University of California, Santa Barbara, March 14, 2012. 3. Film posters of Amitabh from his newly released films continue to be animated by the worship practices of the ABFA through rituals conducted outside film theaters, in fan yatras, and also inside the Bachchan Dham. See the puja and arati of the film poster outside a theater in the YouTube video, “Thugs of Hindostan” (2018). 4. “By 1904, when he painted his portrait of Dwijendranath Tagore, he was continuing to use oil pastels but moving toward a new technique in keeping with his discovery of the ‘wash’, where he rubbed the paints to produce a softer multi-toned ‘washed’ effect. Skin tone, modeling and texture played a subsidiary role at this time though a distinct light source was still in use to produce a ‘glowing’ effect” (Banerji 2010, 110). 5. Pallu is the end part of the sari, which covers the midriff and the chest of the woman. 6. Both these images that were displayed in an exhibition in 2003, in Berlin titled, “Popular Indian Culture. ‘The Conquest of the World as Picture’,” curated by Jyotindra Jain. See the images here: https://www​.asianart​.com​/exhibitions​/body​_city​ /culture​.html 7. The identity and historical origin of Ram has been fiercely debated in India, especially in the context of the Ram Setu Project. See Chopra (2014) and Natarajan (2021). 8. The word masala refers to a mixture of spices. In context to Indian cinema, it evokes a style of filmmaking that has a little bit of everything, including romance, comedy, action, and song and dance. This particular style gives Indian cinema its distinctive flavor. 9. In many films, Amitabh uses the same screen name, Vijay, a character that helped him etch his “immortal” image of the “angry young man,” which took him to the heights of superstardom. See chapter 1 for more details.

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10. According to Sanjay Patodiya, a version of the murti of Amitabh in the puja room was relocated to the Bachchan Dham in 2009 and the Amitabh shrine was dismantled (interview with the author, 2010). 11. As described in chapter 1, Bachchan Dham is also a museum that houses pictures of ABFA members, with exhibits detailing their social projects, and the temple space is a permanent public site for worshipping their star deity. The darshanic grid in this case is defined by the publics of fan-bhakti and becomes part of the temple’s display strategy, rather than being an exclusive space for darshanic exchange ­ between the devotee-fan and the star deity, such as inside the cinema hall, or in the privacy of Patodiya’s puja room.

PART II

MATERIALITY AND SPATIAL CONSTRUCTS DEVOTEE-FAN ART

Chapter 3

“Starring” Madhuri as Durga The Madhuri Dixit Temple and the Performative Fan-bhakti of Pappu Sardar1

I have been worshipping [film star] Madhuri for the last several years. Everyday I do arati for images of my goddess. For me, Madhuri is like Maa Durga, and I am her bhakt. –Pappu Sardar, interview with the author, 2005

Even in March 2008, the sweltering heat of Tatanagar was overwhelming. This was my second visit to the city in three years. My objective was to visit the Madhuri Dixit Temple dedicated to Bollywood film star Madhuri Dixit and to follow up on the second round of interviews with its owner-cum-priest, Pappu Sardar. As I stepped out of the cab, a beaming Pappu Sardar greeted me. We were still exchanging pleasantries when, out of nowhere, a group of journalists armed with cameras started clicking our photograph. Seeing the bewilderment on my face, Pappu Sardar calmly said, “There are five news channels and ten newspaper journalists waiting to interview you.” Considering my humble academic background, I could not understand why the press would be interested in interviewing me, except for the fact that I was conducting research on Pappu Sardar’s temple. In the three years since my last visit, his celebrity status and the Madhuri Dixit Temple had acquired national fame. As I politely refused the interviews, an enthusiastic reporter from The Telegraph came and sat next to me. She said, “It’s strange that you come all the way from United States to do research on Pappu Sardar! To be frank, he is weird and does weird things in the name of Madhuri. In fact, he is only popular among the masses. The elite of the city think he is crazy.” The next day, The Telegraph flashed the story, “Madhuri Mania Inspires US Researcher” (Choudhury 2008). As I read the article, I was taken aback to 111

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find that I had been misquoted as labeling Pappu Sardar’s activities “absurd” and referring to his “persisting eccentricities.” I remembered the uneasiness of the journalist and her description of Pappu Sardar as “weird.” And yet, by publishing the story, the journalist was contributing to his popularity. Her story indicates the significant role the media has played since 1996 in sensationalizing Pappu Sardar’s public worship of a Bollywood star as a Hindu goddess and in depicting the space of adulation as a temple.2 In fact, the media has been instrumental in labeling his shop a temple. For example, in 2007, while showing a live telecast of the worship of images of Madhuri by Pappu Sardar, Star News referred to his shop as the Madhuri mandir (temple [“Madhuri, Tera Pappu” 2007]). Over the years, Pappu Sardar has given countless interviews to leading television channels (such as Star News, Aaj Tak, and ANI), which are available on social media, giving his worship practices wider publicity. The Madhuri Dixit Temple is actually an eatery or a chaat shop owned by Pappu Sardar;3 it also functions as a space where he conducts devotional activities for his cinematic goddess. In the inner Madhuri sanctum, accessible only to Pappu Sardar, he performs daily pujas. Numerous large posters adorn the temple walls, juxtaposed against images of the Hindu Goddess Durga and the Sikh spiritual leader Guru Nanak. The images of Madhuri give an uncanny omnipresence to the Bollywood goddess. In addition, the striking display of huge posters alludes to the exhibition style of a museum. They consume the visual space of the customer-spectator who comes to the shop to enjoy a snack. Less than a foot away from them, the close proximity and accessibility of these images to the consumer-spectators “invades” their space, inevitably drawing them into a matrix of the display of devotional fandom. Their gaze is redirected to the divinized posters and accompanying text (the name and cast of Madhuri’s film releases, Pappu Sardar’s poetic renditions on Madhuri, his Madhuri inspired social campaigns, his meeting with her, etc.) that convey a particular mode of knowledge through these images, similar to an exhibit in a museum. So, how does one reconcile the “absurdity” of the Madhuri Dixit Temple, which works as a snack shop, “temple,” and “museum,” with a display of images of a film star who has been “sanctified” through the “eccentric” devotional activities of Pappu Sardar? The Madhuri Dixit Temple foregrounds two issues: first, the framework that allows the chaat shop to function as a temple, and second, the cultural logic that promotes it, which furthers the agenda of the media and of Pappu Sardar himself. In this chapter, I would like to address the following questions: What makes the Madhuri Dixit Temple an exceptional temple, and what is the role of the devotee-fan in its conception? What kind of formal and conceptual reorientation does it take to transform, and for us to understand, a shop that turns into a space of devotional exhibitionism embedded in popular Hindu ritual practices projected on the images

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of a Bollywood star? In other words, how does the Madhuri Dixit Temple become a site for the reimagination of the Hindu temple that juxtaposes and overlays the diverse spaces of a shop, temple, and museum, and what are some of its cultural and sociopolitical consequences? To explore these questions, I will present my argument in three parts. The first will address the reconceptualization of the Hindu temple in postcolonial modernity and how the Madhuri Dixit Temple is borrowing from already existing practices of appropriation of Hindu rituals in popular culture. Among other examples, I will focus on the Bharat Mata Temple in Haridwar, which is dedicated to Bharat Mata (Mother India). The Bharat Mata Temple not only reconfigures Hindu ritual practices for a nationalist deity but the structure and display of images resonate with a museum. The analytical category of a museum‑temple—in which the function and ideology of both the museum and the temple interpenetrate to produce new spaces and meanings—will allow us to understand how the Bharat Mata Temple reconceptualizes the traditional Hindu temple both physically and conceptually. In the second part of my argument, I will apply the same model of the museum‑temple to draw a parallel between the Madhuri Dixit Temple and the Bharat Mata Temple, suggesting that the premeditated display strategies in the Madhuri Dixit Temple function as a museum exhibit in which images of Durga and Madhuri occupy a consecrated space. However, since the Madhuri Dixit Temple operates on multiple levels, the notion of the museum‑temple explains its character only partially. In the third part, I will unpack some of the multiple-layered modalities of the Madhuri Dixit Temple under the rubric of an exhibition temple, a conceptual device that allows us to understand the Madhuri Dixit Temple as a polysemic site of devotional fandom. This new temple space, which concretizes Pappu Sardar’s performative fan-bhakti on the body of the devotee-fan, is pivotal to consolidating his sociopolitical identity as part of an emergent popular culture.

NEW IMAGINATIONS OF HINDU TEMPLES Scholars such as Stella Kramrisch (1976) and George Michell (1977) have defined the Hindu temple as the dwelling place for God on Earth in accordance with Hindu traditions. Traditional Hindu temples that fit the definition of Kramrisch and Michell still exist in India. However, in response to the demands of modernity and a rising Indian diaspora, a new Hindu temple category is emerging, characterized by newer types of rituals, design, and location. In Diaspora of the Gods, Joanne Punzo Waghorne (2004) attributes the present surge in temple building, both in the Southern Indian state of Tamil

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Nadu and in the diaspora, to a growing middle class who claim to represent a new polity. She argues that new urban temples challenge traditional building types in terms of design, ritual, and caste dynamics, becoming “the laboratory for an emerging reconfiguration of Hinduism, with social and cultural consequences” (2004, 5–6, 16). The work of Vineeta Sinha (2005) on Muneeshwaran temples helps us understand the making of a “new” Hindu deity and rituals in urban temples of Singapore. A rural guardian deity in Tamil Nadu, Muneeshwaran is reconfigured as a god of urban dwellers “under the rubric of ‘Singaporean Hinduism’” (1). Taking recourse to the concept of “popular Hinduism,” which can be loosely defined as one that stems “from a rebellion against the cerebral, anti-emotional formalism of the enlightenment,” Sinha states that Muneeshwaran worship encompasses “free and liberal use of deities, symbols and ritual practices associated with ‘other’ religious traditions,” foremost among these being Taoism to “producing innovative styles of religiosity” (249, 256, 272). Some rituals that mark the construction of a “new” god in the diaspora incorporate “Western” practices, such as the celebration of Father’s Day and collective cake cutting (231). Though Sinha mentions the incorporation of the secular practice of cake cutting into Muneeshwaran temples as a new form of devotional expression, cake cutting is fast becoming a ritualistic part of neo-Hindu worship practices in Hindu temples both in India and abroad. It has now been extended to the festival of Janamashtami, which celebrates the birth of the Hindu God Krishna, when devotees sing “Happy Birthday to Krishna” and cut a huge cake on temple premises (“Cake Cut as Krishna Arrives” 2002; “Cake Bhoga Cutting” 2008). Other forms of cultural practice emanating from mass media and popular culture—especially television—can be seen in some temples, which have been reported to house MTV reality shows and function as advertising sites for new television series.4 Along with newer aspects of design, ritual, and ideology, the murti in the Hindu temple is also undergoing a transformation. The temple murtis in an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temple in Mumbai are being dressed by the fashion designer Manish Malhotra, who is credited for changing the “look” of many Bollywood heroines (Dasi 2008). In fact, film posters and popular prints that, in some cases, themselves ­function as deified objects are also having an impact on the conception of the murti in temples. In Tamil Nadu, Waghorne (2004) observes that film stars-cum-politicians such as MGR (M. G. Ramachandran) and ­Jayalalithaa, who embody a populist style of politics, directly affect the design of temples and murtis. Sculptors seem less constrained by traditional norms of murti-making and more inspired by films, state politics, and popular art. “Even the dress of these divine ladies seemed to imitate the cinema celebrities on movie posters—the halter top with sarong is a favorite for wiggly

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starlets,” quips the author, though she promptly adds that these borrowings do not make the images less sacred (Waghorne 2004, 162). Important for the discussion to follow, the idea of a Hindu temple is not necessarily restricted to the building types discussed above. The temple or the mandir can be concrete, imposing, and monumental (usually constructed by and for the elite) or can comprise a smaller structure or even an open-air space (usually constructed by the middle and lower class) where people congregate to worship an image through Hindu rites. Roadside Hindu shrines, consisting of a divinized image of a Hindu deity (a sculpture or poster) or a tree that is ritualized by Hindu worship practices (usually a Pipal) on the sidewalk or pavement, are common sights. These open-air or modestly structured street shrines have become an expression of a public form of Hindu religiosity.5 Thus, the Hindu temple, like the Hindu religion, is a fluid concept that can be applied both to architectural and nonarchitectural ritualized spaces created around the murti. Several new temples exemplify the reconceptualization of the Hindu temple by reorienting their spatial and conceptual configuration and practices for new deities. One such example is the Bharat Mata Temple in Haridwar (figure 3.1), in which a modern political agenda fuses with the conceptual and ritualistic space. In this temple, the Hindu Goddess Durga is invoked to posit Bharat Mata as a modern form of a Hindu goddess. Built in 1983 in Haridwar, the Bharat Mata Temple was inaugurated by Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India. It was constructed under the supervision of Swami Satyamitranand, a prominent member of the Hindu organization, Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The temple’s eight-story structure rises to a height of 180 feet. Each floor is designed according to a particular theme dedicated to freedom fighters, saints, Hindu deities, and so on.6 Although the murti of the presiding deity, Bharat Mata and the devotional practices centered on it and other images evoke a traditional Hindu temple, in many aspects the temple reflects its “modern” character. Adorned by a fountain at the entrance with flamboyant lights, the flight of steps leading to the temple resembles an office building (Mckean 1996, 150). The elevator inside the temple and its multistory commercial visage reinforces its officelike feel. In this manner, the design simultaneously posits the structure as a religious space steeped in tradition and as a site of modernity, claimed by the state. The notion of modernity and tradition is also negotiated in the conceptualization of the figure of Bharat Mata. She is represented both through the map and in the figural form of a goddess. The map that greets the viewer at the entrance represents the territorial space of the nation, marked with glittering lights emphasizing the location of different states. As the spectator-devotee rings the bell (a common feature at the entrance of a

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Figure 3.1  Bharat Mata Temple, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

Hindu temple), the presence of the map generates “visual piety,” where it is consumed as a “bodyscape” of Mother India (Ramaswamy 2010). Similar to the temples of Hindu god and goddesses, such as Shiva or Durga, in which the statue of the sacred Nandi bull or the lion, the vahana (vehicle), symbolic of the potency of the deity is placed at the entrance to inspire and prepare the devotee for darshan with the murti, the presence of the map at the entrance of the Bharat Mata temple orchestrates a “doubling” of the darshanic gaze with the nation. Blending tradition and modernity, the large relief map of India is positioned at the entrance as an “aniconic bodyscape” of the nation, functioning as the modern vahana of the national deity, which prepares the spectator-devotee for darshan

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with the iconic murti of Bharat Mata. As the spectator-devotee circumambulates around the map, a few yards away from the tip of the map is a demarcated space that enshrines the murti of Bharat Mata. Clad in a resplendent sari, she demurely stands holding a sheaf of grains in one hand and a milk urn in another, “described as ‘signifying the white and green revolution that India needs for progress and prosperity’” (Mckean 1996, 156). By changing her iconography from the conventional image of Durga, from whom her figure is derived, the national deity is appropriated from the realm of Hindu religion and re-inscribed as a visual icon in the narrative of the modern nation. The Bharat Mata Temple’s unique blending of modernity and tradition reflects the dual conflict between mimicry and aversion faced by the newly formed Indian nation-state described by Partha Chatterjee (2005). He explains that in India, nationalism originated in an ambivalent space where the demand for a sovereign state, though conceived from Western ideas of Enlightenment, quite paradoxically had to be posited against colonial Western rule. Hence, Indian nationalism struggled with an acute “identity crisis”; it had to be both “imitative and hostile to the models it imitates” (Chatterjee 2005, 2). Through its modern-looking temple structure that embeds traditional Hindu rituals into the nationalist project of the State, the Bharat Mata Temple successfully combines a reworking of Western ideals with notions of a traditional Indian identity. One example of this ideological convergence is the arati of the Bharat Mata murti performed at the temple’s grand opening by Indira Gandhi. This event combined the idea of tradition (Hindu rituals) with modernity (symbolized by Indira Gandhi, a woman elected through a democratic process deifying a modern “political” goddess). As the desired space of confluence of Hindu religious traditions and modernity, the Bharat Mata Temple becomes a tangible marker, a religiopolitical facade of Hindu nationalism. Blending its modern structure and the ideology of nationalism with traditional Hindu practices, it professes an ideology of “Rashtra bina dharm adhura hai”(Without nation, religion is incomplete),7 emphasizing that religion needs a nation to complete itself. The distinct identity it acquires through its modern elements separates it from the more traditional temples that bedeck the city of Haridwar. Although constructed as a Hindu temple, the Bharat Mata Temple has strong elements of a museum in its construction of space, technology of collection, and display strategies. Similar to the exhibition of artifacts in a museum, the multistory complex displays images in glass cases with captions. According to Tapati Guha-Thakurta (2004, 43), the museum as a “knowledge-producing apparatus” emerged in India as a result of colonial encounter. Its objective oscillated between the polar opposites of an Ajaib Ghar (wonder house), which was based on spectacle and wonder perceived

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by “natives,” and a place of science and Western rationality that aimed to transform the “wondrous into the knowing, scientific gaze” (Guha-Thakurta 2004, 81). However, she asserts that “the native gaze stubbornly resisted the desired transformation.” Even after independence, the museum failed to make its mark in India as a didactic institution; it was not able to bridge the gap between the specialist gaze of the scholar and the wondering gaze of the lay spectator (Guha-Thakurta 2004, 47). The disconnect between these two visual modes elucidated by Guha-Thakurta may be understood by revisiting the concept of Ajaib. In Translating Museums: A Counterhistory of South Asian ­Museology, Shaila Bhatti explains: Ajaib as an interaction and interpretative strategy cannot remain an indiscriminate naive interest that is directly opposed to learned comprehension and knowledge acquisition; it actually operates as the reverse of resonance, starting from wonder and moving on to some recontextualisation—literal, allegorical, or both. . . . Visitors’ interpretations may not be grounded in pedagogical readings informed by textual or linguistic knowledge but in the embodied and affective spheres, where they identify, feel, and imagine (2012, 179, 186).

Hence, the concept of Ajaib, or wonder, can be seen as a polyscopic “interocular field” that connects the viewing practices of people in the museum to larger religious and cultural visual modes related to Hindu temple practices, processions, festivals, television, films, posters, and other forms of mass media, which populate the spectator’s everyday experience.8 Creating a multiplicity of visualities, it operates in multiple domains of the secular/ religious/sexual, and so on. For a museum to be able to bridge the gap between curators/scholars and visitors/the masses, a new space that “allows” audiences to adapt a polyscopic interocular experience is necessary. This translates as an expression of religious rituals in museum spaces. In the case of the Bharat Mata Temple, the spectator-devotees can show their devotion by engaging in popular religious practices in front of displayed images (such as meditating, chanting, and paying respect to the images). However, the similarity between a museum and a temple goes beyond this commonality of rituals into the visual and ideological construction of space in the Bharat Mata Temple. The Bharat Mata image on the first floor of the temple is displayed behind a glass case with a label, “Vande Bharat Matram,” or “Salutation to Mother India,” placed at her feet (figure 3.2). An accompanying plaque on the wall behind the image instructs the spectator-citizen on the merits of nationalism. Similar to banners and labels in a museum, these textual references function as “agents of ideological persuasion” that induce a particular nationalist reading of the image (Nayar 2006, 134). Another striking aspect of the Bharat

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Figure 3.2  Bharat Mata Murti, Bharat Mata Temple, Haridwar, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

Mata Temple, as discussed before, is the existence of a map of India in the center of the extended sanctum, a visual marker of the temple’s religiopolitical ideology.9 Mounted on a raised platform in the center of the first floor, the map’s strategic positioning in front of the murti of Bharat Mata is geared to generate a preferred meaning of the image, echoing with museum display strategies of selection, classification, and presentation of objects to construct and control a particular form of knowledge. Besides the statue of Bharat Mata and the map of India, a bookstore and the elevator also form part of this national space. Large color photographs of the founder, Swami Satyamitranand, with Indira Gandhi adorn the walls. A poster image of the Hindu God Ram also resides next to the map and is worshipped daily. The intersection of the political domain, represented by the nationalist iconography of Bharat Mata and the map, and the commercial domain, represented by the shop and the museum-like space created by posters and display strategies, changes the conventional notion of a temple, combining it with the characteristics of a museum. In addition, all other images on various floors, whether posters, sculptures, or paintings, are displayed in glass cases with captions and arranged according to particular themes marked

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Figure 3.3  A Spectator-Devotee Worshipping an Image, Bharat Mata Temple, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

at the entrance of each floor, mimicking the idea of thematically organized galleries in a museum (figure 3.3). The characteristics of a Hindu temple fused with that of a museum support the classification of the Bharat Mata Temple as a museum‑temple, fracturing their preexisting paradigms and redefining our institutionalized definition of both, the temple and the museum. In their museum-like space, such contemporary temples display new forms of Hindu deities, who are considered novel avatars of traditional Hindu gods and goddesses framed in the rubric of Hindu religiosity. It is the religious frame that aids the understanding of these secular figures as “deities.”

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It becomes India’s contemporary Ajaib ghar, where the spectator is free or rather “given” a space for a polyscopic visual performance inclusive of modes of popular Hindu religiosity, such as reverently bowing in front of images, folding hands, or seeking darshan while viewing images (figure 3.3). The museum‑temple also brings in the idea of a museum ingrained in popular culture that engages a larger audience by blending everyday modes of Hindu religiosity with the mass media. A site where images and ideology interact, it is accessible and appealing to the “unlearned” gaze of the masses. In this way, museum‑temples negotiate the dichotomy faced by museums as described by Guha-Thakurta (2004), thus bridging the gap between the “gaze of the curator” and the “gaze of the lay spectator.” The Bharat Mata Temple functions as a museum‑temple. In the reappropriation of the Bharat Mata as a Hindu goddess, it is anchored on one side in the age-old religious and cultural viewing practices of the masses based on temple rituals, and on the other, in newer technology-based practices centered around the display strategies in a museum.10 The spectator-devotee freely engages with the images of the deities (both of Bharat Mata and other Hindu divinities) and with paintings, sculptures, and forms of mass media such as photographs, posters, pamphlets, brochures, and books. The consumption of deified images occurs both through the invocation of Hindu rituals and through “modern” viewing practices prompted by glass cases and labels. Exemplifying the confluence of religion and the state, Hindu rituals performed inside are transfigured into “civic ritual” by directing devotion to Bharat Mata and the motherland (Duncan 1995, 2). In this way, the temple becomes a ritual site of nationalism, inculcating a type of “voluntarily self‑regulating citizenry” that converts spectators into subjectcitizens (Bennett 1995, 63). Similar to the goal of museums outlined by Guha-Thakurta (2004), the viewer’s polyscopic interocular gaze is here negotiated and channeled to serve a particular kind of discourse anchored in Hindu nationalism. Another example of a temple that frames political ideology in Hindu worship practices is the Gandhi Temple in Sambalpur, Orissa, which was established in 1974. Here, worship practices focus on the deification of a human being, Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, instead of an imagined nationalist deity, Bharat Mata (“Gandhi Temple” 2018). In this temple, Mahatma Gandhi is worshipped as a god. Morning and evening puja is offered by a priest for a bronze statue of Gandhi placed in the garbhagriha; followed by singing of bhajans and discourses of communal harmony based on Gandhi’s teachings.11 In addition, the plan for a museum-cum-library to be added to the temple complex, with its emphasis on lectures and health camps, not only reverberates with a reimagination of a traditional Hindu temple but, more specifically,

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becomes a site for another emergent museum‑temple (“Unique Historical Gandhi” 2012). Similarly, Swaminarayan temples in the West, with their emphasis on exhibition, profess their own interpretation of religion to become “a devotionally compelling site for the production and sustenance of Swaminarayan-specific desires” (Kim 2009). Temples built upon a nexus between Hindu religion and modern politics are not the only space in which Hindu temples are being rethought. There are examples of similar worship practices and ritual spaces in which icons not only from the political but also from the cinematic and the arena of sports are deified, being reconfigured as designer deities, as we saw in chapters 1 and 2 through the worship of Amitabh Bachchan in the Bachchan Dham in Kolkata.12 As discussed in the introduction, other temples dedicated to film stars, both male and female, are especially prevalent in Southern India. These temple spaces, focusing on the exhibition of ritualized images of stars, resonate with the museum-temple model. At the same time, this model alone cannot contain them; they function as informal sites of star divinization, sans the striking formal architecture or display structure. They tend to become hybrid spaces of a kind of devotional exhibitionism that incorporates various other elements from popular culture. Pappu Sardar’s Madhuri Dixit Temple can be seen as building upon the malleable definition of a temple, which leads to the emergence of a new form of the Hindu temple.

THE SHOP AS A TEMPLE Similar to the informality of the star temples discussed above, the Madhuri Dixit Temple dwells on the site of a chaat shop. From the outside, one sees a row of shops located in a busy bazaar. The shop displays a big sign— “Manohar Chat”—and lacks any visible mark of a Hindu temple or, for that matter, a museum (figure 3.4). Throughout the year, people primarily come here to eat snacks rather than to pay respects to Pappu Sardar’s cinematic goddess or to appreciate the rampant display of Madhuri posters inside the shop. The consecration of the shop into the Madhuri Dixit Temple occurred in 1996, when devotee-fan Pappu Sardar began to hold grand public pujas for posters of the celluloid goddess, to whom he refers in multiple ways: as his guru, as his elder sister, and, primarily, as Durga. Since then, every year on May 15, Madhuri’s birthday, the eatery has been converted into a full-fledged temple in which elaborate Hindu rituals are performed (figures 3.5 and 3.7). Hindu priests hired by Pappu Sardar perform yajnas and chant mantras for the Hindu God Ganesha before the puja for “Goddess Madhuri” commences.

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Figure 3.4  Manohar Chaat, Tatanagar, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

Donning a saffron robe akin to those worn by Hindu priests and chanting “Jai Shree Madhuri Devi Aye Namaha” (“Hail to Goddess Madhuri”), Pappu Sardar conducts a puja of Madhuri’s posters (figure 3.6). After, he navigates the streets of Tatanagar in a Madhuri rath, an open-air truck adorned with deified posters of the star. Thousands participate in his divine festivities by chanting “Madhuri Dixit Ki Jai” (Hail to Madhuri Dixit) along with him (figure 3.8). This is followed by collective ritual dancing to the star’s popular Bollywood songs, which become Madhuri bhajans in devotee-fans’religious context. In the end, free chaat, sweets, and birthday cake are distributed as prasad to everyone. According to Pappu Sardar, 5,000 people gathered to participate in his unique form of devotion in 2008, a number that has been increasing with every passing year (interview with the author, 2018). In every birthday event, Pappu Sardar actively involves the marginalized sections of Tatanagar, such as people from the local old age home, the differently abled, and eunuchs. For almost three decades, he has been engaged in social work for the underprivileged, especially at the Cheshire Home, a place for physically and mentally disabled women, and the old age home. These otherwise marginalized sections of society participate in all of his major public pujas; he directly shares media space

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Figure 3.5  Madhuri Dixit Temple, Tatanagar, May 15 (2007). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

and the limelight with them, especially with kinnar (eunuch), who join him in frantic devotional dancing. Inspired by Pappu Sardar’s philanthropy year after year, many people who come to be part of the celebrations also make donations to these charity organizations. Madhuri’s film releases and the Hindu festivals of Holi and Rakhi propel similar festivities and social mobilization. The involvement of the masses in

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Figure 3.6  Pappu Sardar Performs Puja for Madhuri’s Posters, Holding the Microphone for Star News and Giving Running Commentary of the Event, May 15 (2008). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

celebrations, particularly the manner in which Pappu Sardar brings people from the peripheral levels of society into the mainstream, adds another layer of complexity to the collective worship of his cinematic goddess. In particular, mass participation in his cinedivine rituals allows Pappu Sardar to connect his devotional fandom to the collective popular subconscious of the nation.13 Media images and live telecast of all his celebrations on prominent news channels sustain this connection. Though Pappu Sardar’s chaat shop was constructed by his father solely to serve the purpose of a shop, during Madhuri’s birthday celebrations the shop is expanded into an extended pandal, the kind used for religious and social festivities. For the event, the interior space of the shop is accordingly restructured. Pappu Sardar removes all furniture and the cash counter to mark a sacred site for his devotional activities and to create space for the media. As in Hindu temples, it is then lavishly decorated with flowers and temple bells hanging in front of images. One of the walls (usually to the right of the entrance) is set apart as the temporary exterior Madhuri sanctum, the main ritual area for the event. Pappu Sardar reorganizes Madhuri’s images both in the temple and the exterior sanctum according to the chosen theme of the birthday for that particular year. For example, in 2008, when Madhuri’s film Aaja Nach Le was released, the backdrop of the exterior sanctum was a huge poster from the film that

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became the focal point of the entire ritual; during the 2014 celebrations, the poster from Madhuri’s film Gulaab Gang was consecrated.14 The main ritual image keeps changing, but the garlanded poster of Durga remains the same. Although Madhuri’s posters embellish the walls of the entire temple, this exterior sanctum is marked off with an exclusive table placed in front of the posters to be consecrated. The table has all the worship accouterments and offerings, such as a devotional lamp, bell, coconut, sweets, fruits, and incense, to be presented to the Bollywood goddess (figure 3.7). The yajna is performed while the priests chant mantras. Then, Pappu Sardar performs arati and puja of Madhuri posters using ritual objects from the table, while a host of cameramen capture the event. Usually Pappu Sardar places one or two more tables inside the temple like an exhibit, decorating them based on different themes he chooses every year, such as Madhuri Nagar (2009), Madhuri Children’s Park (2010), and so on. A small model related to the theme is constructed, accompanied by a caption. For example, the exhibit of Madhuri Nagar had an arch-shaped gateway with the name of the “city” dedicated to Madhuri. The model comprised of a modern building structure and a park with an idyllic setting of grazing cows and huts. Pappu Sardar used this table for the main cake cutting ceremony. The celebrations in the temple usually begin with a demarcation of the inside sacred space occupied by Pappu Sardar, his family, kinnar, Hindu priests, and the media. The outside space is festive and carnivalesque, inhabited by

Figure 3.7  Madhuri Dixit Temple (Interior), May 15 (2010). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

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cheering crowds, a live band (similar to those hired for North Indian weddings), and police personnel deployed (with the help of state authorities) to ensure the smooth running of the event. The sacrality of the inside space is further accentuated and reinforced when visitors who come to pay their respects to the goddess are allowed inside only after they remove their shoes; they enter the sanctified temple barefoot, a practice commonly followed in Hindu temples in India (interview with the author, August 2005). As priests chant mantras, Pappu Sardar performs the puja of Madhuri posters in a solemn worshipful mode. After the puja, the sacral identity of the temple extends to encompass an active media space. Although the media is present from the time the puja begins, after the puja is officially over, a question-and-answer session takes place in front of ritualized images. Here, Pappu Sardar poses for photographs and describes his devotional fandom. After the interviews, the continually changing temple space erupts into a rapturously festive zone initiated by the cake cutting ceremony and followed by Pappu Sardar’s uninhibited dancing to famous numbers from Madhuri’s films. Along with the jubilant dance and music, Pappu Sardar usually changes his dress to “officially” signal a shift in the space from ritualistic to celebratory. Just as the inside of the shop is modified to transform it into a sacred space and celebratory domain of the devotee-fan, the outside of the shop—the city space, including streets, sidewalks, and intersections—is marked for the event. Pappu Sardar along with the masses moves in to occupy the streets and surrounding area, expanding the Madhuri Dixit Temple into an extended pandal each year. Ebullient crowds gather to cheer, participate, and join in the festivities through the pandal entrance, which is richly decorated with glittering lights and signboards on intersections. At the entrance of the street leading to the temple, glow the words “Happy Birthday to Madhuri.” Pappu Sardar further appropriates the city for devotional fandom as he moves around the streets in his Madhuri rath yatra, dancing to Madhuri’s Bollywood songs with frantic crowds in tow. The rerouting of traffic around the boisterous fan yatra of Madhuri fans reinforces the extension of devotional fandom beyond the temple (figure 3.8). Throughout the year, Pappu Sardar continues to devise new ways to appropriate city spaces for his devotional fandom. In March 2010, on the occasion of Hindu festival of Hanuman Jayanti, he housed Madhuri posters inside the local temple in Tatanagar, which is dedicated to the Hindu God Hanuman. He offered a fifty-one kg laddoo (Indian sweet) as prasad and recited the Hanuman Chalisa (interview with the author, 2010). By bringing divinized posters of a Bollywood actress inside an established Hindu temple and performing rituals for both the Hindu god and the posters of his cinematic goddess in the same space, Pappu Sardar continuously marks the city spaces with the activities of his devotional fandom. In such instances, the city becomes an extended

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Figure 3.8  Madhuri Fan Yatra, May 15 (2009). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

stage for the publics of fan-bhakti, where the devotee-fan can perform and create his devotional fanscapes. Although it may appear momentary, this claiming of space has power as a media event and gains an afterlife in the form of news snippets circulated in the media and cyberspace. Similar to the Bachchan Dham, the presence of the Madhuri Dixit Temple thereby works as a concrete marker of devotional fandom. People learn to read these fanscapes, naturalizing Pappu Sardar’s devotional activities and stabilizing its meaning in popular culture. In many ways, the use of his shop as the Madhuri Dixit Temple becomes a starting point for disseminating these ideas. Even in terms of the conception of space and the worship practices of Pappu Sardar, the shop functions as a temple in various ways. Seen in the light of Waghorne’s (2004) work, it reflects the idea of an urban temple, as it breaks away from traditional norms to assimilate newer deities, albeit by placing a Bollywood actress at the center of Hindu worship practices. By bringing women to the forefront of most of his activities, Pappu Sardar forwards his idea of female empowerment, a practice being followed in some temples in Maharashtra ­(Deshpande 2014).15 Encouraging mass participation from people of different religions, classes, and genders, he breaks away from conventional caste and class dynamics. His publics of fan-bhakti, involving cake cutting and offering it as prasad to the posters of his cinematic goddess while singing “Happy Birthday to Madhuri” in front of the media, stem from a convergence of cultural practices and popular

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modes of Hindu religiosity that are also being adopted in temples in India and the diaspora. Moreover, Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom can be described as a form of “popular Hinduism,” as outlined by Sinha, which emphasizes the performative over the cognitive and the cerebral (2005, 246). His hallmark frenzied dancing to the music of Madhuri bhajans in front of divinized posters is similar to collective dancing in front of the murti in Hindu temples, especially during festivals. Likewise, his Madhuri fan yatra in Tatanagar has the festive and processional trappings of a regular rath yatra, except that it is conducted for a film star. For example, on May 15, 2009, Pappu Sardar placed a fivefoot four-inch replica of the goddess on the Madhuri rath (figure 3.8). At the stroke of midnight on May 14, he perched himself next to the image. With his trademark dancing and accompanied by kinnars, exuberant crowds, and the media, he ceremoniously brought the image to the Madhuri Dixit Temple, where he offered it cake as prasad after the cake cutting ceremony.16 Similar to the Muneeshwaran temples in Singapore that adopt rituals and deities from different religions, Pappu Sardar also creates a multireligious space fused with contemporary practices.17 Although belonging to the Sikh community (some of whom are known to be devout bhakts of the Hindu

Figure 3.9  Madhuri Sanctum (Interior), Madhuri Dixit Temple (2005). Photo by the Author.

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Goddess Durga), he publicly practices Hindu worship rites for Madhuri because they are part of a larger and dominant mode of cultural expression and work as an effective mode of communication for his devotional fandom. His temple houses poster images of Durga, Guru Nanak, Sai Baba, and Muslim pirs within the same sacred space as his cinematic goddess in the Madhuri sanctum (figure 3.9). The interior of the sanctum is located at the rear end of the temple. Adorned with deified images of Madhuri posters (bearing a vermilion mark) and calendars featuring other divinities, it is enclosed and exclusive, primarily used by Pappu Sardar for conducting daily Hindu-based worship practices for his goddess. In spite of the marked influence of Hinduism on his devotional practices, by representing other religions in his temple and adopting a secular outlook through his social service,18 his devotional fandom encompasses a wider field, further adding to its mass appeal. Through the convergence of cinema, religion, and popular culture, the Madhuri Dixit Temple becomes another site that re-conceptualizes the Hindu temple, where new deities and rituals are constructed from the world of Indian cinema. Similar to the Bharat Mata Temple, it is not only a space for manifesting a new devotional form, but also reflects elements of a museum. A brief investigation into the display of images in the Madhuri Dixit Temple will help us understand the ways in which the concept of a museum‑temple applies to it.

THE MUSEUM ETHOS AND PERFORMATIVE FAN-BHAKTI Open almost every day from 10 am to 11 pm, in his chaat shop, Pappu Sardar does a brisk business of serving Indian snacks to his customers. Incidentally, ever since he began his public display of devotional fandom, attracting media attention, his sales have increased tremendously. In a live telecast of Madhuri’s 2007 birthday celebration titled “Madhuri Tera Pappu Deewana” (Madhuri, Pappu Is Your Admirer), a Star News channel anchor commented on the appeal of the chaat shop while talking to Pappu Sardar: “Maine suna hai ki yeh Jamshedpur ki sabse lokpriya chaat ki dukaan hai” (I have heard that this is the most popular chaat shop of Jamshedpur (Star News 2007)). Though the main focus of these programs is to express and showcase the devotional fandom of Pappu Sardar, in the process the chaat shop becomes an active point of discussion both as a mandir and as a shop. Through his devotee-fan activities, Pappu Sardar thereby receives free publicity on local and national media. In addition, the Madhuri Dixit Temple becomes a promotional site for small and large businesses that put up their advertisements and hoardings along the road leading to the temple. This display evokes what Kajri Jain (2007, 257) describes as the “ethos of

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the bazaar,” discussed in chapter 2, and blends seamlessly with the temple’s religious propaganda. Though the Madhuri Dixit Temple fuses the commercial with the religious, these two structural and conceptual paradigms do not completely define it. Like the Bharat Mata Temple, the collection and striking display of Madhuri posters inside the Madhuri Dixit Temple resonate with the exhibition space of a museum (figure 3.10). However, it is not a typical museum, as the procurement and display of objects is not its primary purpose. On regular days, the arrangement of the interior space is like any other ordinary dhabba (roadside eatery), with two rows of simple tables and chairs for customers and a central space for servers to bring food. What sets this eatery apart from others is the display of Madhuri’s images on all the walls, the close proximity of customers to them, and, most importantly, the sequence and organization of the images that are premeditated by Pappu Sardar to communicate a particular set of ideas. It is these features that bear resemblance to museums depicting popular or cultural phenomena. The special themes that Pappu Sardar has used to organize recent Madhuri birthday celebrations and frame his devotional fandom augment the similarity between the temple and a museum. The visual display becomes an important

Figure 3.10  Madhuri Dixit Temple Displaying Huge Posters of the Actress (2008). Photo by the Author.

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component materializing the “special exhibit” he conceptualizes. For example, when he chose to spread the idea of environmental conservation in 2016, he juxtaposed reprints of Madhuri’s film posters and stills with quotes about the significance of natural conservation for society, giving the impression that the message emerged from the star herself. In many of the images, he also inserted his own poetic expressions. In addition, he distributed 600 saplings to promote the cause of saving trees. An accompanying exhibit portrayed trees with “faces” reflecting a gamut of emotions. Blossoming green trees stood smiling, trees that had been cut showed the intense agony and pain of the dying, and trees in the process of being chopped down seemed to helplessly wail, their pupils dilated and facial expressions terrified.19 Through this imagery, Pappu Sardar intended to shock the audience and make them think about their choices, much like many exhibitions in modern art museums. Like a curator, he chooses to disseminate a particular message with each exhibit. Year after year, different social themes, such as voter awareness (2018), safety protocols for COVID (2020), among others, have been interwoven with devotional practices and exhibition strategies (figure 3.11). An ongoing theme in all celebrations remains the empowerment of women and the inclusion of the marginalized. Even on regular days, large posters of Madhuri cover the approximately twenty-four by twelve foot interior space of the temple. Many have textual

Figure 3.11  Pappu Sardar Showing His Special Voter Awareness Exhibit to Visitors at the Madhuri Dixit Temple (2018). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

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references detailing the name of a film and other information, similar to the description of artifacts in a museum (figure 3.10). Pappu Sardar changes the posters like rotating exhibits, though the Madhuri theme persists. Even if customers of the chaat shop do not come specifically to see the displayed images, the huge posters encircling their visual space are inescapable, directing them toward a particular reading rooted in his devotional fandom. In addition, Pappu Sardar aligns the posters of Madhuri with images of Durga and Guru Nanak, creating a particular structure of knowledge through the strategy of visual display (figure 3.12). Several museum studies scholars have explored how the “poetics and politics of [the] display” of objects is instrumental to the production of knowledge in a museum. Henrietta Lidchi notes, “artefacts do not ‘spirit’ themselves into museum collections: they are collected, interpreted and exhibited—all purposeful and motivated activities” aimed to produce a specific knowledge (1997, 163). Eilean Hooper-Greenhill questions the power relationships that allow certain objects in a museum to be valued more than others and notes how this system operates to control the parameters of knowledge (1992). She states that the process of image selection, presentation, and the sequence of their display in a museum constructs and communicates a particular kind of knowledge that is related to issues of power and control:

Figure 3.12  Posters of Madhuri Dixit and Durga, August (2005). Photo by the Author.

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The pedagogic functions of museums can be analysed by reviewing both what is said, and how it is said. Museum pedagogy is structured firstly through the narratives constructed by museum displays and secondly through the methods used to communicate these narratives. . . . Within museums the phenomenon of display (or of exhibition) is the major form of pedagogy. It is the experience of the display that for most visitors defines the museum, and it is through displays that museums produce and communicate knowledge. (2000, 3–4; emphasis in original)

Pappu Sardar arranges posters of Madhuri, Durga, and Guru Nanak in a sequential manner, though the multiple images of the film star visually dominate the space. They induce the spectator to consume them not as separate images of a film star, a Hindu goddess, and a Sikh guru, but rather as a cinematic goddess surrounded by her “pantheon,” framed by the particular ideological apparatus of devotional fandom espoused by Pappu Sardar.20 In addition, he consecrates Madhuri posters in front of customers by performing morning and evening arati, echoing the notion of museum spaces as ritual sites as proposed by some scholars.21 For the customer/spectator, Pappu Sardar’s rituals transform a poster into a murti, Madhuri into a goddess, and, most importantly, Pappu Sardar into her bhakt. By looking at deified posters, spectators also consume the projected meaning of Madhuri as a form of Durga, which is produced, controlled, and maneuvered by Pappu Sardar. These divinized film posters also find their way into other modes of popular culture through media and cyberspace. The devotional fandom of Pappu Sardar is not only communicated through the construction of a visual narrative displayed in ritualized images, but also through the “experience of display,” which, in a museum, produces and communicates knowledge. Performance as an element of experiencing the display in Madhuri Dixit Temple is pivotal in meaning production. In this case, the experience of the space dominated by ritualized images, and the meaning they generate for the spectators is intrinsically connected to the element of performance through which Pappu Sardar animates these images. Distinct from the Bharat Mata murti, Pappu Sardar does not visually change the iconography of Durga to fit his new incarnation of Madhuri. Rather, he frames Madhuri as a goddess by relocating her film poster in a religious context, where it shares a space with the poster of Durga (figure 3.12). He conducts arati for Madhuri posters immediately followed by arati for the poster of Durga, thus performatively equating them in the divine space of his temple. In the process, he resituates the film poster from a commercial to a religious domain of the cinematic sacred, transforming it into a star murti. Through the constant reiteration of Madhuri as a form of Durga in interviews; the circulation of divinized posters among the masses; and his frenzied

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dances in the Madhuri Dixit Temple, on the streets of Tatanagar, and on top of his Madhuri rath, Pappu Sardar mobilizes his ideology and consolidates his identity as a devotee-fan, thus producing meaning through display and performance. Through his publics of fan-bhakti Pappu Sardar ritualizes posters of his goddess and creates his devotional fanscape. The impact of Pappu Sardar’s performative fan-bhakti on the masses was evident in a 2002 incident that coincided with the release of Madhuri’s film Devdas. To commemorate the film, the owner of Uphaar Cinema in Ranchi, a few miles from Tatanagar, invited Pappu Sardar to perform puja for a film poster inside the theater. Pappu Sardar went in full regalia on his Madhuri rath, dancing on his way in the streets to the songs of Devdas. He recounts gleefully: When I was dancing on the streets on my way to see Madhuri’s film Devdas, I was so involved in dancing that Madhuri’s dance steps from the film naturally came to me even though I had not seen the film at that time, and her dance in it. People were amazed and said, “How did you know Madhuri’s dance steps? Did you practice beforehand? You were dancing just like Madhuri!” I told them I hadn’t even seen the dance, it just happened! (Interview with the author, August 2005)

Pappu Sardar’s emphasis on how the dance steps came to him “naturally” suggests the special bond he, as a Madhuri bhakt, shares with his cinematic goddess, a bond not available to anyone else. His dancing and body-centric, trance-like performance emulates religious processions, especially those of sufi and bhakti saints. Here, the devotee-fan’s body, consumed by devotion, functions like the body of bhakti saints (Holdrege 2010), which is described as the “very epicenter” that embodies bhakti: Just as the public sphere requires literacy, the publics of bhakti in South Asia require “embodiment,” the human as medium. This very useful notion of “embodiment” does not simply exist as a trope of literature, but is deeply engaged in the performance of the discourse of bhakti. By “discourse” I mean the manifestations of bhakti not only in performance through song or literacy, but also through all those actions and bodily displays that make up bhakti in the broadest sense, such as those outlined above: pilgrimage, pūjā, darsan, the wearing of signs on the body, and so on. Embodiment, then, is not so much a technique of bhakti as its very epicenter: bhakti needs bodies. (Novetzke 2007, 261)

The devotee-fan bhakti displayed through the performance of dance moves is another dimension of Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom that makes him relatable and hence popular among the masses. According to Pappu Sardar, when he was dancing on the streets while going to see Devdas, hundreds of

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people gathered there to watch, so many that the police had to resort to a lathi charge to disperse the crowd (interview with the author, 2005). Once in the theater, in a specially designed outfit, Pappu Sardar performed Hindu rituals for the Devdas film poster amid continued fanfare. However, this divinized film poster is different from other such deified images. Printed exclusively for Pappu Sardar by the cinema owners, it shows Madhuri’s image and has textual references to the cast of the film. On the left upper corner of the poster is written, “Madhuri Dixit ke deewane Pappu Sardar ko sasneh bhaint”

Figure 3.13  Calendar Showing Pappu Sardar with Madhuri Dixit (2008). Photo by the Author.

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(A gift with love to Madhuri’s adorer, Pappu Sardar), thus acknowledging his devotional fandom. Similarly, on May 15, 2009, at Madhuri Dixit Temple, Pappu Sardar decided to consecrate the poster of Madhuri that was given to him by the film star herself, signed “To Brother with Love.” The circulation of these kinds of posters, which are specifically dedicated to Pappu Sardar in the media, and their display in the Madhuri Dixit Temple or the Madhuri puja room, with textual references of Pappu Sardar’s devotion directs the viewer toward a preferred reading of the image, beyond that of a film poster. Further illustrating how images are used to promote Pappu Sardar’s specific version of devotional fandom is the calendar that he released at his shop on Madhuri’s birthday in May 2008 in front of the full media glare. The calendar features a photograph of Madhuri with Pappu Sardar taken during a 2007 Star News show (figure 3.13). For the event, Pappu Sardar wore a specially designed bright yellow frock skirt, in the style of the whirling dervishes of Sufism, with the names of Madhuri’s films painted on it. He looked like a devotee-fan billboard: showcasing his devotion and further sensationalizing his fandom, both converging on his body. Along with these images, his devotee-fan bhakti apparatus also includes Madhuri key chains, Madhuri caps, Madhuri pencil boxes, and so on, which are distributed on such occasions. As divinized posters and fan paraphernalia circulate both inside and outside of the shop, they become the spatial and material source for the control and dissemination of his devotional fandom. The shop becomes a didactic site, like a museum’s pedagogical “knowledge producing apparatus” (Guha-Thakurta 2004, 43), disseminating the ideology of the devotee-fan to spectators. EXHIBITION AND POPULAR POLITICS I have argued that both the Bharat Mata and the Madhuri Dixit Temple combine elements of a museum and a temple. As discussed earlier, a museum‑temple is a place of visual, pedagogical, and material consumption that incorporates designer deities from popular culture, such as cinema (Madhuri Dixit Temple), politics (Bharat Mata Temple), or both. Though museum‑temples may sometimes enshrine sculptural forms of their deity in glass cases, the temple space is primarily adorned by mass-produced printed images, at times accompanied by labels. Unlike the emphasis placed on the “aura” of original artworks in a museum, museum‑temples empower the copy. The deified printed images and sculptures do not necessarily stand out for their “aesthetic qualities” within the parameters of colonial, elitist, or traditional sensibilities; rather, they are primarily revered for the divinity believed to be invested in them through Hindu rituals. While the experience

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of a “devotee” walking through a museum‑temple resonates with that of a spectator going through a museum, it also echoes with a sacred Hindu ethos. The transformation of displayed images into murtis is meant to evoke a devotional expression from the spectator-devotee. Their positioning and sequencing intend to construct a particular ideology; through the transmission of that ideology, devotional fandom gains control, becoming a locus in the production of knowledge via ritualized images. Although the Bharat Mata Temple and the Madhuri Dixit Temple both function as museum‑temples, there are some marked differences between the two. For example, the Bharat Mata Temple is enmeshed in a nationalist ideology, and its structure and appearance are closer to a conventional temple and a museum than the Madhuri Dixit Temple. The Bharat Mata Temple’s monumental structure (figure 3.1) and separation from the street readies the spectator-devotee for a reverent experience. In contrast, the Madhuri Dixit Temple cultivates and celebrates the mundane and the every day by including the city street. Pappu Sardar does not intend to create a conventional museum and has not drawn his display practices from them; hence, the museumtemple paradigm works only partially for his temple. In contrast to the glass cabinets encasing art in a museum, the festive informality of display in the Madhuri Dixit Temple reflects a popular mode of exhibition. This mode distances itself from the “right way of seeing” artifacts placed in monumental museum buildings. It foregrounds image-centric cultural practices in India such as exhibition-cum-sales, melas, Durga pujas, Ganesh utsav, and Dahi handi celebrations, where popular religious practices mix with technology and modern forms of display to produce new modes of cultural production.22 The people who participate in these events are not guided by museum pamphlets or tour guides, nor are they taken through controlled walkways surrounded by glass-cased images. Instead, a free, nonlinear, informal approach to crowd movement is encouraged, and this “uncontrolled” exhibition space imparts a certain informality of movement borrowed from practices of street culture. Pappu Sardar’s Madhuri Dixit Temple is a juxtaposition of the informality of these festivals with devotional fandom. Rather than aiming to be a site that disciplines the masses, it unleashes them. Instead of a conventional museum, the cinedivine spectacle in the Madhuri Dixit Temple is also more in tandem with the populist, entertaining, playful, and immersive mode of the “post-museum,” a term coined by Hooper-Greenhill (2000) to denote an institution that reinvents and reshapes the idea of the museum.23 Whereas the conventional museum is imagined as a building, the post-museum may be a process or experience; it can be framed in varied architectural forms in which the “audiences are able to both consume and produce knowledge” (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 152–53). Further highlighting the role of the visitors in a post-museum, Hooper-Greenhill says:

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The production of events and exhibitions as conjoint dynamic processes enables the incorporation into the museum of many voices and many perspectives. Knowledge is no longer unified and monolithic; it becomes fragmented and multi-vocal. There is no necessary unified perspective—rather a cacophony of voices may be heard that present a range of views, experiences and values. The voice of the museum is one among many. (2000, 152)

Citing the Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle as a kind of postmuseum that involves audience participation, Chris Bruce suggests that it is “an institution that was born out of the willingness to borrow proven ideas from recreational, entertainment and museum sectors” (2006, 139). He emphasizes the participatory and celebratory mode of the audience, stating: the environment at EMP – the spectacle itself—gives the visitors a manic sense of freedom to jump into the fray and participate in a way they might not otherwise. Sing out loud, bang on a drum: the museum becomes a social place like a festival ground, where many different kinds of activities take place simultaneously, and where collaboration often occurs. (140)

Pappu Sardar creates a similarly festive social space in the Madhuri Dixit Temple for Madhuri Dixit’s birthday, inviting a participatory and collaborative experience. As we have seen, crowds gather to chant, cheer, dance, applaud, and have prasad together with Pappu Sardar for the event. Even though Pappu Sardar actively seeks audience participation, he does lead and control the celebratory activities of the masses, channeling them toward a preplanned trajectory of devotional fandom. While the masses appear unhinged, engaged in uncontrolled frantic dancing and cheering, they undoubtedly end up following the “celebratory agenda” he has set. For example, before every birthday celebration, he plans a schedule of events, deciding the time and style of puja of Madhuri images, arranging the cake cutting, and restricting dancing and singing to Madhuri songs. For the Madhuri fan yatra, he maps a route around the city of Tatanagar, concluding with the distribution of prasad. He informs the media of this plan. Sometimes (as in 2007), he even gives running live commentary of his celebration on national television channels so that viewers can visually participate in his cinedivine journey with the people of Tatanagar. In this manner, while the unabashed participatory mode of the masses resonates with the performative and informal exhibition style of popular festivals and the post-museum, the spectacle of devotional fandom generated by Pappu Sardar is geared toward broadcasting his identity as a devotee-fan. It does not liberate the audience, empowering them to produce multiple meanings of objects on display as does a post-museum. Rather, it operates as a

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“self-portrait of power” (Debord 1994, 19). Like a more traditional museum exhibit, Pappu Sardar directly controls the visual narratives of spectacle and display and the meaning produced through them; he does not extend an opportunity to the visitor to be part of the production of knowledge. In this way he directs the masses toward the collective consumption of the image of Madhuri as a “modern cinematic Durga” and of himself as her devotee-fan. He does not invite them to impart another identity to Madhuri or to her bhakt, neither does he let them associate Madhuri with any other Hindu goddess, such as Kali, Annaporna, Laxmi, and so on. The deified image of Madhuri remains fixed by the meaning and interpretation provided by Pappu Sardar, which he has been repeatedly reinforcing for over three decades. In this way, despite the evident participation of the audience, the performance and exhibition display is a structured and predetermined didactic process. Pappu Sardar retains the exclusive “power to create, to make visible, and to legitimate meanings and values” assigned to images, much like in a conventional museum (Hooper-Grenhill 2000, 19).

EXHIBITION TEMPLE AND PERFORMATIVE FAN-BHAKTI Through the public display of his devotional activities and performance, Pappu Sardar is the cynosure of the spectacle of the Madhuri Dixit Temple that people come to see. The celebration, media hype, and festivities anchored on divinization practices for Madhuri eventually converge on him, rather than on the film star he deifies. The fact that he refuses to even consider extending his fan club membership to anyone beyond himself, claiming to maintain an exclusive one-man devotee-fan club for his goddess, further suggests that he is the center of all activities in the temple, where the focus shifts from Madhuri to himself, the new celebrity of Tatanagar. Thus the Madhuri Dixit Temple functions as an image-centric, performative, exhibitionary, and propagandistic site that popularizes his devotional fandom and launches his devotee-fan “stardom,” empowering him in the process. Rethinking a museum as a place of empowerment and political effervescence, rather than a conceptual tool of indoctrination of the masses through representational regimes and a voluntary space of self‑regulation, Nora Sternfeld proposes the idea of a “radical democratic museum” (2018). This type of futuristic institution would create emancipatory spaces that challenge and dismantle the public museum’s “hegemonically-infused institutional strategy” that requires visitor participation “to actually maintain the existing power relations” (Sternfeld 2020, 37). Sternfeld calls such liberating spaces the “para-museum,” which “refers to the museum’s potential for socio-political

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change and its possible engagement in emancipatory social struggles that undermine logics of domination, it is both part of the museum and part of another, newly emerging order of what a museum is” (38). Seen through such a prism, Sternfeld’s para-museums are conceived as vibrant democratic discursive structures that encourage debate, political representation, and action; as spaces that invoke a “self-reflexive critique,” functioning as counterhegemonic platforms through collective participation via the transforming role of artifacts housed in them: a place “in which power relations shall be challenged and transformed” (Landau 2019; Sternfeld 2020, 39). The Madhuri Dixit Temple partially invokes this futuristic idea of a paramuseum, when Pappu Sardar shifts the focus of devotional fandom for a Bollywood film star toward his own self, marking a shift from the elite to the common person. In addition, by including the marginalized and the subaltern in the ritualization of devotee-fan art, he creates a space of collective participation. In a display of democratic fervor, kinnar, the underprivileged, elderly, specially abled and Santhal tribals become a significant part of the celebratory spaces of his publics of fan-bhakti and share the spotlight with him (figure 3.14). He has been participating in the festival of Karam Puja with the adivasis (tribals) of Jharkhand to promote their religion and culture. Pappu Sardar dances with them in their attire, plays their musical instruments, and distributes sweets and clothes to the tribal community.24 Their members in turn come to the Madhuri Dixit Temple to participate in the annual birthday celebrations of the star. When the media projects their pictures and interviews, it

Figure 3.14  Pappu Sardar Celebrates Release of Madhuri’s Total Dhamaal with the Kinnar Community of Tatanagar (2019). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

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reframes these peripheral societal figures, who are often subjected to neglect and ridicule, into the inclusive space of Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom, momentarily reshuffling social hierarchies. The dances, smiles, and joy etched upon their previously unseen faces are made visible within a renewed framework of respect facilitated through what Sternfeld would call as their “emancipatory participation.” Thus, the temple tangentially shares the ideological function of a para-museum, extending empowerment from the elite to Pappu Sardar to the marginalized. However, as mentioned earlier, Pappu Sardar maintains control of the metanarrative of the temple’s conception, display of images, ritual activities, and media management, so the model of a para-museum remains inadequate to fully describe it. Along with elements of the para-museum, the various aspects of popular culture that commingle in the Madhuri Dixit Temple also make it an exhibition temple. An exhibition temple may be understood as a hybrid polysemic space, which in this case combines display strategies of a conventional museum; aspects of a Hindu temple, post-museum, and para-museum; and practices from popular Hindu festivals (Durga pujas, e.g., or exhibitioncum-sales) with Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom. As an exhibition temple, the Madhuri Dixit Temple allows a fluid and performative dimension of devotional fan practices centered on and around the display of ritualized star images. This new temple type, which becomes a tangible marker staging Pappu Sardar’s publics of fan-bhakti, is crucial to circulating his identity as a devotee-fan and weaving the spectacle of his devotional fanscapes in and beyond its structure, into the city and mediascapes. With its multifarious, complex layering of the cinematic, religious, popular, commercial, and technological, the Madhuri Dixit Temple opens up a new social and political space. The recognition Pappu Sardar has garnered through his divinization techniques and social work has earned him the nickname “Pappu Bhaiya”; he is seen as a local hero in Tatanagar. Even though he is scorned by the elite, he emerges as a social force with the potential to wield political influence in the city. The power of his devotional fandom is derived from his ability to transform a cinematic image of a film star into that of a Hindu deity and exhibit it in the Madhuri Dixit Temple. In the several years of his devotional fandom, Pappu Sardar has mastered a number of domains—the art of public speech (interviews), performance (publics of fan-bhakti), use of cultural practices (borrowing from popular festivals), media management (getting constant media coverage for his events), use of images to further his own agenda and social work programs, and, most importantly, capturing the attention of the masses year after year, making people listen to and act in accordance with his devotional fandom.25 All these “ingredients” give him the power to launch a political career in the local elections of Tatanagar. Although he has chosen not to activate

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this political space and refuses to enter politics or even campaign for a candidate, he has systematically cultivated and mastered the tools of power. Though the case of Pappu Sardar and his Madhuri Dixit Temple may seem idiosyncratic and exceptional case of a one-man fan club, it is part of a larger phenomenon of divinization of film stars by organized fan clubs and the emerging star politicians who have a significant political influence in contemporary India. Walter Benjamin (1992) noted that by dissipating the aura of art objects, mass reproduction makes possible the involvement of people in cultural production and politics. The very nature of mass reproduction contributes to the disintegration of the monolithic character of nationalism (Mitter 2003,1). But here, Pappu Sardar reinstates the aura in mechanical images by transforming film posters into objects of devotion animated by his performative fan-bhakti. As a devotee-fan, he uses the idiom of popular religiosity and borrows from popular forms through which he occupies space to acquire agency. By redirecting his devotional fandom onto his body, he has demonstrated that he has the power to mobilize people to further not only his ideology of worshipping a film star, but through it, to bring attention to other sociopolitical issues (such as voting awareness campaign, conservation of water, etc.), which he chooses to profess. He circulates these ideas among his loyal audience and inscribes them into his carefully crafted media spaces through the medium of his devotee-fan practices. This emphasis on performance through the medium of the body, where he himself becomes part of the display both inside and outside of the Madhuri Dixit Temple, signals an opening up of an embodied iconic cultural and political space. On one level, as a site of performance in popular culture, the body becomes a spectacle. On another, it carries the potential to operate as a medium of cultural and political ideology. In the process, the context of the “political” is changed; it is no longer rooted in a nationalist paradigm based on the textual, but rather in a performative logic. Unlike the “high” cultural domain of the textual, this alternative logic is rooted in popular religious and cultural practices of the masses. It represents the emergence of a kind of performative politics situated on the body of the devotee-fan; the body becomes a site of performative fan-bhakti and, in the process, of political ideology. Performance has been understood as an integral feature of democratic politics that “has enabled the recognition of a significant rupture in political practice, which signifies the coming to power of previously unheard voices in the polity” (Zavos 2007, 151). As a politically loaded space, the performative fan-bhakti of the devotee-fan moves beyond the dominant discourse of power and elite practices, becoming a potential site of sociopolitical action. By galvanizing the masses with his devotional fandom anchored around the

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star murti, Pappu Sardar opens up a space of popular politics located on his own body. This form of popular politics is forged in a political arena emerging from the grass-roots level and becomes the basis of a new form of sociopolitical agency founded on the publics of fan-bhakti. NOTES 1. I am grateful to Professor John Zavos and Professor Deepa Reddy for their insightful comments. This chapter is an extended version of the paper, “‘Starring’ Madhuri as Durga: The Madhuri Dixit Temple and the Performative Fan-Bhakti of Pappu Sardar,” published in the International Journal of Hindu Studies 13, no. 3. (2009): 391–416. A shorter version of the paper, titled “Snapshot: Devotional Fandom: The Madhuri Dixit Temple of Pappu Sardar,” was included in Public Hinduisms, edited by John Zavos, Pralay Kanungo, Maya Warrior, Deepa Reddy, and Raymond Williams, and published by Sage Publications in 2012. 2. In 2007, before the release of Madhuri’s film Aaja Nachle, Star News sponsored a meeting between Madhuri and Pappu Sardar and did a special story on his devotion for the film star. As a result of Pappu Sardar’s meeting with his goddess, Madhuri Dixit later sent him a gold rakhi all the way from the United States, where she was residing at the time. The media regularly reports on Pappu Sardar’s shop, his devotional fandom and his social work activities. See one of his recent interviews in this video: “Madhuri Dixit के इस मुंहबोले भाई के काम हैरान करने वाले हैं, Voting: LokSabha Election 2019,” www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=dJWXm5Is1eE. 3. A chaat shop is an eating joint that primarily sells chaat, a spicy Indian snack with a tangy taste. 4. “An MTV film crew shot part of the pilot for their new reality show at the Dallas ISKCON temple this August. The show, which is as yet unnamed, will air in March/April 2009, and features a group of students who explore religions they’re unfamiliar with” (Smullen 2008). “For the show Jai Sri Krishna, Colors has a tie-up with International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), where the show will be promoted at every ISKCON temple in India. Also, Colors has touched 1,000 temples across UP, Gujarat and other key Hindi belt states for the promotion of the show, bannering the prasad stalls, giving out Krishna merchandising, literature, calendars” (Laghate 2008). 5. For more on wayside shrines and link between territory and divinity, see Elison’s The Neighborhood of Gods: The Sacred and the Visible at the Margins of Mumbai (2018). 6. See the video, “Darshan of Bharat Mata Mandir—Haridwar” by Shemaroo Bhakti Darshan, which showcases different exhibits in the Bharat Mata Temple: www​ .youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=dHWoEvIPrGo. 7. This slogan was written on a hoarding advertising the Bharat Mata Temple at the entrance of the city of Haridwar, seen and photographed by the author, August 2005.

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8. In the context of popular Indian film songs, Woodman Taylor brings in two distinct notions of vision specific to South Asia: “One based on the potentialities of drishti, often activated in Hindu religious contexts, and the other based on nazar, operating between imagined worlds of romantic Persianate poetry” (2003, 320). According to Taylor, drishti and nazar, which can sometimes intersect with each other, can also incorporate Western modes of viewing. Rather than a singular visuality, Taylor follows Martin Jay in suggesting that visual experience has a polyscopic nature. It is also, as Appadurai and Breckenridge assert, interocular: “The gaze of Indian viewers in museums is certainly caught up in what we would call this interocular field . . . this interocular field is structured so that each site or setting for the disciplining of the public gaze is to some degree affected by viewer’s experience of the other sites” (2003, 52). Appadurai and Breckenridge further explain how the visual in contemporary India relates to the realm of the museum: “What is thus emerging in India, and seems to be a relatively specialized cultural complex, is a world of objects and experiences that ties together visual pleasure, ethnic and national display, and consumer appetite. . . . This constellation, which may be called the ‘exhibition complex’ (museum-festival-sale), is further energized by new technologies of leisure, information, and movement in contemporary India. Cinema and television (and the landscape of stars that they display), packaged pilgrimages and tours (which takes thousands of ordinary Indians outside their normal locales as part of ‘vacation’ experiences), and the growing spectacularization of political and sports events (especially through television) all conduce to a new cosmopolitan receptivity to the museum, which would otherwise become a dusty relic of colonial rule. It is these new contexts of public culture that are now transforming the Indian museum experience” (40). 9. Although the Bharat Mata arati and the national anthem performed on temple premises engage the map in its ritual evocation, transforming it into an object of devotion, the map primarily functions as a tangible site of the temple’s nationalist ideology. 10. This is a classic case of a negotiation between what Partha Chatterjee (2005, 2) describes as the tension between mimicry and the negation of Western ideas of the Enlightenment in the newly emerged nation-state of India. 11. See a video of the worship practices carried out in the Gandhi Temple, “The Gandhi Temple: Center of peace and Brotherhood” ANI news, (2018): www​.youtube​ .com​/watch​?v​=RQSpzTx6L-c 12. The media has regularly reported on the existence of temples for political leaders such as Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, and B. R. Ambedkar, among others, in different parts of the country. An example of the deification of sports stars from the world of cricket was reported in 2013 in the Hindustan Times: “Indian batting great [sic] Sachin Tendulkar is addressed as the god of cricket by his fans but a village in southwestern Bihar has already started worshipping him as one by installing his statue. . . . The idols of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and star player Yuvraj Singh would also be installed in the temple after its completion” (Mishra 2013). 13. Cinedivine is my term to denote a fusion of cinema and religion in devotional fandom. See chapter 5 for more details.

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14. Pappu Sardar’s rituals and celebrations for Madhuri’s 2014 birthday can be viewed in the video, “Madhuri Fan Celebrates Bollywood Actress Madhuri Dixit’s 47th Birthday in Eastern State of India” (2014): https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​ =aa8EjcwkuWY. 15. Also see Vasudha Narayanan’s (2005) “Gender and Priesthood in the Hindu Traditions.” 16. The replica is now in Pappu Sardar’s house. 17. Like diasporic temples, which have been transforming their design to accommodate the temple style of both North and South India and co-mingling deities in order to suit the multiple religious followings of the Indian diaspora, the Madhuri Dixit Temple appeals to a larger segment of society. An example of a diasporic temple is the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, where both North and South Indian deities are worshipped. It also functions as an active social site for diasporic Indians, offering yoga classes and summer vedic camps for kids. Several Hindu temples in the United States celebrate Mother’s day, Father’s day and Graduation day with Hindu rituals. See Vasudha Narayanan’s, (2007) “Hinduism in Pittsburgh: Creating the South Indian ‘Hindu’ Experience in the United States.” 18. During the celebration of Madhuri’s birthday on May 15, 2009, Pappu Sardar sponsored the wedding of a poor Muslim couple at the Cheshire Home, a Christian charity house in Tatanagar: “Though there was some initial reluctance from the couple’s family to celebrate the wedding in a Christian Home, I insisted that the marriage will be carried out with full Muslim traditions and I will bear the expense of the entire wedding, except that the wedding will take place on Madhuri’s birthday and the venue would not change, as I wanted the Cheshire residents to be a part of it. In fact, when the marriage was solemnized, the Sister in charge of the Home personally distributed gifts to the family” (Sardar, interview with the author, 2009). See Pappu Sardar serving free food to Muslims during their holy month of Ramzan (2022): www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=cUFBcbRJMXk 19. See the 2016 exhibit in this video, “Pappu Sardar celebrates Madhuri Dixit Birthday,” at www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=A7c74WABPtA. 20. Pappu Sardar removed the poster of Guru Nanak (2010) and replaced it with that of his deceased mother. He told me that the local Gurudwara authorities complained about him worshipping Madhuri Dixit posters next to the image of Guru Nanak. Much like Sanjay Patodiya’s puja room (see chapter 2), in the Madhuri Dixit Temple too, ancestor worship is integrated into the realm of printed murtis of cinematic and Hindu deities. 21. The performance of rituals for Madhuri posters in a museum-like space echoes Carol Duncan’s (1995) argument in which she proposes to situate museums and museum practices within the domain of ritual, though not specifically Hindu rituals. 22. “The exhibition-cum sale is a major mode of retailing textiles, ready-to wear clothing, books, and home appliances. These merchandising spectacles (which recall the fairs of medieval Europe) are transient, low-overhead, mobile modes for transporting, displaying, and selling a variety of goods” (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1992, 39).

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23. A post-museum can be understood as “an utopian display institution that rejects patriarchal authority in order to become a flexible, constantly changing social space prioritizing audience choice, interactivity and pleasure” (Marstine 2006, 129). 24. See Pappu Sardar dancing with the tribals in this video, “Pappu Sardar Karma Puja” (2019): https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=3aC5WFcfw5w 25. In addition to his dedicated social work with the Cheshire Home, the kinnar, and the old age home in Tatanagar, Pappu Sardar uses the Madhuri Dixit birthday celebrations as a launch pad for several social projects. In 2013, he started a campaign to “save water,” in which “banners with Madhuri’s photo appealed to the people to save water. The forty-two-year-old Pappu said he would distribute around 5000 cards with ‘save water’ message among the people to motivate them to save water. ‘We have failed to check corruption but can save water unitedly considering it as nectar’, Pappu said. Besides the usual free distribution of chat on the birthday of the Dhak Dhak girl, he said he would distribute over 500 earthen pots of two litre capacity filled with water on May 15” (“‘Save Water’” 2013).

Chapter 4

Transforming the Object of Art M. F. Husain and Devotional Fandom

Two disparate personalities, Maqbool Fida Husain (1915–2011), an internationally renowned Muslim Indian artist whose paintings still sell for millions of dollars in the art market,1 and Pappu Sardar, a middle-aged Sikh who owns a dhabba (eatery) in Tatanagar, come together in their devotional enchantment for a Bollywood star. What connects the two is their devotional fandom around the cinematic image of film star Madhuri Dixit. Both have framed Madhuri through the media of popular religiosity and cinema as an earthly and divine mother, revering her as a Hindu goddess. Pappu Sardar claims: “Madhuri is my goddess and I worship her everyday. For me, she is like Maa Durga and I am her bhakt” (interview with the author, 2005). Likewise, Husain echoes, “Madhuri Dixit was to me like a temple . . . somewhere she gave feelings of so [sic] sanctity2 . . . [She] IS my mother Ma-adhuri. I used to tell Madhuri ‘Tum Meri Adhuri Ma Ho.’ She is my half mother.”3

Husain is considered the country’s most iconic and exalted artist, credited for bringing contemporary Indian art to an international audience. Born in 1915, he started his career as a cinematic billboard painter but went on to become a pioneer of modern art, forging a new visual idiom based on a “civilisational vision of nationhood” (Gilmartin and Metcalf 2011).4 He has received some of the highest awards in India and was nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, known as Rajya Sabha, in 1986. During the last few years of his life, he worked on a set of paintings to depict the hundred-year history of Indian cinema for an exhibition titled, “From the Silver Silence of Dadasaheb Phalke to the Golden Dazzle of Madhuri Dixit” (Umashankar 2007). 149

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In 1995, Husain watched Madhuri’s blockbuster film Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (HAHK [Who Am I to You?]) sixty-seven times in the theater. In his autobiography, Where Art Thou? An Autobiography, he describes how he “was devastated by her body language, by her smile, by every breath she took right before him” (2002, 244). Enthusiastic to cover his fandom, the media reported that the then-octogenarian artist had become senile. He often expressed his admiration in a boisterous, unabashed dance “performance” down the aisles of the cinema, especially when Madhuri broke into the number “Didi tera deevar deewana” (“Sister, Your Brother-in-law Is Crazy”), which is famous for its electrifying sensuality. In an interview, he comments on the sacred yet erotic quality of her dance moves: “It is outrageously sexy and yet almost spiritual in its impact” (Nandy 1999). In his autobiography, Husain recounts throwing his paintbrush at the glamour queen on the screen “the way the devout shower marigold flowers upon an idol” (2002, 246). Recalling the exact moment in the film’s song that inspired him, he compares Madhuri both to his own mother and to Hindu goddesses in temples: I was trying to find the image of the woman, the Indian womanhood . . . because I was searching [for] my mother . . . when I saw this film [HAHK] . . . there is one song, Didi tera deevar deewana, [in which] she [Madhuri] takes five steps backward. . . . I noticed in those five steps the sanctity of the womanhood, what you see in the temples. (Khan 2010)

Smitten by the “sacrosanct” gyrations of the Bollywood star, Husain found his muse in Madhuri’s coquettish smiles, swaying hips, and fluttering dupatta (veil). He portrays her as both a goddess and his mother, an epitome of Indian womanhood, in the set of images that came out in 1995 through his company, Madhuri-McBull Creation. His fascination with Madhuri also manifests in the film he directed and produced in 2000, Gaja Gamini. Around the same time that Husain came out with Madhuri-McBull Creation, Pappu Sardar, the self-styled bhakt of Madhuri Dixit discussed in chapter 3, publicly started worshiping the star as a form of Durga, a Hindu goddess, in his Madhuri Dixit Temple. After performing Hindu rituals of puja and arati before Madhuri film posters, chanting Madhuri devi ki Jai (“Hail to Goddess Madhuri”), he circumambulates the city of Tatanagar in his Madhuri rath, dancing to popular Madhuri bhajans while thousands of people and the media follow along. Both Husain and Pappu Sardar place Madhuri in a sacred domain, albeit in different ways. Their devotional fandom converges in the painting Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala (also known as Madhuri, Radha with Nandkishor or Krishna Gopala), which forms part of the Madhuri-McBull series (M. Jain 1995). Many paintings in the series were destroyed in 1996, when a right-wing Hindu organization, Bajrang Dal offended by the nude depictions

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of Hindu deities, reportedly vandalized Husain’s museum in Ahmedabad (Padmanabhan 1998; Handique 2006).5 However, in 2009, Pappu Sardar took a thumbnail copy of Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala that had been published in a 1995 issue of India Today to a printing lab in Kolkata that specialized in producing blow-up images (interview with the author, 2009). On Madhuri’s birthday (May 15), he displayed the huge print in the Madhuri Dixit Temple and sanctified it with Hindu worship practices, thus transforming it into a ritual object. In this manner, he transfigures a work of “high” art into an object of devotion on display in a temple dedicated to the Bollywood actress, affecting a convergence of art, film, and popular religiosity. In previous chapters, I have analyzed how the devotee-fan redirects religious and architectural practices from Hindu rituals and temples effectuating fan-bhakti that is invested in the worship of images of a film star. They practice their fan-bhakti both in public spaces and in new temples dedicated to the Bollywood stars they worship. In this chapter, I examine how the devotee-fan appropriates works from “high” art, along with the celebrity status of artists, to legitimize devotional fandom.6 To explore this, I trace the trajectory of Husain’s art of Madhuri, primarily Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, analyzing how it has been reconstituted as an object of worship, particularly as part of Pappu Sardar’s repertoire of devotional fandom. Framed within the rituals and worship practices of Pappu Sardar, the meaning and audience of Husain’s art changes through the process of relocation and divinization. I also consider the challenges these deified artworks pose to the discipline of art history and its Western precepts.

THE PAINTING Let me begin by performing an analysis of Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala (figure 4.1). In the image, Husain depicts the figure of the Hindu God Krishna, Mother Teresa, and Madhuri as Krishna’s consort, Radha. All three are arranged around the central figure of a mythical animal that combines the features of a bull and a cow, a visual motif found in many of Husain’s paintings. Positioned in the center of the composition, Krishna is shown sitting in a relaxed posture, blissfully playing his flute. Bathed in his iconographic blue hue, complete with the peacock feather headgear and bright red tilak on his forehead, Krishna as the Cowherd God plays his flute, beckoning the lissome Radha (Madhuri). The figure of Mother Teresa hovers near Krishna, as his fluttering garment partially covers her featureless face. Two different-sized pots are positioned at the two corners of the composition. In the upper left is the smaller white pot that Radha carries. Its white color resonates with the flower, the bangle, and the lower white garment that she wears. Positioned at

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Figure 4.1  Print of Husain’s Painting, Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala (c.1995). Image Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

the lower right is a much larger pot, bright red in color, held in the extended arm of Mother Teresa. The background is a riot of red, blue, yellow, and white that animates the whole painting. By choosing to juxtapose the figures of Krishna and Radha with the contemporary figures of Madhuri and Mother Teresa, a modern icon of compassion within a single space, Husain collides the real with the religious, creating a metaphorical world in his painting. In particular, the presence of Mother Teresa, a contemporary “shared human image of maternity and compassion,” is crucial to the meaning of this artwork (Gilmartin and Metcalf 2011, 59). In a special series of works dedicated to Mother Teresa, Husain links her with his quest for maternal love, a persistent theme in his paintings.7 In the following excerpt, titled “O Mother,” Husain describes the impression Mother Teresa made on him when he first saw her in the Delhi Airport and how that impression affected his art: Delhi Airport. 1979 AD. Arrival of Mother Teresa. In split of a [sic] second, I sketched her serene image. She autographed, “God bless you.” I followed “Mother” for more than two decades in my paintings, as if my own mother Zainab, who left me alone in my cradle, swinging, is all there. With each swing till [sic] today, I travel back and forth in search of my mother. The baby boy in several Mother Teresa paintings is perhaps me, whom she takes along to meet and play with other children. Sometimes she leaves the baby lamb with me to play. Just-born tender lamb, she picked up from a deserted lane of Kolkata. I fiddled with her umbrella, the moon in the sky, the fluttering dove, the crooning

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rooster. And at sundown I sit down in her lap to listen to the distant sounds of the cathedral bells. (“M. F. Husain: A Series” 2009)

As he writes, his mother, Zainab, died when Husain was only two-yearsold. She refused to be photographed, so he was left with no recollection of her face: “It was a void, that I always tried to fill” (Basu 2007). As Husain metaphorically conveys the impact that her absence had on him when he describes how he has been walking barefoot since the day he crawled out of his cradle in search of her. The lifelong quest that ensued is visually chronicled in his canvases, which depict a recurrent featureless mother figure. The repeated figure of Mother Teresa, particularly her hand gestures and interaction with the figure of a child in his paintings, expresses Husain’s idea of the quintessence of motherhood, as evident in the following screen print of Mother Teresa with a child, Mother-VII. In Mother-VII, which forms part of a series (“M.F. Husain: A Series” 2009), the artist envisions Mother Teresa as “a symbol of Shakti” (Chandra 2011, 131). She is shown in the left of the painting seated on Husain’s characteristic hybrid animal, a combination of the cow and bull, her face and body framed by a white sari with a blue border that conveys the infinite compassion with which she embraced the world (figure 4.2). As Husain said, “In each fold of her sari breathes a revived soul” (131). The absence of facial features points to the inner void of the artist, whose own mother’s face remained invisible to him. At the same time, her visage, much like many other figures in his paintings, becomes an open, unrevealed canvas upon whose unbounded open terrain and undulating contours Husain pitches his creative moorings. Her undrawn featureless face manifests countless possibilities in form and color, adding another layer to his artistic process, as Husain himself succinctly expresses: “When I begin to paint, hold the sky in your hands as the stretch of my canvas is unknown to me” (218). Just like Mother Teresa’s features remain undefined, her body too lacks tangibility and appears as a floating, disembodied entity that transcends the confines of the mortal human form. The left side of the figure seamlessly blends with the fantastical animal—by doing so, the artist seems to convey Mother Teresa’s infinite compassion that embraced the world. On the right, clutching her sari, a child sits in her lap, shyly peering into the outside world that awaits him. Except for a faint hint of lips, the child too appears almost featureless, his body depicted in a blue skin tone. The painting is suffused with symbols of motherhood: Mother Teresa, the child, and the hybrid animal, which is represented here as gau-mata (cow-mother) with her exaggerated udders full of milk, symbolizing nourishment. The mother-baby theme, a visual ode to the artist’s own biography, is punctuated with the figure of Krishna, who sits on the cow-bull in the upper left

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Figure 4.2  Reproduction of Mother-VII, M. F. Husain (c.2008). Image Courtesy, Tresa Tony.

corner of the painting, recognizable by his flute and his posture. As the natkhat nandlal, the beloved baby, Krishna enhances the mother-child subject matter embedded in the image. But interestingly, Krishna is not represented by the iconographic blue that is traditionally used to depict him. Instead, it is the child who is rendered in the blue hue of Krishna in this painting. Perhaps through these innovations, the artist demonstrated his identification with Krishna.

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Other paintings from the Mother Teresa series and images from the set of Husain’s, Gaja Gamini (2000), also depict a child in Krishna-like blue color. The image of a dark-skinned baby in a mother’s lap appears several times in Husain’s book, Art and Cinema (1997), the 100-foot visual storyboard on which Gaja Gamini was based. Similar renditions appear in Husain’s other book on the film, Genesis of Gaja Gamini (2000). For example, an image represents Husain’s vision of a woman (his mother), who embodies Indian womanhood, combined with the figure of Madhuri (figure 4.9). Wearing anklets on her feet, she walks through Pandharpur (Husain’s hometown) with a gathri (bundle) on her head, a baby (Husain) in her arms, and Shiva’s Nandi bull with a lamp on its back positioned beside her. Clinging to his mother, the baby is again rendered in the deep blue color of Krishna, leading to the question: Is Krishna the artist’s alter ego? To explore this question further, let us compare Husain’s depiction of the baby in Mother-VII to Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, in which the figure of the child is “replaced” by Krishna, who maintains his characteristic blue skin tone. For the purpose of my argument, I will weave a conceptual narrative of the two images: the baby boy (Husain), having grown up, no longer sits on the lap of his mother (Mother Teresa). In his blue hue as Krishna, he beckons his beloved Radha (Madhuri), although his fluttering garment still connects him to Mother Teresa. Mounted on the cow-bull, Husain as Krishna sits in a cross-legged, relaxed posture, his barefoot—probably another visual biographical reference to the artist, who was known to walk barefooted—facing the spectator. In Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, eroticism coexists with symbols of motherhood, with the figure of Krishna positioned between Radha and Mother Teresa. Krishna plays the flute for his beloved and Radha is drawn toward its magical melody. In many of Husain’s other paintings from the Madhuri-McBull series, the artist renders the Bollywood siren in a much more voluptuous form. For example, in Madhuri as Menaka (early 1990s), the actress is shown in a dance-like stance, revealing her curvaceous body and her shapely midriff (figure 4.3), quite like in her films of the nineties. It is interesting to note that the artist chose to represent Madhuri as Menaka. The story of Menaka is part of the Hindu epic, Mahabharat, and was later developed as a Sanskrit drama by the ancient Indian poet, Kalidas in his play, Abhijnanasakuntalam (The Recognition of Sakuntala).8 In contemporary scholarship, Menaka is seen as one of the quintessential forms that embodies the “performance of Hindu femininity that would come to dominate South Asian culture” (Thapar 2011). According to the traditional story, Menaka is a celestial nymph sent from heaven by Lord Indra to entice a sage, Vishvamitra, who with his rigorous penance was becoming powerful on earth. With her sensuous dancing and irresistible

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Figure 4.3  A Print of M.F. Husain’s painting, Madhuri as Menaka (c.1995). Image Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

charm, Menaka seduces Vishvamitra, who leaves his spiritual path and plunges into worldly desires. As a result, they have a daughter, Shakuntala. Vishvamitra refuses to accept the baby and dedicates himself to practicing meditation, while Menaka, who has to return to heaven, leaves the baby near sage Kanva’s hermitage. Kanva becomes Shakuntala’s foster father and she grows up to be a beautiful young lady. She is enamored by a king, Dushyant, whose chance wandering in the forest ends in their marriage. However, Dushyant leaves Shakuntala, promising to return soon to take her back to his kingdom. A few years later, she appears at his court with their son, Bharat. In a high-charged drama, Dushyant denies knowing her until a

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celestial voice intervenes to reveal the truth, leading him to accept both her and Bharat. Menaka’s abandonment of her baby echoes with the absence of Husain’s mother. In Husain’s life, the absence of his mother was a pivot around which his emotively charged artistic quest was staged. His Madhuri as Menaka, which portrays the climactic moment when Vishvamitra refuses to accept Shakuntala, can thereby be read both in the context of the traditional story and of Husain’s own life. Holding Shakuntala in one hand, Menaka extends the other as if pleading for his consent. Depicted as a beautiful nymph, Husain’s Menaka is also an epitome of desire and sexuality. Her voluptuous form reverberates with the characteristic tribhanga pose of figurines in Indian temple sculptures and at the same time with Madhuri’s on-screen dress and persona. In comparison, in Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, Madhuri appears through brisk, angular lines. Her lean, slender form echoes the flatness of the cubist paintings of Picasso, while her dress embellished with a bright palette recalls Gauguin’s Tahitian women and Indian folk paintings. The figural depiction of Madhuri as Radha also resonates with Husain’s controversial Saraswati (figure 4.4),9 a painting of the Hindu Goddess of Learning, which has been embroiled in charges of obscenity (Juneja 1997; Swati Chattopadhyay 2008; Uberoi 2011; K. Jain 2011; Ramaswamy 2011; Gilmartin & Metcalf 2011; Pal 2017a.; Maheshwari 2019; Guha-Thakurta 2004, 2022). The image shows a nude figure of Saraswati with a veena (musical instrument) covering her groin. One side of her are a lotus and a fish in the water and on the other a peacock. In the artist’s own words: The controversial sketch of Saraswati, for example, is an elegant white-onblack line drawing, which makes the viewer reflect on the old Indian tradition of “nirakara” or formlessness. . . . The goddesses are pure and uncovered. Here, the nudity is not nakedness; it’s a form of innocence and maturity. (Pal 2017b)

While describing this image, Guha-Thakurta states: The charges of obscenity, it has been shown, had little to do with the actual image of Saraswati drawn by Husain—“a serious look at the drawing,” it is argued, “is sufficient to point to the untenability of this specific accusation.” Here is a bony and taut figure, lacking in any tactile stimulation of female flesh, where the iconographic attributes of the goddess, though present, are never foregrounded. (2004, 248)

As an angular and lean female nude, Saraswati is devoid of erotic undertones in the painting, Guha-Thakurta concludes, and hence not obscene.10 She further argues that Husain’s Saraswati appears “entirely innocent next to his sensationalized obsession with Madhuri and the licenses he has taken in his imaging of this actress” (248). Meanwhile, Swati Chattopadhyay argues that

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Figure 4.4  Reproduction of Saraswati, M. F. Husain, Pen-and-Ink Drawing (1976). Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

Husain’s Saraswati is not asexual, but rather is embedded in a different logic of sexual encoding, a “tantalizing sway between sacred and profane” (2008, 784).11 The erotic codes in the image coexist with modernist representations of the female nude, she asserts, to produce an enigmatic sexual image, at once human and divine: She [Saraswati] is clearly not modeled after the idealized iconography of the Hindu goddess . . . her humanness emphasized by only two hands, the “natural” shape of breasts, the prominent pelvic girdle, and her genitalia “hidden” by the phallic veena . . . a woman perched on the heterosexual male fantasy. Between the word and the figure, then the narrative of idealized erotic femininity folds and unfolds between a sacred and a secular, a goddess and a human. (783–84)

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For Chattopadhyay, Saraswati is ambivalent; on one level, she is “tantalizingly fluid in the erotic medium,” and, on the other, she is contained by the “certainty of brisk lines” and the frame of the image (784). Like Husain’s Saraswati, his depiction of Madhuri as Radha is a complex erotic symbol, simultaneously sacrosanct and seductive. A closer look at the figure of Radha in Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala reveals a cylindrical dash of ochre color between Madhuri’s legs, echoing the shape and color of a phallus. Although she is rendered with the linearity and flatness of modern female forms of Western art, her angular, lean, stylized shape is still charged with eroticism, albeit an “un-Indian” one. A similar pictorial representation can be seen in other paintings and film stills of Madhuri from the film Gaja Gamini. Though Madhuri is depicted both as a seductive figure and as Krishna’s beloved Radha, she remains his mother, Husain’s adhuri ma. He describes how the figure of his mother fuses with that of Madhuri in his autobiography. When he saw Madhuri, he writes, he saw his mother carrying a basket on her hip in Pandharpur, the place of his birth (2002, 246). In another metaphorical anecdote, Husain envisions his mother putting the basket on the ground. Momentarily distracted, she loses sight of the baby: She stood, statue-like before the empty basket. Months and years elapsed, the 28-year-old mother didn’t age a single day. She didn’t breathe any more but the child who had crawled out on his knees from the basket wandered the world barefooted. Eighty years later, the son returned to Pandharpur to meet his mother earth.  .  .  . He was overcome with the feeling that his mother was still waiting for him on the fairground. . . . The mother, shy, and bewildered, remained hidden within the walls. Bewildered because she was still 28 and felt strange about standing next to her 80-year-old son. She felt that she was an incomplete mother, an adhuri mother. The Pandharpur people laughed, “Oh, that’s why he’s painting Madhuri nowadays. His ma . . . adhuri [mother . . . incomplete].” (2002, 246–47)

In the figure of Madhuri as Radha, the Bollywood star symbolizes a play of sexuality and motherhood for the artist. Husain translates these apparently dichotomous realms into a seemingly harmonious single narrative in the painting. Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala can also be seen as an example of Freud’s Oedipus complex, the psychoanalytical framework Freud applies to the mother–child relationship of infantile sexuality in which the male child is enamored by his mother, making her the primary object of libidinal desire: At a very early age the little boy develops an object-cathexis [fixation] for his mother . . . the boy deals with his father by identifying himself with him. For a time these two relationships proceed side by side, until the boy’s sexual wishes

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in regard to his mother become more intense and his father is perceived as an obstacle to them; from this the Oedipus complex originates. (1995, 640)

Usually, these desires emerge between the ages of three and six in what Freud terms the phallic stage of development. Since the child suspects that acting on these impulses would lead to danger, he represses them, leading to anxiety. For Freud, “the beginnings of religion, morals, society and art converge in the Oedipus complex” (1960, 156). Seen in the light of Freud’s Oedipus complex, Husain’s Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala does not separate the lover and the mother—Radha/Madhuri and Mother Teresa as Krishna’s mother, Yashodha—in two different and conflicted domains. Rather, they belong to the same space of Krishna (a.k.a. Husain, who is both the lover and the child). Sexuality and motherhood crystallize in the hybrid form of the cow-bull on which Krishna sits and around which the artist orchestrates his desires and longings: the cow is the symbol of maternal nourishment, the bull is the symbol of virility, the phallus. “One day, this girl [Madhuri] swung her hips coquettishly and tossed a red dupatta right into this [Husain’s] face, singing, ‘Didi tera.’ Suddenly, a bull yoked to a tree saw a splash of red. Breaking the shackles, he charged at the red dupatta” (Husain 2002, 244). He also visually captures the encounter between the bull (Husain) and Madhuri in the Madhuri-Mcbull series, particularly in Rape of Europa. Derived from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the painting is based on the Greek myth in which the God Jupiter is enchanted with a Phoenician princess, Europa, and abducts her in the guise of a bull. A popular theme in European art, the story has been represented by artists such as Titian (1559–1562) and Rubens (1628–1629), among others. In Titian’s painting, a serenely poised bull exudes a stoic calmness and is devoid of any violence associated with sexual assault, while the reclining Europa is “both submissive and resistant, appearing both abandoned with desire and frightened” (Benford, n.d).12 With her legs sprawled suggestively over the bull’s back and her thighs partially covered by a fluttering garment, she looks at the flying putti in the sky; “her generous, billowing flesh and Jupiter’s tail seem to quiver with excitement at the pending sexual act” (Benford, n.d.). As an eroticized visual delight, the painting redirects the viewer’s gaze from the theme of rape to that of consensual love. Titian’s painting portrays what Susan Brownmiller terms a “heroic rape” (1975, 289–290). By idealizing rape, it glorifies, sanitizes, and aestheticizes sexual violence (Wolfthal 1999, 7). Diane Wolfthal explains: “The painter, in search of an erotic subject, chose a ‘heroic’ rape myth and then subverted its narrative so that the victim is constructed as a willing lover” (20). It is this constructed, consensual aspect of the representation of rape that Husain tried to rework in his rendition of Rape of Europa with Madhuri.

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In Husain’s version, the nude figure of Madhuri “hangs” from the charging bull, wavy hair framing her face, a bindi (a vermilion red dot, a mark of auspiciousness for a married woman) on her forehead, and lipstick smeared on her full lips.13 With her elbow on the bull’s phallus, an arrow intersects the center of her body, signifying the moment of penetration. The sexual tone is more explicit and raw than Titian’s painting. Consumed with carnal desire, the bull’s snarling head is turned toward the dangling figure. As GuhaThakurta describes, Husain “depicts Madhuri as a nude Europa being gored by ‘McBull’” (2004, 248). The thematic mix of passion and violence manifest in his artistic ouevre, where the “strong erotic elements in the figures he portrays coexist shockingly with elements of violence, terror and disintegration” (Bagchee 1998). Husain also conceives a “logo” for his Madhuri-McBull Creation, which he translates into a cinematic idiom for the film Gaja Gamini (figure 4.5). It depicts a bull turned toward the object of desire. The figural representation of Madhuri gives way to the bindi, a bright red vermilion dot above the bull’s phallus, evoking the visual representation of the bull charging the red dupatta (veil), now contained within his own body. For Husain, the color red calls attention to the erotic aspect of his creative process: “I think if any act is charged . . . if you see a burning sun, a beautiful sunset, it is erotic. Whenever I take the colour red and put it on canvas, I feel it’s a sexual act!” (Chandra 2011, 216). Along with the connotation of the color red, the name Madhuri-McBull itself reinforces the theme of eroticism in Husain’s art. The two parts of the name represent the union of the star with the artist—McBull is a play on Husain’s first name, “Maqbool”—affirming Husain’s strong sexual connotations toward the film star. Describing the series, he states: “I am in disguise everywhere. I

Figure 4.5  Reproduction of “Logo” of Madhuri-McBull Creation, Art and Cinema, M.F. Husain (1997). Image Courtesy, Emily Sodders.

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am the bull. I am also Vishwamitra [Menaka’s lover]” (M. Jain 1995). At the same time, Husain’s constant reference to Madhuri as both a sacrosanct figure and as his mother reinforces the duality of the lover-mother-son relationship of the Oedipus complex. He says, “The woman in Gaja Gamini is the image of my mother who I lost when I was barely two. I had no photos of her. Only mental images” (Renuka 2002). In another interview, Husain reveals, “Gajagamini has two lovers. Her earthly lover is [the artist] da Vinci . . . [actor] Naseeruddin Shah is da Vinci, my alter ego, who has this big crush on Gajagamini” (Nandy 1999). Thus, the interplay of motherhood and sexuality on the figure of Madhuri is also evident in Gaja Gamini. In Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, where Radha is represented as Krishna’s consort, the apparently conflicted sites of sexuality and motherhood—the former belonging to the so-called crass world of the senses and the latter inscribed within a pious zone of the purity of a mother’s love, are knit together by Husain’s explosive palette. The painting becomes the visual narrative of the artist’s own Oedipal encounter in which both maternal and carnal love-object become one. The “oneness” of the mother and lover, or the mother as lover, however, is not devoid of inner contradictions. The sexual violence of the mother-lover figure of Madhuri in Husain’s Rape of Europa, in this context is given the veneer of consensual love. Both these images become a visual representation of Husain’s own unconscious, in which Madhuri’s form becomes a site on which the dual and contested role of both the mother and the lover is played. Although, in his interviews Husain denied having any sexual attraction for Madhuri and reiterated that he envisioned her as a sacred mother figure (“‘I Always Defy’” 2009), his fascination with her was well known and earned him the title “Madhuri Fida Husain,” roughly translated as “one who is crazy for Madhuri.” Husain’s autobiography makes visible the contradiction and juxtaposition of sexuality and motherhood in the figure of Madhuri, when he poetically describes his vision of her both as a maternal figure and as a seductress: The smile The grace, the rhythm, the woman beyond His mother, his beloved, his Madhuri La Dixit So what if the cats meowed, the jackals howled? Because he was bowled out. (Husain 2002, 242; emphasis mine)

THE PAINTING AS A RITUAL OBJECT Pappu Sardar reappropriates Husain’s image of Madhuri by framing it as an object of veneration and circulating it through the media to further his

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own agenda of devotional fandom. On May 15, 2009, he used the print of Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala as a backdrop for conducting rituals for his cinematic goddess in the Madhuri Dixit temple, where it became part of his devotee-fan bhakti apparatus (figure 4.6). He visually rearranges the composition by placing Madhuri’s posters, which pervade the entire space and with which the masses identify, in front of Husain’s print, covering the figure of Radha, the cow-bull, and most of Mother Teresa. His print is further enlivened with thalis (plates) festooned with ladoos (sweets) and other offerings of prasad placed in front of the Bollywood goddess. Tucked in the upper left corner is also the garlanded image of Durga. Pappu Sardar performs puja and arati ritualizing Husain’s print along with the other Madhuri posters and the image of Durga, thus performatively incorporating them into the same sacred space. In the process, he relocates them into the sacred domain of his devotional fandom, transforming both Husain’s print and film posters into the domain of star murtis. As part of the puja, Pappu Sardar also covers Madhuri's poster in the center with the red chunni (auspicious veil) of the goddess Durga (figure 4.6), a ritual popularly conducted for the murti or poster image of the Hindu Goddess in temples, informal public worship places, and domestic shrines. The Hindu worship rites around Husain’s image conclude with the chant “Madhuri devi ki Jai” (Hail to Goddess Madhuri). By recontextualizing Husain’s image as

Figure 4.6  Pappu Sardar Worshipping Madhuri Images with a Print of Husain’s Image in His Madhuri Dixit Temple, May 15 (2009). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

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a star murti appropriated by publics of fan-bhakti, Pappu Sardar integrates a work of “high” art into his devotional fandom. As mentioned in the last chapter, Pappu Sardar’s popularity and credibility are enhanced through social work, especially in the Cheshire Home, a missionary related to Mother Teresa where he makes charitable contributions on the occasion of organized social events in Madhuri’s name. In a photograph taken during the Hindu festival of Holi in 2008 (figure 4.7), Pappu Sardar stands in the center, flanked by posters of Mother Teresa and Madhuri on

Figure 4.7  A Photograph Showing Pappu Sardar with Residents of Cheshire Home with Posters of Madhuri and Mother Teresa (c. 2008). Photo Courtesy, Pappu Sardar.

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either side. Three residents of the Cheshire Home form the foreground of the picture, their faces smeared with the yellow color of Holi and topped with paper hats to complete their festive look. Compared to Husain’s Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, Pappu Sardar’s image evokes a photographic reproduction, perhaps a coincidental “reenactment” of the painting. While in the painting, Husain is reflected in the figure of Krishna, here Pappu Sardar takes his place. The idea that Pappu Sardar becomes a “Krishna-Husain” is further enhanced through the red color of Holi that covers Pappu Sardar’s face, which recalls the red vermilion mark on Krishna’s forehead and on Husain’s bull, which now seems to have expanded on his body. While sharing this picture with me in 2008, Pappu Sardar commented, “I really like this photo. It has Madhuri, my Goddess, next to the image of the Universal Mother, Mother Teresa, both close to me in one frame.” The sexual undertones in the picture are subtler than in Husain’s painting, as the bull is missing. Nevertheless, sexual valences are visible in the poster of Madhuri, whose image—far from being “motherly”—is represented here as an object of desire. Known for her charm and sensuous dancing, the film star is dressed in glamorous attire, echoing the outfit she wore for her seductive number “Didi tera,” and flashes her million-dollar smile at the spectator. Pappu Sardar denies this sensual aspect of the actress, insisting Madhuri is only his mother, goddess, and elder sister—roles that are acceptable in society—unlike Husain, who even at the age of ninety-five openly discussed his fascination for Madhuri’s “sacrosanct” erotic dance moves and celebrated her sensuality in his artworks. However, both relate to Madhuri as a Mother goddess and a form of Shakti. While Husain weaves an artistic narrative around his longing for his mother by bringing together Madhuri and Mother Teresa within the metaphorical backdrop of his painting, Pappu Sardar does so to call attention to his devotional fandom. Through Madhuri’s poster he depicts his unique adoration for the star, and through Mother Teresa’s poster and the residents of Cheshire Home he represents his Madhuri-inspired social work that legitimizes his publics of fan-bhakti, elevating him from the status of a mere fan to that of a golden-hearted, local hero of Tatanagar.14 Positioned centrally in the photograph, Pappu Sardar becomes the focal point on whom all elements converge: Madhuri’s stardom, Mother’ Teresa’s compassion and his own devotional fandom. Harnessing the celebrity status of Madhuri, he increases his own popularity with the masses he involves in his celebrations. Somewhat similarly, Husain also attempted to connect his art with the masses, expressing in interviews a desire to take his art around India in a bullock cart (Chandra 2011, 85), a process he describes through the term “massifying”: “I have always looked forward to the ‘massifying’ of art” (Louvella 2005, 31).15 He goes on to allude to the “high” art status that categorizes

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his works: “Creating such an aura around art is not really my intention. . . . Art should be accessible to the common man” (Louvella 2005, 32). Husain elaborates, “I wanted my canvasses to have a story. I wanted my art to talk to people” (Bhardwaj n.d.). Ironically, most of his works ended up in highprofile art museums and in the homes of the ultra rich. To convey the idea that art should be accessible, in one of his film shots for Gaja Gamini, Husain dressed Madhuri as Mona Lisa and made her walk the entire Louvre Museum, into the streets of Paris. So, on one hand, Madhuri as Mona Lisa walking through the streets of Paris and navigating the corridors of a museum becomes a mobile and organic masterpiece that merges Western “high” art with the mass appeal of popular Bollywood cinema that Madhuri represents. On the other hand, in Husain’s artworks, she symbolizes the idea of a mother goddess (Shakti) and an embodiment of Indian womanhood, a role she essayed in Husain’s Gaja Gamini. Husain remarked that one of the main reasons he cast Madhuri as a central figure was to reach a larger audience. He saw her as a vehicle to carry his art across the nation to the masses, as “millions of people” watch her films and relate to her (“M F Husain on his Fixation,” n.d.). Nonetheless, the different connotations associated with Madhuri in the film did not strike a chord with critics, let alone the masses. Although Gaja Gamini associated Husain’s name with Madhuri’s, the film failed at the box office. Today, serigraphs and photo stills from the film are available in the form of books in select academic libraries and on some art websites, accessible primarily to scholars and elite customers. By contrast, when Pappu Sardar ritualizes prints of Husain paintings in his temple, located on the popular Sakchi market of Tatanagar, Husain’s images actually reach the masses, becoming the visual and devotional epicenter of Pappu Sardar’s fandom (as in 2009 celebrations). Thousands come to celebrate the birthday of his cinematic deity every year, and the festivities reach a national audience through news channels and social media. By framing his devotional fandom in the language and cultural practices of the people, which include melas, Durga pujas, Ganesh utsavs, Dahi Handi celebrations, and even Hindu marriages in the Madhuri Dixit Temple, popular practices mix with informal festivities through which Pappu Sardar connects the deified images of Madhuri, including the ritualized artworks of Husain with the masses. For example, his Madhuri fan yatra fuses the Hindu religious rath yatra with a baraat (marriage procession) of a typical North Indian Hindu wedding (figure 3.8). During the 2009 Madhuri fan yatra, Pappu Sardar stood next to a life-sized statue of Madhuri on the Madhuri rath. Riding a wooden four-horse chariot, he navigated through the streets of Tatanagar with thousands dancing to Madhuri bhajans, evoking the idea of a groom who sets out on horseback to meet his bride while relatives dance to popular Bollywood music. Seeing Pappu Sardar on the Madhuri rath, a reporter mockingly

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asked him: “Yeh kya [Madhuri’s] baarat le kar ayein hain aap?” (You have come with a baarat [for Madhuri?]) Pappu Sardar promptly replied, “Baarat lekar nahin ayen, ghodae rath par sawaar apni behn ko lekar ayen hain. Woh hai na Madhuri ka ganaa, ‘Paalki Mein Ho Ke Sawaar Chali Re, Main To Apnae Saajan Ke Dwaar Chali Re’” (I did not get a baraat; after mounting on a horse chariot, I got my sister [Madhuri]. [Remember] that song of Madhuri, ‘In a palanquin, I am going to meet my beloved.’)16 Even though a baraat is when a groom rides a decorated horse to fetch his bride and the song reference alludes to Madhuri as a lover, Pappu Sardar continues to deny any sexual attraction to Madhuri, claiming her as his elder sister. Through cultural practices associated with weddings, rath yatra, and other festivities that take place on the streets, Pappu Sardar relocates popular religiosity onto his Bollywood deity. Conforming to societal norms, his devotional fandom both entertains and assimilates the masses. Thus, framed within devotional fandom, the meaning of Husain’s Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala in the Madhuri Dixit Temple is recontextualized. Pappu Sardar expands the meaning of the artwork by inserting himself into the composition (quite literally, as seen in figure 4.6) and redefines it. Transformed into the spectacle of his devotional fandom, it is transmitted to the world via the internet and other media. Away from the confining walls of museums, the artwork is converted into a ritual object framed by Pappu Sardar’s publics of fan-bhakti. At the same time, Husain’s print legitimizes Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom, equating it with his art and sending the message: “If Husain can admire Madhuri, so can I.” Or rather, “Just like Husain, I too am a Madhuri fan, and maybe more.” Through Husain, Pappu Sardar’s fandom enters the privileged world of the artist, allowing Pappu Sardar to address the upper class, especially in Tatanagar, where the elite often deride his divinization of a film star, labeling his worship practices eccentric, crazy, and “irrational.” In a quirky coincidence, Pappu Sardar’s inclusion of Husain’s prints reverberates with Husain’s image of an eccentric artist and a deewana (crazy),17 and his comment in which he describes himself as a “joker”: “India is a giant circus and I am its rangeela (colourful) joker!” (Chandra 2011, 175). Instead of Husain, Pappu Sardar becomes the rangeela of Tatanagar, painting the town red with his devotional fandom. In yet another example of Madhuri worship via Husain’s images, Pappu Sardar printed greeting cards with Husain’s Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala and sent them to over 500 Bollywood actors, directors, producers, and others connected to the industry (figure 4.8 [interview with the author, 2010]). The card requested that members of the Bollywood community recognize Madhuri by making a personal phone call to the actress on her birthday: “Respected Bollywood, You give happiness to the whole world. By making

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Figure 4.8  Pappu Sardar’s Madhuri Greeting Card with Husain’s Paintings. Photo by the Author.

a phone call today on this auspicious day to your very own [Madhuri], you can give a lot of happiness.” Interestingly, Pappu Sardar did not sign the card. His own name does not appear. Instead of his signature, he puts the region where the city of Tatanagar is located, Jharkhand: “With Best Compliments from Jharkhand.” The card thus implies that the entire state of Jharkhand is synonymous with Pappu Sardar and his devotion for Madhuri. In 2009, Pappu Sardar decided to make Husain’s Gaja Gamini images the theme of the celebrations. In a series of three posters displayed at the temple, we see Pappu Sardar with Madhuri on the left, Madhuri receiving Padma Shri (a national award) from the President of India in the center, and Husain’s image of Gajagamini, on the right. On closely observing the order of display, it is striking to observe that Pappu Sardar inserts himself with the images of a Bollywood star, a celebrated painter, and the president of India at that time—all in the name of his devotional fandom. These images were flashed on TV channels and newspapers and reinforced the idea of Pappu Sardar as a celebrity. By worshipping Husain’s Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala in his Madhuri Dixit Temple, Pappu Sardar transforms it into a deified artwork recontextualizing it as a star murti. Circulating the image in popular culture in the form of a greeting card, he produces new meanings for the artwork inscribed within his devotional fandom. In this way, Pappu Sardar himself becomes

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part of the image-producing process and reconfigures Husain’s image to function as a site to propagate his own activities. As Pappu Sardar states: “I made art out of Husain’s painting, so that it reaches a wider audience and the people remember his work” (interview with the author, 2009). Seen in this light, Pappu Sardar uses Husain’s art forms to create his own fan art.18 For the birthday event of Madhuri on May 15, 2009, Pappu Sardar decided to use another image by Husain, claiming that through this gesture, Husain’s work would reach a larger audience. He says, “Husain’s image of the woman with anklets, with a baby in arms and a gathri on her head walking along with a cow from his film Gaja Gamini has not been understood by the people: I will be distributing small figurines of this image during Madhuri’s birthday celebrations among the people who come to be part of the event—so that they can appreciate Husain’s art and understand it (interview with the author, 2009). Pappu Sardar becomes a self-appointed ambassador, curator, and an art critic of Husain’s artworks in the Madhuri Dixit Temple and also disseminates it to the masses. However, when Pappu Sardar distributes “Husain’s artwork” from his Madhuri Dixit Temple, the artists’ images get reconfigured as devotee-fan art. Pappu Sardar recontextualizes Husain’s image (that currently resides in books in select libraries) by making small clay figurines of the artwork, and distributing it among common people (figure 4.9). By giving it a three-dimensional form he made Husain’s art accessible: As copies, people are free to gaze, touch, and decorate their homes with Husain’s art, now transformed into the artistic oeuvre of devotee-fan art of Pappu Sardar. Madhuri’s image is no longer just M. F. Husain’s muse but is now marked with the publics of fan-bhakti of Pappu Sardar, reinforcing his devotional fandom. While Husain used the icon of Madhuri, a popular symbol of feminine sensuality, as a medium for his art to reach the masses, Pappu Sardar uses both the iconic stature of Madhuri and also of Husain to enhance his own status as a fan. As a devotee-fan artist, Pappu Sardar reinvents Madhuri from a cinematic star into his Hindu goddess in his Madhuri Dixit Temple by ritualizing her posters (including Husain’s prints) and thus in a Duchampian sense imparts a new meaning to an already existing image. As a ritual object and as a work of devotee-fan art, how does the print of Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, and other works of Husain displayed and disseminated from the Madhuri Dixit Temple change the reading of Husain’s painting? More importantly, what issues does it raise for the discipline of art history? How can deified film posters and prints of a film star be understood in relation to the present canon of art history, which has defined boundaries that barely recognize popular art, such as film posters? How do such deified images of the devotee-fan and star murtis challenge the paradigm both of art and art history, and confront us to reconstruct the meaning of art? Scholars

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Figure 4.9  Woman with a Gathri, a Sculptural Rendition of Husain’s Painting Remade by Artists Hired by Pappu Sardar (2009). Photo by the Author.

such as Jyotindra Jain (2004, 2007), Christopher Pinney (1997, 2004), and Kajri Jain (2007, 2021) have expanded the discipline by inserting popular collages, photographs, mass-produced printed images, calendar art, and monumental public sculptures of Hindu deities and freedom fighters into the existing canon of Indian art. In what other ways can art history be reconceptualized to incorporate these new forms of devotee-fan art in popular culture? While in the first four chapters, I have addressed the worship of Bollywood stars, Amitabh and Madhuri by devotee-fans, to argue how they facilitate a

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revision of current paradigms of religion, art, and architecture. In the next chapter, my focus is on the devotional fandom around a superstar of Southern India, Rajinikanth, to highlight how his national and transnational devoteefans engage in social activism to help reshape the sociopolitical contours of the state of Tamil Nadu. NOTES 1. Husain accepted Qatar citizenship in February 2010, when he was in a selfimposed exile due to criminal cases filed against him in context to his nude paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses. He left India in 2006, when the nude figure in his painting “Bharat Mata” (Mother India) created a furor in the country. 2. “‘I Always Defy Myself,’ M.F. Husain: On the Couch with Koel,” Headlines Today (2009). 3. “I’m a Great Showman,” Gulf News, Sonali Raha (2003). 4. For Husain, the spirit of the people was essential to art. “Yet his civilisational vision of nationhood was one that in some ways appealed more to what might be termed a ‘civilising process’, than to a vision of the nation (or of religion) defined in terms of fixed essence or reductive devotional immediacy” (Gilmartin and Metcalf 2011, 55). 5. See Malvika Maheshwari’s nuanced reading in Art Attacks: Violence and Offence-Taking in India in which she proposes to understand the attacks against artists by centralizing the nature and role of “violence of offence-taking” (2019). 6. An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the South Asian Studies Association (SASA) Conference, Los Angeles, April 10–11, 2010. 7. “From 2005 to 2009, while in his 90s, the legendary artist M.F. Husain created the Chinese Scroll Series, a set of 29 large-scale serigraphs featuring two of his most iconic themes: Mother Teresa and horses. Painted by Husain and then developed into silkscreens, the serigraphs themselves are mounted onto black scrolls and intended to hang frameless like traditional Asian paintings.” See Sonia Patwardhan, “M.F. Husain’s Chinese Scrolls.” 8. To read more about the play, see Rajan’s, Kālidāsa: The Loom of Time: A Selection of His Plays and Poems (1990) and “Kalidasa: The Recognition of Sakuntala,” Brians (2002). 9. See the original image of Saraswati by M.F. Husain in Ila Pal’s article, “Why didn’t MF Husain paint Allah the way he painted Saraswati?” (2017). https:// www​.dailyo​.in​/arts​/mf​-husain​-intolerance​-ila​-pal​-husain​-portrait​-of​-an​-artist​/story​/1​ /20324​.html 10. Regarding the issue of obscenity in Husain’s Saraswati, while Kajri Jain notes that “in framing the nakedness of Husain’s goddess as obscene” what is exposed is the “obscenity of the power exercised for centuries through the claim of divine sanction” (2011, 201, 211). In her more recent reading of the image, Guha-Thakurta views it in light of the secularization of the theme-based pandals of Durga Puja. She locates it within a separate trope of alternate iconicity, embedded in a modernist

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aesthetics, arguing that akin to sacred images, works of modern art have their own “‘iconicity’ and ‘sacredness’” (2022, 85). Through different perspectives, these scholars, reinforce the artist’s right of freedom of expression, vehemently critiquing the claims that Husain’s Saraswati ­represents an “act of disrobing” and “‘rape of Hindu goddesses’,” and hence is obscene (Guha-Thakurta 2022, 90). 11. “Stylistically, the drawing belongs to a particular Modernist tradition of ­drawing a female nude. The body is articulated by a series of displacements, which makes the viewer aware of the construction of the figure.  .  .  . The symbols that frame the figure, however, suggest we view this production from a perspective not entirely available to a Western Modernist interpretation of the female nude” (Swati ­Chattopadhyay 2008, 783). 12. To see the original painting and to read about the underlying political narrative of the painting, see Shawon Kinew’s “The Shimmering Quality” (2021). www​ .gardnermuseum​.org​/blog​/shimmering​-quality​-rape​-europa 13. In another online rendition of the image sold by an art house, the figure of Madhuri appears without the bindi. See the image at: https://www​.nevermindgallery​ .com​/products​/indianart​-rape​-of​-europa 14. “Some people who come to celebrate Madhuri’s birthday also bring money to donate for social causes. The kinnars [eunuchs] of Tatanagar, who have been involved in Madhuri’s birthday celebrations for the past couple of years, regularly donate money to Cheshire Home” (Pappu Sardar, interview with the author, 2010). 15. “M. F. Husain’s series titled Our Planet Called Earth, for which businessman Guru Swarup Srivasatava had promised the painter Rs 100 crore at the rate of Rs 1 crore per painting, will now be available on Airtel phones. . . . Airtel hopes that its subscriber base of 10.2 million and affordability will ensure the ‘massification’” (Bhattacharya, “Art of Massification” (2004)). 16. “Madhuri Birthday” by Pappu Sardar, 2009. DVD. 17. “Q. How do you react to the fact that people think you are eccentric? A. I really do want to communicate but if people say I am paagal (mad), chalo diwangi hi sahi, let there be madness: this way you don’t have to explain, yes, there is method in my madness, at least I’m consistent.” M. Jain, “Girls of the new age” (1993). 18. Fan art is an artifact produced by a fan and is usually derived or re-worked from visual media, such as comics, film posters, cinema, television shows, and video games. It includes computer-generated or altered images. Analyzing fan art helps to understand how fans read, engage, and interpret media-generated images, weaving them with narratives that reflect their worldview related to issues of identity, power, gender, belief system, politics, and religion.

PART III

CROSSING BORDERS DEVOTEE-FANS AND THEIR TRANSNATIONAL SOCIOPOLITICAL TRAJECTORIES

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Get Rajinified India to USA, the “God of Style” and his Devotee-fans

STAR DEITY: TRANSCENDING HINDU GODS The streets of the slum were lined with shanties on both sides. As I made my way down one of them, I reached a brightly painted, turquoise-colored door. Pasted on the door was a picture of Murugan, a traditional Hindu god, and “hovering” above it was an image of film star Rajinikanth, which made the Hindu God look diminutive in comparison (figure 5.1). Each film release of Rajinikanth creates a devotional frenzy in which the performance of rituals parallels the piety expressed by devotees for Hindu deities, such as Murugan. A media report states: Thiruchendur in Tamil Nadu is famous for being one of the six abodes of Lord Muruga [Murugan]. This shore temple of Lord Shiva’s second son attracts devotees from all over the World. But on this day, the gods took a backseat as a demigod of Tamil cinema Rajnikanth enthralled young and old alike with his most awaited film Sivaji. (Nadar 2007)

I quizzically gazed at the images on the door again as they seemed to visually enact this sentiment. As I was ushered inside, I noticed that all four walls of the one-room home were decorated with printed images of R ­ ajinikanth, who was being revered in the slums on the outskirts of North Chennai in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The superstar seemed to have ­completely overtaken older forms of deities. So, what was happening to their traditional gods? I posed this question to an enthusiastic group of families sitting in front of me. The owner of the house, Kannan, leapt forward and pointed to the pictures on the turquoise door through which I had entered. He exclaimed, “Same! 175

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Figure 5.1  Printed Images of Hindu God, Murugan (Lower Right) and Rajinikanth (Center) in North Chennai, Tamil Nadu, March (2008). Photo by the Author.

Murugan and ‘our God’, superstar—no difference!” But I quizzed them again: If there were a picture of Murugan and one of their superstar, then to whom would they pay their respects first? Since I do not understand Tamil, and Kannan does not understand Hindi and can barely speak English, he decided to explain to me without letting my translator intervene, using sign language. As Kannan drew an imaginary box in the air with his hands, an animated energy began to surge through him. He looked at me, pointed to the box, and said, “Murugan.” Then he frowned and nodded his head in disdain, briskly waving his imaginary image away with his other hand and gesticulating that the God’s days were over. Then, he gleefully drew another imaginary box in the air with his hand, and, pointing to it excitedly, exclaimed “Rajini” (Rajinikanth), flashing a radiant smile. As he performed the characteristic Rajini salute pose for the “image” to express his admiration for his new God, the group of people around me burst into laughter at how effectively Kannan had expressed his devotion to the superstar without the convenience of spoken language.1 Lovingly addressed as Rajini, the Boss, Superstar, and Thalaivar (leader) by his fans, Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, popularly known as Rajinikanth, is an iconic film star from Southern India.2 He has become a phenomenal figure

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both in India and abroad, has acted in over 170 films in a career span of more than four decades, and “has remained the highest-paid actor in India for well over two decades” (Velayutham and Devadas 2021, 2). His film Chandramukhi (2005) became a hit in Germany, and he became a cult figure in Japan after the hit film Muthu (1998), which led to the formation of Japanese fan clubs and websites (S. V. Srinivas 2013). Even his recent film Darbar (2020) drew sold-out shows in Japan (Narayanan 2021). To meet the superstar, Japanese fans have been visiting India, engaging in a special “first day first show pilgrimage” to Chennai to watch Rajinikanth movies with Indian fans (Sivapriyan 2018). Attesting to Rajinikanth’s growing fame around the world, the film Enthiran (Robot) (2010) became the highest-grossing Indian film, earning $2.5 million in the United States (Subramanian and Bamzai 2010). In 2016, Kabali became the first Indian film to be released in the world’s largest movie theater in France, and in 2018, 2.0 did a worldwide business of 100 million U.S. dollars (“2.0 Box Office” 2018). Grady Hendrix, writer and co-founder of the New York Asian Film Festival, introduces Rajinikanth to a Western audience as a “force of nature” in an interview with WNYC, a New Yorkbased radio station (“Superstar Rajinikanth” 2010a). In an online magazine, he writes: “This is Rajinikanth, and he is no mere actor—he is a force of nature. If a tiger had sex with a tornado and then their tiger-nado baby got married to an earthquake, their offspring would be Rajinikanth. Or, as his films are contractually obligated to credit him, ‘SUPERSTAR Rajinikanth’!” (“Superstar Rajinikanth” 2010b). Recently, his techno-savvy fans have even developed a new computer programming language in the superstars’ name called “rajini++.” The language, “syntax and keywords used in rajini++ are based on the dialogues of Superstar Rajinikanth” (Sankar 2022). His stupendous fan following has led to the organization of 100,000 rasigar mandarams (fan clubs), with a total membership of twenty million fans, mostly in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (S. V. Srinivas 2013). Out of these, 63,000 are registered under the umbrella of the overarching All India Rajinikanth Fan Association, also called the All India Rajinikanth Rasigar Mandaram, which is supervised by current president V. M. Sudhakar, who was appointed by Rajinikanth himself. Although Rajinikanth decided not to include more fan clubs in the association in 1995, new fan clubs continued to form. According to the LIC Unit of Rajinifans in Chennai, an equal number of unregistered fan clubs (63,000) exist in Tamil Nadu alone (interview with the author, 2008). In addition to those in India, there are Rajinikanth fan clubs in the United States, Singapore, Australia, the UK, Canada, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Japan, among others. Rajinikanth’s international appeal has spread both through widespread media coverage and the internet, where millions of fans across the globe access Rajinikanth fanzines, websites, blogs,

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YouTube, and e-groups (such as those on Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo). In this chapter, I examine the activities of both registered and unregistered Rajinikanth fan clubs including online fan groups (such as rajinifans.com) under the aegis of the Rajinikanth Fans Association or the RFA (my abbreviation). The widespread adulation of Rajinikanth, dubbed the “Rajini phenomenon,” led the media to designate him as the “God of Tamil Cinema” and even his film producers to publicly proclaim him as a divine being (Shekhar 2007). But how has Rajinikanth’s superstar persona, which has reached the pinnacle of success and glory, been elevated to a celestial status? We have seen in chapters 1 and 2 how the ABFA transforms Amitabh’s cinematic image into that of a Hindu god, Ram. In chapters 3 and 4, Pappu Sardar and M. F. Husain inscribe Madhuri’s image within the form of Hindu goddesses, Durga and Radha. In the case of Rajinikanth, though some parallels are drawn with gods such as Murugan, Krishna, Buddha, and even Jesus, they are not used to reframe Rajinikanth in their likeness or to insert him into their pantheon. Rather, these deities simply appear as sacral visual agents that enhance the power invested in his persona, which, according to his devotee-fans, supersedes them. Rajinikanth commands a reigning cult brand of his own, the “God of our Gods,” as some devotee-fans describe him, who does not need the anchor of Hindu gods to legitimize his deityhood (Tiwari 2014). So, how does Rajinikanth, without being framed as a Hindu god or iconographically aligned with deities, assume this sacred persona? How does the identity of devotee-fans consolidate and mobilize around this unique manifestation of the star deity? What happens when the star deity crosses national borders and is worshipped in transnational spaces? What kind of a cultural landscape is produced when transmigrant devotee-fans occupy public spaces to display their devotion?3 What is the social and political impact of this deified persona of a film star, and how does it usher in and empower new political actors in Tamil Nadu, both from national and transnational sites? In other words, how does devotional fandom create a global Rajinikanth devotee-fan community geared toward sociopolitical goals? These are the questions I address in this chapter.4 I have divided the chapter into three major sections: the construction of Rajinikanth as a star deity by his devotee-fans in India, the transnational devotee-fans of Rajinikanth in the United States, and the sociopolitical activism generated by this global devotional fandom. PART I: RAJINIKANTH AS A STAR DEITY Rajinikanth is my God, Rajinisim is my religion, Rajini fan is my caste. –Superstar Rajinikanth Telegu Fans Club (SRTFC), Twitter post5

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Some mere mortals felt the need for divine intervention and started praying for the success of Rajinikanth’s [film] Petta. Fools, we tell you. Don’t they know God worships Rajinikanth? –“Rajinikanth Joke”6

The first quote above, by the SRTFC, is a mantra that resonates with thousands of Rajinikanth fans across the globe. The second encapsulates the divine and playful status imparted to the film star through “Rajinikanth jokes” that populate social media platforms. Fans worship the star as a god, bathing his huge cutouts and posters with milk through the ritual of palabhishekam, performing arati, and anointing them with other Hindu rituals (figure 5.2 and figure 5.3). They emulate his on-screen characters, one-liner punchlines, jokes, style, and attitude (“Rajinitude”) all in the name of the phenomenon that has come to be known by the media and fans as “Rajinism.” Since the release of the trailer of Petta (2018), “Rajinism,” which includes the mannerisms, style, and dialogues associated with the superstar and has circulated for years in popular culture, has been thriving alongside a newly coined term, “Get Rajinified,” that has become a rage with the fans on social media. Although, like Rajinism, there is no formal definition of the term: Get Rajinified can be understood as a call to all the Rajinikanth fans to prepare

Figure 5.2  Rajinikanth Fans Performing Milk Abhishekam for the Hoarding of Rajinikanth’s Film, Kochadiyaan, Tamil Nadu (2014). Photo Courtesy, Rajinifans​.co​m.

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Figure 5.3  Fans Perform Arati, Shanti Theater, Chennai (2007). Photo Courtesy, LIC Rajini Fans.

for an electrifying, thoroughly gripping, “Rajini style” ecstatic fan experience through collective viewing and celebration of the film and their fandom, both inside the theaters and in the expanded cinematic space of the city, social media and the “global-popular” (Sarkar and Ghosh 2022). The term encapsulates one of the highest embodiments of the devotee-fan experience, peppered with all the ingredients of the “signature style” of Rajinikanth fans. Characterized by a dynamic immersion in the performative aspect of fandom

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on the First Day First Show (FDFS) of films, the process is marked by a plethora of high-strung emotions conjoined with the collective performance of Hindu rituals and unabashed dancing. It yields an ultimate “erasure” of the self into the electrically charged, organically shaped mass of devoteefans, which I would like to term as Rajini Fan. A detailed discussion of what constitutes the Rajini Fan will follow later in the chapter. At its heart, the term Get Rajinified, enshrines the quintessence of publics of fan-bhakti, inviting fans to “drench into Rajini fever,” soak into his fandom in all its myriad facets: playful, festive, celebratory, ritualistic, devout, ecstatic, and beyond; marking the film theaters and media spaces with the imprint of a supercharged devotional fandom. This mantle of the superhuman bestowed upon Rajinikanth by his devotee-fans emerges from the social, political, and cultural matrix of Tamil Nadu. Culled from the popular subconscious, the superstar embodies the most stylish designer deity of the cinematic sacred. There are two major reasons that have contributed to the framing of Rajinikanth in an exalted domain and the relocation of his star persona in a sanctified space: the history of convergence of cinema, religion, and politics in Tamil Nadu and the publics of fan-bhakti practiced by his devotee-fans. The first, historical aspect is based on the role of films and film stars in Tamil Nadu’s colonial and postcolonial history. To investigate this, drawing from the work of other scholars, I will briefly explore the preexisting narrative of star devotion in Tamil culture by discussing the demigod status imparted to the star politician, MGR (1917–87). After MGR’s death, this space of a star politician anchored in by the worship rituals of devotee-fans around his images continues to be venerated, deeply entrenched in the political subconscious of Tamil Nadu. As Rajinikanth gained popularity and thousands of his devotee-fan clubs mushroomed around the state worshipping his images, some fans began to project Rajinikanth into this space of the messianic aura of MGR. Similar to Amitabh, who, as we saw earlier, epitomized the “angry young man” trope of Hindi cinema, in Tamil cinema, Rajinikanth personified the “other angry young hero,” raising his voice against a corrupt system ­(Maderya 2010; emphasis original). Through the larger-than-life characters that film directors and writers conceived for the star, he became aligned with the idea of a fearless hero of the masses and also with that of the future leader of Tamil Nadu. Off-screen, Rajinikanth’s austere lifestyle enhanced his enigmatic persona, feeding into his cinematic portrayal and blurring the line between the reel and the real, and between the cinematic and the sacred. Rajinikanth’s striking mannerisms in the portrayal of his film characters have made him a style icon for the youth, which adds another dimension to his image. I will examine how as the “God of Style,” Rajinikanth was not only inserted in MGR’s narrative

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of a future savior of Tamil Nadu but also the superstar’s status was elevated as one “above/beyond” that of existing Hindu deities. The second reason highlights how the visual and performative practices of Rajinikanth’s devotee-fans have sustained his deified images in popular culture. For several decades, the RFA has been engaged in systematic ritualization of the star’s images through the publics of devotee-fan bhakti. Thousands of devotee-fans have been worshipping Rajinikanth’s cinematic images using Hindu rituals to deify the star’s cutouts, banners, and posters. Towering images of the star deity (sometimes eighty-five to two-hundred feet in height) that represent Rajinikanth in his characteristic stylish gestures—in one he is shown in a salute pose, in another he is striding ahead wearing dark glasses, and in yet another he resets his mane—are anointed with Hindu modes of bhakti in different parts of the cityscape and the internet (“Petta Fever” 2019). By engaging in Hindu devotional practices such as arati, puja, palabhishekam, dancing, and so on, around star images, fans construct a unified entity: the Rajini Fan. The Rajini Fan can be defined as a space of collective devotee-fan consciousness in which fans transcend traditional barriers of class, caste, and social status, immersed in the heightened publics of fanbhakti. Soaked in Rajinism and dissolved into a “singular” Rajini caste, they Get Rajinified, coalescing into a unified state of being. Although this state might be momentary, but bound by their love for their star deity, sedimented over several decades of collective worship rituals and social activism, the Rajini Fan transforms into a dynamic organic force with the potential of making a strong sociopolitical impact in Tamil Nadu. Star Deity in the Cinedivine Political Space: A Historical Perspective From its inception, the history of Tamil cinema has been closely linked to social and political ideology. However, the discernible impact of Tamil films and film artists on state politics can be traced to the emergence of Tamil Nadu’s regional party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), in 1949, which consciously used cinema for political ends (Hardgrave 1973, 1975a, 1975b; Pandian 1992; Dickey 1993b; Widlund 1993; Velayutham 2008; Velayutham and Devadas 2021). The beginning of MGR’s film career and his steady rise as a star paved the way for his strong association with the DMK, which changed the course of politics in Tamil Nadu. In The Image Trap, M. S. S. Pandian gives an incisive analysis of how MGR was able to build a nexus between his cinematic and political careers, harnessing his demi-god status and fan clubs to fulfill his political ambition. MGR’s political stardom reached the apex in 1972, when he formed his own party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), and was

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elected chief minister of Tamil Nadu, a role he maintained for eleven years (1977–1987), until his death. As the first film star in India to hold the office of a chief minister, MGR used film as a medium of political propaganda for his own party, similar to the DMK. Through his cinematic characters, he consolidated his superhuman star persona and located it at the epicenter of his political ideology. Pandian draws a parallel between MGR and a Hindu deity in describing the devotional fandom practiced around MGR’s images through the performance of Hindu rituals by his fans: “One can witness ebullient crowds gathered to watch MGR films, burning camphor before larger-than-life cut-outs of the hero and distributing butter-milk and water to the populace—as one would do before a Hindu deity during temple festivals” (1992, 77). Through the circulation of deified film posters and hoardings, MGR’s “sacred” image bedecked every nook and corner of the city, blurring the distinction between cinema and politics (Hardgrave 1973)7. MGR’s fan clubs were instrumental in sustaining his divinized star image and his political ideology. According to MGR, his fan clubs, which reportedly consisted of 10,000 branches, were the backbone of AIADMK: “Fan associations and the party are no different” (Pandian 1992, 30). MGR’s persona of a star deity was further concretized in 2011, when fans built a full-fledged temple to worship him, which, along with other posters, houses a gold-colored idol of “Lord MGR.”8 Decorated with ritualized cutouts of the star and resonating with their God’s devotional hymns, MGR’s film songs, the temple space has interestingly become associated with electoral success; it attracts politicians from different parties, who come to pay their respects before elections (Saju 2021). Today, over three decades after his death, his fans continue to worship his cutouts and posters with Hindu rites in film theaters before the screening of his films. During his time, MGR projected his star image as the locus of an otherworldly space of divinization and hero-worship (Pandian 1992). Influenced by the atheistic ideology of DMK, it was carved as being “different” from that of established Hindu deities.9 Emanating from the epicenter of the political, this space was also very worldly, understood as one occupied by the savior of the people, embedded in everyday politics and mobilization that could transform the lives of the people of Tamil Nadu. MGR created an apparently dialectical space between the cinematic sacred and the political, a cinedivine political space; a site of constant negotiation between cinema, politics, and divinization in which the fans played a major role.10 Through the deified star image that was manifest in politically tinged film characters and dialogues, public speeches, and welfare agendas, devotee-fans connected to their God’s ideas.11 At the same time, MGR’s deified persona paved way for a two-way communicative process; opening up the possibility of dialogue, in which he could be held accountable and answerable for his

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political decisions. Thus, a cinedivine political space of MGR’s image was established between the binary of divinity and earthliness, mediated by the role of the star deity as a politician. This space was cinematic, “real,” sacred, political, and revolutionary, all at the same time, embedded in the everyday social and political matrix of Tamil Nadu. Being in a constant state of flux, it carries within it a potential for dialectical negotiation between the devoteefans and the star deity. However, according to Pandian (1992), MGR’s star persona remained a one-way street in which the star entirely controlled his image and manipulated his devotee-fans. Dickey points to the finer nuances in this star–fan relationship. She states that MGR fans used his star image to enhance their status and fan clubs engaged in political activities, such as help in preparations for rallies and re-releases of MGR films (1993a, 171). Despite such interventions, MGR fan club members were looked down upon by members of the AIADMK (Dickey 1993b, 362). The political “voice” of fans thus remained subsumed within the iconic stature and political vision of their star deity. Hence, the dialectical potential of this liminal cinedivine political space, in which not just the star but also the devotee-fans get a stake in the deified star image, remained largely unrealized. After MGR’s death in 1987, his glorified image was systematically invoked and manipulated by his political successor, film star Jayalalithaa, who, led the AIADMK and served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.12 Jayalalithaa tried to redirect the trajectory of MGR’s cinedivine political space to her constructed persona of Amma (Mother) (Jacob 2009). Independent of MGR, her later images portrayed her in the form of several Hindu goddesses—Annapoorna, Kali, and Durga, as well as Virgin Mary in many political posters (A. Ram 2006). In the latter part of her career, she launched several populist schemes that gave impetus to her “Brand Amma” image. Although after her death in 2016, temples have been erected for her by AIADMK in an attempt to harness her legacy for electoral mileage (“Coimbatore AIADMK”; “Temple for AIADMK Icons MGR and J Jayalalithaa”; “A Temple in Jaya’s Memory”). Nevertheless, Jayalalithaa was not able to match the divinized aura of MGR. Scholars have cited various reasons for this including her elite upbringing, Brahmin caste, and conviction on corruption charges by a local court.13 I would like to add that due to the lack of organized devotee-fan clubs for the actress and a relatively marginal presence of publics of fan-bhakti around her images, she was only partially able to occupy the cinedivine political space created by MGR. Originating from the cinematic sacred, the cinedivine political is a space of the divinized star image where the political aspect of the star deity has reached a certain potential in which he/she is able to wield significant power in state politics. It is reinforced by the continual showcasing, projection, and ritual celebration of the star image and “good” governance of the star deity

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in public spaces by devotee-fans. Though not actively yoked to the mantle of a Hindu deity, this divinely ordained political space has a historical base in Tamil Nadu. Rooted in the atheism of DMK, it was “filled in” with the “holy-political” hue of MGR, though, after his death, evading Jayalalithaa, it remains vacant and largely unoccupied. Etched in the history of Tamil Nadu (through the nexus of cinema, politics, and religion) and also residing in the collective subconscious of Tamilians, this space currently remains in a limbo.14 However, this cinedivine political space is not a void or a lack, suggesting a nihilistic absence; rather, it is a charged impregnated space with potential. Though there have been many contenders vying for it,15 the rise of Rajinikanth’s star power to phenomenal heights and his impact on the people of Tamil Nadu, made him a powerful candidate for playing a significant role in politics. Similar to the personal narrative of MGR, Rajinikanth’s own history includes his struggle with poverty and rise to superstardom. Rajinikanth’s films are also replete with the theme of good triumphing over evil, which invoke Tamil nationalism, and his film characters, in spite of being funny, flamboyant, and stylish (imbued with style), ultimately represent him as the champion of the masses. God of Style In terms of star persona and appearance, Rajinikanth defies the ideal established by the fair-skinned MGR, both in his on-screen as well as off-screen image. The seventy-two-year-old freely appears off-screen in front of his fans and the media sans make-up or his wig. He looks very ordinary, clad in a simple white dhoti and kurta, though rather subaltern with his weather-beaten face, balding pate, unkempt beard, and often unruly hair. His daily appearance provides a sharp contrast to his swashbuckling macho screen image and makes him even more endearing to his fans, echoing the morally upright characters he plays in films. This adds yet another layer of “authenticity” to his star image (Dyer 1991),16 in the process negotiating his on-screen and offscreen image (S. V. Srinivas 2009; Nakassis 2016). In addition, his regular spiritual sojourns, documented through pictures of the star meditating in the Himalayan cave of the Indian yogi, Mahavatar Babaji, which the star has been visiting for several years,17 circulate in media narratives and resonate with the social life of fans. Representations of Rajinikanth’s spiritual leanings are also re-created and enhanced in the form of devotee-fan art. Although his spirituality might seem a counternarrative to his macho stylish on-screen persona, the juxtaposition of these two aspects further adds to the mystique of his aura. It bolsters the image of Rajinikanth as an ideal leader, who does not hanker after power and material gains, but rather, one whose character is defined by simplicity and sacrifice for the greater good of the society. For

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example, in a printed card created by a devotee-fan whose home I visited on the outskirts of Chennai in 2008, Rajinikanth’s stylish cinematic gait and “flying” mane is offset by the simple “purity” of his off-screen white attire that encases him (figure 5.4). Next to him are the figures of the Indian monk, Mahavatar Babaji and his fan club president at the time, Sathyanarayanan, who appear as floating static images in the composition. In contrast, Rajinikanth appears unstoppable as he strides ahead, just like the flamboyant characters he plays on screen. In this work of devotee-fan art, the world of films, spirituality, and fan culture all three are harmonized, coalescing Rajinikanth’s on-screen and off-screen persona, the reel and the real, into a single visual narrative that exudes his power. Even when he is at the pinnacle of success, the media, fans, and other celebrities constantly reiterate his real-life simplicity, charity, humility, and spirituality, which increases his wider appeal strengthening his cinematic image of a “mass hero” (Pandian 1992; S. V. Srinivas 2009; Prasad 2014; Nakassis 2016, 2017, 2020; Velayutham and Devadas 2021). Another striking feature that sets Rajinikanth apart is his style. His onscreen moves—such as flipping glasses, his majestic gait, lighting a cigarette with a gun, doing a popping trick with chewing gum, tossing a coin, striding flamboyantly, resetting his lion-like mane, performing a salute pose, and so

Figure 5.4  Greeting Card with Mahavatar Babaji’s Picture (2008). Photo by the Author.

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on—all add to his swag, creating a repertoire of style that constitutes “Brand Rajini.” In Doing Style, Nakassis (2016) examines how Tamil youth engage with the urban notion of style invested in Rajinikanth’s mannerisms. He says that while the idea of style is borrowed from English, it is used to describe in simple terms what the actor does: [Style] is more typically used to denote any number of his idiosyncratic, signature actions: from his finger-twirling gestures to the way he rotates his sunglasses around in circles while putting them on; from the way he flips his bangs back to the way he throws a towel onto his shoulders. Through their energized elaboration and enthusiastic flair, such acts of style reflexively draw attention to themselves as acts by Rajinikanth, functioning as quasi-proprietary signs of Rajini’s personage. (2017, 220; emphasis original)

Nakassis goes on to explain how Rajinikanth’s style is employed by the youth, specifically his fans, who frame their identity by “citing” these stylish acts in their everyday lives. According to him, “this is managed through and created by citational practices, practices which reflexively repeat and differ from what they cite, which forge connections between, while also holding apart, the act/subject of citing and the cited” (Nakassis cited by Gershon 2016). Through this “citationality of performativity” (of Rajinikanth style reanimated by fans), Nakassis argues, liminal spheres are erected that destabilize hierarchies of caste and class in Tamil Nadu (2013, 2016).18 Rajinikanth’s style-saturated persona also imparts a quirky modern spin to his deified images. As devotee-fans “cite” his style, particularly during film releases and while performing Hindu rituals for his images, they re-enact his punch dialogues, dance movements, and the Rajini Mudra (a characteristic hand gesture of the star), gait, and so on. In this way, Rajinikanth’s deified image becomes a converging space for both: Rajinikanth’s style, circumscribed with fan-bhakti, or vice versa. The resultant devotional style-bhakti establishes Rajinikanth’s brand as relatable, hip, and cool. The stylish aspect of his persona reanimates Rajinikanth’s deified images, making them more desirable as objects of worship as compared to images of conventional Hindu gods, who are still framed within the body language and attire imparted to them centuries ago (despite several modernist spins that reinvent their visual forms).19 Unlike conventional darshan, through which the devotee sees and is seen by the deity (see chapter 1), an integral component of style‑bhakti, gestural darshan emanates from and converges on “the one being seen,” via the image of the star deity. In other words, in reenacting Rajinikanth’s gestures and mannerisms through the publics of fan-bhakti, the devoteefan becomes both the point of origin and culmination of gestural darshan. In this case, the reciprocity of darshanic exchange is staged with the other devotee-fans and the media, which converges “back” on the

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Rajini Fan. On the cinematic screen, the star embodies the stylish gestures and mannerisms that fans cite both inside and outside of the cinema hall. However, in the expanded space of the city, media, and cyberspace, these gestures are immortalized by the fans, who breathe life into them, keeping them alive in popular culture for decades. The performance of the stars’ gestures and moves becomes the focal point of the media gaze, through the dynamically charged body of the devotee-fan that is powered via the ritualized printed images of the star deity. Amidst the animated performance of the style-bhakti of fans infused with gestural darshan, the static and frozen stance/gesture of the star in printed images recedes back, functioning more as a backdrop. This exclusive space of gestural darshan—for example, activated by the collective and repeated performance of the stars’ style, such as the Rajini Mudra, binds the Rajini Fan, as they flash the mudra together at the screen, to each other, and to the media. It dissolves differences among fans (of caste, class, etc.) even if momentarily, consolidating them into formalized fan club units that meld into the structured space of the RFA. A similar phenomenon occurs in the performative fan-bhakti of Pappu Sardar described in chapter 3, where his dancing body consumes the entire media and celebrity space of the star.20 I will come back to the idea of the Rajini Mudra and its political context later in the chapter. For now, it is important for us to remember how citations of style-bhakti give rise to particular forms of gestural darshan that empower the Rajini Fan. The Rajini Fan: The Role of the RFA in the Construction of Rajinikanth as a Star Deity As mentioned earlier, the All India Rajinikanth Fan Association is a registered, voluntary organization that was set up as an umbrella unit for different Rajinikanth fan clubs. Although fans have spread to other parts of the world, the main center of devotee-fan activity remains in Tamil Nadu. Each fan club comprises twenty to twenty-five members. Most fans are males, twenty to fifty-five years of age, according to Sreedhar, who has been the president of the LIC Unit of Rajinifans Fan Club in Chennai for more than two decades (interview with the author, 2008). Each fan club has a hierarchical organization with a president, vice president, treasurer, and so on. They sustain themselves on the basis of a monthly membership fee, which varies according to the location of the fan club (city or rural areas) as well as the economic background of the members. Neel Narayanan, another member of the LIC Unit of Rajinifans, explains that this money is used to print Rajinikanth’s film posters, erect hoardings, and banners, and for social work activities such as eye and blood donation camps, the distribution of food, books and clothes to the underprivileged (interview with the author, 2008).

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Members from different branches of the fan clubs coordinate with one another to create and circulate the superhuman image of their star deity. Fans also engage in jubilant festivities tinged with the religious fervor of a Hindu festival for the release of a new Rajinikanth film. The following quote describes the high-strung devotional frenzy generated in Tamil Nadu during the 2007 release of Sivaji: Gallons of milk will go down the drains and roads of Chennai on Friday morning as Rajnikanth fans prepared [sic] to usher in his latest multi-crore film, Sivaji. . . . Readying a plastic drum to store the milk sachets near Albert theatre, Muruganandam, a painter by profession, asserts that it is a tradition that he and his friends have followed religiously for every Rajni movie since 1980. Asked why waste so much milk on painted cardboard which could otherwise be given to poor children, Muruganandam shot back, “For us, Rajnikanth is God, and if milk can be used as abhishekam in temples, why not here? As for the poor, we will provide free lunch on behalf of the local fans association on Sunday.” (Shekhar 2007; emphasis mine)

In the above quote, the relationship between the star and the fan is described within the paradigm of devotional fandom in which Rajinikanth’s fans describe themselves as his devotees, a role that has been claimed by fans in the media for decades and that fans invariably reiterated in the course of my interviews with them. When questioned about the direct association of Rajinikanth with God exemplified in the quote (“Rajinikanth is God”), the LIC Unit of Rajinifans in Chennai explained that the bathing of Rajinikanth’s cutouts in milk was a sacred activity as legitimate as pouring milk on a murti in a temple (figure 5.2). This comparison erases the difference between a ritualized cutout and a murti, thereby merging the status of the star and the deity through the invocation of popular Hindu rituals. The fan’s quote also draws parallels between the cinematic sacred space outside of the theater (where cutouts are ritualized by devotee-fans) and a temple. The reframing of Rajinikanth’s cutout as a murti, his fan as a devotee, and the cinematic urban space outside of the theater as a temple is established through the RFA’s publics of fan-bhakti, invoked every time a new film of their star deity is released. The significance of this amalgamation of the cinematic and the sacred is even more evident in the description of the ritual of palabhishekam for Rajinikanth images, which generates an interactive relationship between the image of the star deity and the devotee-fan: A towering cutout of Rajnikanth in a salute-pose stands dripping wet with milk, as spring-footed people at the theatre jump about its legs catching the milksplashes and patting it on their heads. With their eyes closed, like in a temple. There’s absolute piety here too, but just much more vocal, much more physical, so much more ecstatic. (R. Mohan 2005)

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By repeatedly drawing a parallel between a film theater and a temple, Rajinikanth devotee-fans impart a sacral territoriality to the relationship between devotee-fans and the star deity. The corporeal engagement with the cutout, where the devotee-fans catch the milk splashes and pat it on their heads, shows how RFA members interact with the image as an object embodied with divinity, akin to the notion of a murti, enacting Pinney’s notion of “corpothetics” through which printed images can be invested with a divine aura (2004, 19). As we saw in the case of the divinized imagery of Amitabh and Madhuri, by ritualizing images of Rajinikanth with Hindu practices, these images become emblematic of the RFA’s devotee-fan bhakti. Such ritual festivities are conducted throughout the year on every film release of Rajinikanth, the 100-day celebration of his films, his birthday, his wedding anniversary, and other such events. They are also invoked in fans’ “familial relationships” when star images are used to celebrate weddings, birthdays, New Year, and more (Gerritsen 2016; figure 5.4). The artifacts of the RFA, such as posters, cutouts, flags, banners, greeting cards, and so on, are tangible markers of the fan’s spatial territory, which extends the cinematic image beyond the confines of the cinematic screen into the cityscape, bestowing a material legitimacy upon devotional fandom. These printed images, the bhakti apparatus, not only act as tangible markers of the RFA’s ideology but also, in an Andersonian sense, reinforce and mobilize the fraternity among fans.21 When framed with the devotional fandom of the RFA, these images of devotee-fan art become ideological constructs that mobilize the community of fans and aid in the construction of a singular fan consciousness that unites fans from various segments of society. Although members belong to different castes, religions, and economic backgrounds, the RFA claims that everyone is treated equally and fans function under the rubric of a “monolithic” entity, the Rajini Fan, an anomaly in the segregated caste and class-ridden society of Tamil Nadu.22 Thus, the ritualized star image of Rajinikanth can be understood as an anchor, a rallying point around which the new and apparently homogenous identity of the devotee-fan can be constituted and consolidated. On the release of Rajinikanth’s films, thousands of fans gather around local theaters throughout India to celebrate. In Tamil Nadu and around the world, devotee-fans conduct the Hindu ritual of arati before the start of the film, waving lamps before the screen. Only after is the film “allowed” to be shown (interview of Rajini LIC fans with the author, 2008; Bay Area Rajinikanth fans, 2010).23 The first shot of Rajinikanth invokes euphoric screams, whistles, frantic waving, cinematic darshan including gestural darshan (particularly with the devotee fans flashing the Rajini Mudra at the screen and to each other). During FDFS screenings, fans change the codes of film viewing

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and completely transform the cinematic experience (L. Srinivas 2016).24 R. Mohan describes the charged atmosphere inside the theater: They’re dancing in total lost [sic] frenzy. Packed off into the theatre hall by the fan club leader, they keep their feet moving, hips thrusting, their throats hoarsely yelling, chanting, singing. And inside . . . Even advertisements are getting cheered at . . . Then. Slooooowwly, stretched across a whole 3 minutes, the words “SuperStar Rajnikant” appear on the screen, and then a shining star with his face on it swirls for a baiting while. In those 3 minutes, every single person in the hall is standing up, and yelling things I don’t think even he is conscious of. Those 3 minutes, everyone knows, are purely for the fans. (2005)

Fans color the theater with their devotional fandom and create a massive hype for all of Rajinikanth’s films. They look forward to each film release, not so much to see the film, but primarily to celebrate their devotional fandom on FDFS. For example, during Sivaji’s first screening, whenever Rajinikanth swung into a song and dance number, the whole cinema hall erupted into a frenzied spree as fans jostled with one another to get closer to the screen and “dance” with their star. They converted the dark cinematic space into a playground of devotional ecstasy of publics of fan-bhakti. This ritual of collective dancing has become another signature style of Rajinikanth devotee-fans, who Get Rajinified by engaging in an uninhibited sacral revelry, in a “trance-like” dancing spree, moving through the cinema halls as if gripped by an enigmatic force. The concept of trance-like, devotional group dancing (raslila) has a long history in the bhakti tradition of Hinduism. The word lila means dance, and rasa is an aesthetic experience. Raslila exemplifies the divine love play between the human soul (cowherd girls, gopis) and God (Krishna) through the medium of dance. Judith Hanna explains raslila in the context of popular theater: During the dance, Krishna creates the illusion of duplicating himself so each gopi believes that her partner is Krishna. . . . For the climax [in theatrical performances], Krishna and Radha (his principal consort) stand in the center to cries of ecstasy as devotees prostrate themselves before the young dancers who have become deities for a special time and space. The players of Krishna, Radha, and the gopis are initiated, consecrated, and deified for the duration of the cycle plays. (1988, 295; emphasis original)

The enactment of raslila in popular theater is believed to momentarily transform the actor playing Krishna into a deity and the spectators into his gopis, who dissolve their individual subjectivities in this ecstatic love-play. This diffusion of identities is not incidental, where the spectator’s devotion can only be understood as an expression of being “carried away” at the moment. Rather, it is a conscious choice of the spectator, who in many cases

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comes to watch this devotional drama to experience being a devotee. David George explains: The spectators of a raslila play are not skeptics but the very opposite—their acts of cognition create and sustain not the fiction but the truth of the play. For the raslila operates on a convention of incarnation, not possession—once the boy actor is wearing the special double crown . . . He can sit and chew gum or consult his quartz wristwatch. The onus of belief is not on him, but on the audience—it is their belief which makes him Krishna . . . the Vaishnava theologians redefined Krishna’s original milkmaid playmates—the gopi—as spectators … to canonize the spectator as the ideal devotee. (1987, 129–31; emphasis mine)

The unbridled participation of RFA members in the dance sequences of Rajinikanth’s films inside the theater is a devotee-fans’ version of raslila, where the spectator-fan desires to become and perform as the “ideal ­devotee.” However, becoming ideal devotees, a role that resonates with the idea of Krishna’s gopis, does not “demasculinize” the devotee-fan into a feminized identity. Rather, devotional fandom, especially in India, remains a male-­centric and “homoerotic” phenomena (Rogers 2009b). In effect, such euphoric public displays of devotion by Rajinikanth fans have led them to be labeled as “rowdy” and “irrational” (S. V. Srinivas 2000; Prasad 2009). Characterized by frenzied devotional dancing, this raslila of devotional fandom is a mass phenomenon that sweeps across classes. Satish, a software engineer and devotee-fan in Chennai, elucidates his experience: When Rajinikanth first appears on screen, something happens to me as I scream, cheer and applaud, unmindful of whether or not it suits my stature. Once his dance number begins, all the Rajini fans, whether they are laborers or engineers like me, city or rural fans, descend on the dark stage before the screen. At that time, there is no difference between rich or poor, high caste or low caste fan. We become one huge mass of Rajinikanth fans as we lose ourselves in that collective dancing. (Interview with the author, 2005)

The loss of individual subjectivity that devotee-fans experience while dancing with the cinematic image of the star is one of the defining characteristics of devotional fandom. This socially inclusive aspect of fan-bhakti echoes “bhakti’s devotional impulse [that] creates a widely shared affective realm to which the downtrodden, subaltern, disenfranchised, excluded, and rejected have just as much access as do the rich, the educated, and those who exert control over others” (Hawley, Novetzke and Sharma 2019, 6). Similar to the mobilization of devotee-fans around still images of hoardings and posters outside of the cinema hall, the space inside is transformed into a ritual arena, heightened by the ecstasy of devotional dancing that follows the moving image of the star deity on the screen. Thus, through the performance

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of worshipping images and devotional dancing, a form of gestural darshan unifies the RFA, consolidating it into the Rajini Fan. This kind of devotional dancing is not limited to India. Rather, it is a transnational phenomenon that unites Rajinikanth fans across the globe; in the United States, Malaysia, Japan, UK, France, and Australia, fans engage in collective enraptured dancing both inside and outside of theaters on the FDFS, along with performing palabhishekam and arati for the cutouts and posters of the film star. In the next section, I will discuss the ritual practices of Rajinikanth fans in transnational spaces and examine how the transnational Rajini Fan, mainly consisting of transmigrant engineers and IT professionals, is activated beyond national borders. PART II: THE TRANSNATIONAL RAJINI FAN: DEVOTIONAL FANDOM IN THE UNITED STATES The drumbeats were deafening and the mood festive. A large mass of Rajinikanth fans wearing masks suddenly swarmed outside of the theater and began their rapturous dancing.25 The moves, some coordinated, some spontaneous, seemed to all gel into one big mass of riveting energy: the Rajini Fan. As their leader gesticulated, an arati began with a thunderous applause and loud cheering. Once the gates opened, the entire mass transformed into the Rajini Fan and descended into the cinema theater. When the “magic” word, “Superstar,” appeared on the screen, euphoric screaming rocked the theater. The hysteria continued in anticipation of the collective cinematic darshan that awaited devotee-fans. The minute Rajinikanth appeared on screen, the entire movie theater exploded with an electrifying energy. Suffused in the publics of fan-bhakti, devotee-fans rushed toward the screen for a cinematic darshan, some frantically waving the arati thali to worship the star’s image, some throwing confetti on the screen, others animatedly trying to touch the screen. Their gestural darshan took the form of uninhibited collective dancing. How does one describe this space? Is this a film theater or a dance floor, a temple or a social event? The United States or India? The energy of devotee-fans was raw, palpable, and beyond comprehension, nevertheless encompassing me with the intensity of its publics of fan-bhakti. Seeing a Rajinikanth film on the FDFS is an experience in itself that is hard to put into words. Watching the phenomenon in Serra Theatres in California’s Bay Area, as described above, is riveting. How does one comprehend this intense outpouring for the star, miles away from where it began in India? Why do these fans engage in collective worship practices of their star deity in transnational public spaces? To investigate this, let me first examine the term transnationalism.26 Although the meaning and uses of transnationalism

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remain contested, in its most basic sense, it refers to communities that occupy more than two nation-states. Scholars such as Homi Bhabha (1990) and Arjun Appadurai (1996) describe transnational societies as a c­ounter-hegemonic political space that brings the idea of the nation-state into crisis. Alternative formulations of transnationalism introduce related concepts, such as ­transmigrants and transnational social fields (Schiller et  al. 1994; Fouron and S ­ chiller 2001). Identifying transmigrants as a separate category from migrants, ­Fouron and Schiller describe them as those immigrants who maintain “familial, social, economic, religious, and political ties with their country of origin even though they emigrate to new country and become incorporated into a new society” while operating in transnational social fields (2001, 543). These transnational social fields can be understood as “ways in which transmigrants become part of the fabric of daily life in their home state, including its political processes, while simultaneously becoming part of the workforce, contributing to neighborhood activities, serving as members of local and neighborhood organizations, and entering into politics in their new locality” (Schiller 2005). Vertovec examines “transnationalism as social morphology, as type of consciousness, as mode of cultural reproduction, as avenue of capital, as site of political engagement, and as (re)construction of ‘place’ or locality” (2009, 4). Transnational imaginaries and political action also emerge from the intersection of “partly colescing or disjunctured borders within global-national local terrains” (Sahoo and Purkayastha 2019, 4). In the age of the internet and social networking, Robin Cohen observes that “a diaspora can, to some degree, be held together or recreated through the mind, through cultural artefacts and through a shared imagination” (1996, 516). To sum up, transnationalism emerges through interaction of multiple contextual layers: “the idea of social morphologies, boundaries and borders, and the development of transnational consciousness and institutions from a global to a local level as well as from the local to global level engendered through activism remain at the core of transnationalism” (Sahoo and Purkayastha 2019, 7). Extending the idea of the play between local and global to my argument, it becomes clear that the identity of the devotee-fan is being formed across territorial boundaries through a shared devotee-fan consciousness, appropriating transnational public spaces for the reconstruction of the local in a way that the transnational devotee-fans’ community becomes the site of sociopolitical activism. The construct of a star deity, whose presence on the internet is held together through social media and a shared devotee-fan ideology, is made visible through material and digital cultural artifacts, the devotee-fan art. Rajinikanth transnational devotional fandom helps create a new community across nations, anchored around deified film posters. To explore this, let me trace the history of Rajinikanth’s devotional fandom in the United States.27 I would particularly like to focus on the emergence of divinized star images

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and how, by circulating them, fans are animating and transforming the urban public space of the United States. Emergence of Deified Star Images of Rajinikanth in the United States: A Brief History Devotee-fans have been worshipping Rajinikanth’s images in India for over four decades, but this phenomenon became more visible in the United States since 2000. One transmigrant Rajinikanth fan, Mani, describes it in the ­following way: It all started in Annamalai University [Tamil Nadu], where a group of good friends got together. As mostly Thalaivar [Rajini] fans, our friendship grew and matured with the release of each Thalaivar movie. Fortunately, most of the friends came to USA to study and work. They wanted to keep the tradition alive. Thalaivar movies became our Diwali, Superbowl, Thanksgiving and Christmas combined together. We got together in one city for Thalaivar movie release. At each movie release, old friendships were renewed, new ones born, and, for everyone who watched the movie with us, it became an unforgettable event. (n.d.)

Although strong devotional feelings for the film star seemed to have existed for several years, according to Rajinikanth’s USA fans, prior to 2002 the worship of the star deity was conducted in the privacy of their homes (interview with Bay Area Rajinikanth fans, 2010). They expressed their devotion by worshipping the television screen image of Rajinikanth and conducting arati for their cinematic God (rajinifans​.c​om). At that time, the star deity’s image was not usually a tangible object such as a cutout or a film poster, and the fleeting image on the television screen became the focal point of their worship practices. This ritualized image became a social pivot around which transmigrant devotee-fans began to congregate. With every passing year, this phenomenon of transnational devotional fandom has gained momentum. In 2002, upon the release of Rajinikanth’s film Baba, transmigrant fans went a step further to display their devotion. Donning Rajinikanth t-shirts and dancing with the Rajini flag, they grouped around the cinema theater to show their adoration. Later, Chandramukhi in 2005 and Sivaji in 2007 went on to become big box office successes.28 By this time, transmigrant devotee-fans had publicly started to appropriate Hindu rituals for the deification of the star image inside and outside of many theaters across the United States.29 In 2005, fans performed collective rituals of arati, dancing, whistling, and so on, in Detroit, New Jersey, San Jose, Washington D.C., West Virginia and Chicago. Their publics of fan-bhakti around the posters of ­Rajinikanth’s Sivaji in 2007 were also reported by the Chicago Tribune: Members of Chicago’s Rajni Fan Club showed up wearing black shirts bearing a likeness of the film’s star, Rajnikanth.  .  .  . After hoisting a watermelon

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with a flaming candle above their heads [arati], club members smashed it to the ground as a gesture of celebration, eliciting cheers from the waiting crowd. (Sharos 2007)30

Meanwhile, in Seattle, Rajini fans came “up with a big vinyl banner and that was on display at the entrance of the theater. Inside the theater, the scene was no different with shouts of Thalaivaa renting the air and fans throwing up shredded paper whenever the Superstar appeared on screen” (“Sivaji—International FDFS,” n.d.). Similar celebrations around the divinization of Sivaji film posters were carried out in Arkansas, Boston, New Jersey, New York, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, Atlanta, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, and San Antonio.31 This collective ritualization becomes an unspoken form of communication among devotee-fans. The flashing of Rajini Mudra as gestural darshan further charges them, generating a sense of community not just for fans in the United States but also for those in India and across the globe. Their connection is further enhanced through the sharing of experiences on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos, and pictures on rajinifans​.com​, a portal for fans across the globe. Seeing these images of collective ritualization via an online medium bonds fans residing in different parts of the United States and around the world, giving impetus to transnational devotional fandom. For Rajinikanth’s film Kuselan (2008), a twenty-five-foot Rajinikanth billboard was shipped from India to the United States for the first time (Subramanian 2008). Huge posters were displayed in theaters in the Bay Area, Chicago, New Jersey, and Dallas. To further bring the fan community together, fans in the Bay Area, organized an “International Friendship Day,” and “Kuselan Slogan Contest” where Kuselan Audio CDs were distributed (“Kuselan Friendship” 2008; “Kuselan Fantasies”, 2008). Often, film distributors and theatre owners also initiate these activities to get media coverage and generate hype for the film. In subsequent years, fans have planned many pre-film release activities, such as audio CD launches, ticket sales events, kids’ art competitions, and more, before every Rajinikanth production (Dhanasekaran, n.d.). This helps to bring the local community together and also makes devotional fandom visible in urban spaces, quite like the activities of the RFA in India. In 2010, for the film Enthiran, some fans decided to create their own images of their star deity to worship. They displayed these images in theaters and even in other public spaces such as parks and began to ritualize them. They circulated them on highways by pasting them on their cars and performed arati of posters displayed on limos parked in front of the theatre. Mohan, a Rajinikanth fan from Colorado, shares his experience: It all started with the overwhelming continental cargo manager when he saw an [sic] H2 Hummer Stretch Limousine with Endhiran posters all over waiting to pick the reel of Endhiran. Colorado fans have rewritten the synonym of style, as

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the limousine parked in front of the theater was playing loud Endhiran songs and fans with Endhiran t-shirt welcoming the guest. . . . For Rajnikanth, its no difference if it’s Chennai or Colorado, Aminjikarai or America, the fans had their rituals done with full throttle from Pusanikai to pal abhisekam and Tengai sudam. (2007)

Rajinikanth’s film Lingaa (2014) was welcomed with the same vigor. ­ hicago fans erected a thirty-feet banner of Rajinikanth, which was decorated C with garlands, and Jai Bala, president of the Chicago Rajini Fans’ Association, made requisite arrangements for the distribution of sweets, t-shirts, and even whistles for fans to express their zestful devotion in the theatre (“Lingaa—A Thirty” 2014). Bay Area fans created their own Rajinikanth posters and summed up their celebrations in the following words: First Day Fans Show LINGAA was a blast .  .  . heavy storm and downpour in California Bay Area, USA. It did not stop the roaring fan crew at Towne 3 Cinemas, San Jose, USA. The fans took the celebrations inside the theater and unveiled a 180-by-140-feet hand-drawn collage set to awesome music energy and Mass show by Rajini fans of Bay Area, California, USA. (“Lingaa USA Fans,” n.d.)

The collage is actually a set of drawings done by fans, showcasing Rajinikanth in various postures and gestures from an earlier film. While these hand-drawn posters were ceremoniously brought inside the theatre amidst resounding drumbeats, fans performed the Rajini Mudra and threw confetti on the images consumed in the ecstasy of their publics of fan-bhakti, similar to showering the image of a deity with flower petals in a temple. Subsequent film releases such as Kabali (2016), 2.0 (2018), and Darbar (2020) saw heightened fan engagement in the ritualization of star deity images; arati and palabhishekam were performed both inside and outside of cinemas in different U.S. cities, which has become a regular part of transnational devotional fandom.32 These celebrations make clear that Rajinikanth’s ritualized images, whether created by the fans themselves or shipped from India, are increasingly becoming more visible in transnational spaces. To understand how fans change the spatial and cultural landscape of urban public spaces while ritualizing their star deity’s images, let me take the example of the celebrations in Serra Theatres in California upon the release of Enthiran in 2010. Chrono-Spatial Convergence On a regular day, Serra Theatres is a simple structure situated in Milpitas, California. Across from it is a gas station and right in front is a parking area

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surrounded by other shops. The owners screen many Indian movies. Like the exterior, the interior is like any other theater in the United States. Upon entering, a person is designated to check your ticket and guide you to your assigned seat. Going past the snack counter is the walkway leading to the movie halls. Instead of images of Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, film posters show Bollywood and Southern Indian film stars, and the crowd primarily comprises the Indian diaspora. In contrast, the space of the theater is completely transformed during the release of Rajinikanth films. The small and unassuming theater explodes into a festive zone of publics of fan-bhakti. In fact, all the theaters of the Silicon Valley, or anywhere else in the United States, become a frenzied site of devotional fandom when showing a Rajinikanth film, where the ticket prices can be as high as four times their regular price.33 When Enthiran was released, devotee-fans flocked to Serra Theatres in huge numbers for the film screening. They arrived hours before the FDFS to worship the images of the star. Paralleling hoardings in India, transmigrant devotee-fans brought in huge images of the star and set them up at the entrance. One was placed adjacent to the ticket booth, at the center of the entrance. This image was garlanded with colored paper flowers and was ritualized with arati, followed by the cutting of a cake that was then distributed as prasad. Another image was placed in front of it and a third on the side, all created by devotee-fans themselves (figures 5.5 and 5.6). Around the black and white image placed in front of the theater, fans performed a dance wearing Rajini masks. The third image that was placed on the side is a near frontal figure of Rajinikanth, wearing his characteristic dark glasses (figure 5.6). Dressed in casual Western attire of jeans, a jacket, and sneakers, Rajinikanth seems to be striding nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets. He is represented as a scientist, the role of a professional that he essayed in Enthiran, echoing the careers pursued by his “educated” (mainly engineers and IT professionals) fans in the Bay Area. However, Rajinikanth’s distinctly modern clothing and demeanor are punctuated by a saffron scarf and, most importantly, a garland that adorns his neck made of old CDs and computer hardware parts strung together by fans. This “hi-tech” cut-out is in some way reflective of the transmigrant fans’ own identity, a distinct mark of the transmigrant devotional fandom of Rajinikanth fans in the Silicon Valley. Although not all divinized images of the star in the United States bear resemblance to his fan base, the image of Rajinikanth as a scientist certainly stands out. The circulation of such divinized images in public spaces helps fans articulate a distinct identity from other Indians in the diaspora. They dance, ritualize, and circumambulate around this image, where the star murti becomes a material anchor, concretizing their devotional fandom in public spaces. Here, the identity of the transmigrant fans becomes post-national and trans-local. The concept of

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Figure 5.5  Rajinikanth’s Ritualized Images, Serra Theatre (Exterior), Milpitas, CA (2010). Photo by the Author.

trans-locality is seen as a shift toward a more “grounded transnationalism” that “examine local-local connections in their own right and without privileging the national” (Brickell and Datta 2011, 3, 10; emphasis mine). Thus, the Rajinikanth fan clubs across the U. S., composed mainly of Tamil youth, mobilize their trans-locality in U.S. urban spaces with the performance of rituals specific to Tamil culture (i.e., the hallmark palabhishekam, arati, etc.) that connect their fandom with devotional fan practices from their country of origin. However, they also become post-national; by performing fan activities,

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Figure 5.6  Rajinikanth’s Fan-Made Image with a Garland Made from CDs and Computer Hardware Parts, Serra Theatre (Exterior), Milpitas, CA (2010). Photo by the Author.

they segregate themselves from “other” Indian transmigrants, including other Tamilians in the diaspora who are not devotee-fans of Rajinikanth. Engaging in a collective celebration of Rajinikanth images, their practices harmonize with those of Rajinikanth devotee-fans from different nationalities across the globe, rather than with other diasporic Indians who are not Rajinikanth

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fans, making the local, ultra trans-local that cuts across several national boundaries. As we have seen, through the ritual performance around the star deity’s images, the spartan look of the Serra Theatres is transformed into a resplendent and carnivalisque display of publics of fan-bhakti. The space is activated around divinized images of Rajinikanth, which, in turn, mobilize the fans, homogenizing them into a transnational version of the Rajini Fan. Through performance-based practices around the star deity’s images, fans reconceptualize the secular space of the film theater into a contemporary religious space of the cinematic sacred. Just as the space is reconstituted, similarly, the experience and the basic protocols of public film watching are also transformed. One cannot plan to sit and watch a Rajinikanth film in a theater undisturbed, as is normally expected, especially in the United States. As the film begins, “the theatre is consumed in a ferocious mixture of roars, cheers, and applause. When Rajini makes his entry, the noise could mask a plane crash,” quips a fan from Los Angeles (Vijay 2007). Similar to the sentiment expressed by the LIC Unit of Rajinifans in Chennai, another fan, Rajesh, a software engineer from San Jose, affirms, “First day shows are not meant for us or for the audience to watch the film, they are meant to express our devotion for our star” (interview with the author, 2010). Devotee-fans all around the world perform rituals for the deified cinematic images of Rajinikanth on the first day of the release of his films. On September 30, 2010, the FDFS of Rajinikanth’s Enthiran evoked a devotional response similar to the one expressed by the fans in Milpitas not just in several cities in United States and India, but also in many other countries such as Malaysia, England, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka (“Overseas—Endhiran,” n.d.). To understand the simultaneity of this moment of devotional fandom, let us compare the rituals of palabhishekam on the FDFS by devotee-fans in India, the United States, and Malaysia. Although they are in different geographical locations and time zones, the videos of ritualization of the star deity’s images appear to be the continuation of a single ultra translocal event, cutting across time and space. Through devotional fan practices and collective performances around ritualized images of the star deity, a unity of space and time is achieved. Let me explain what I mean by this unification of time and space by using Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope as an interpretive tool. In “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics,” Bakhtin defines chronotope as a “formally constitutive category of literature” expressing “the inseparability of space and time (time as the fourth dimension of space)” where “time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible,” and “space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history” (1981, 84–85). The word chronotope is from the Greek

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“chronos” (time) and “topos” (place) and in literary discourse refers to new spatiotemporal reconfigurations. For example, in fairy tales, time and space are beyond our experience. Time is abstracted and reversible (beginning with “once upon a time” and ending with “and they lived happily every after”), “often wrenched from any foundation in ‘real’ historical time” (“Literary Terms,” n.d.). Similarly in ancient Greek adventure novels, Bakhtin notes that space and events in the story also have no connection to real-time geographical space or historical events, as like time, space is interchangeable: “what happens in Babylon could just as well happen in Egypt or Byzantium and vice versa”.  .  .  . It may be concluded, then, that “The adventure chronotope is thus characterized by a technical, abstract connection between space and time, by the reversibility of moments in a temporal sequence, and by their interchangeability in space.” (Beaton 2010, 62, quoting Morson and Emerson; emphasis original)

Through the ritualization of Rajinikanth’s images during the FDFS celebrations by devotee-fans across the world, space, and time coalesce and are reinvented into the space-time of devotional fandom. Let me elucidate this point in detail. Rajinikanth devotee-fans worship him as God, sometimes referring to Hindu deities, such as Murugan and Krishna, to affirm his divinity. At the release of his films, fans across the globe worship his images with Hindu rituals. Rajesh Kannan, a software engineer, describes his experience seeing Enthiran in the Serra Theatres in San Jose: The power is in his [Rajinikanth’s] eyes—just by seeing his eyes we worship him. When Rajini appears on the screen, I look at his eyes and something happens to me. All the hair on my body stand up [sic]. I scream, I yell in pure joy, breaking into a dance every time my superstar is on screen. For us, Rajini is God, and even more. (interview with the author, 2010)

The idea of Rajinikanth as God also echoes with parallel depictions of him with the Buddha and Jesus in fan posters, some of which label the star as Mahaprabhu or Great Lord (“PIX: Fans” 2011). The inclusion of Rajinikanth next to these sacralized historical figures collapses the time that separates them (as I will examine in detail later in this chapter). The deified image of the star deity simultaneously dwells in multiple domains and time frames: religious (represented as/with gods); historical (represented as/with Buddha, Gandhi, etc.); and modern, cinematic, and political (represented as a film star and a future revolutionary leader of the state). By juxtaposing the religious time frame of Hindu gods with the contemporary, cinematic era of modernity inhabited by their star deity, these devotee-fans reframe

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the concept of chronological time. The notion of time in devotional fandom circles back to becoming cyclical, when the religio-historical time of Hindu divinities and the temporality of historical figures is fused with the contemporary cinematic and real-life image of Rajinikanth. The worship practices that devotee-fans perform on Rajinikanth’s images further abstracts time, as the same rituals are simultaneously (on FDFS) performed in India, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, the UK, and so on. Like Anderson’s notion of the “homogeneous, empty time” of the nation that fosters the sense of simultaneity through which numerous individuals imagine themselves into a community (1991, 24), fans across the globe unite under the aegis of ritualizing Rajinikanth images. For Anderson, occupants of the imagined community understand themselves to inhabit a coordinated social structure in which print capitalism becomes an ideal vehicle for conjuring this simultaneity, contributing and giving substance to the origin of a singular national consciousness. Centralizing the role of newspapers in generating the idea of nationhood through simultaneous reading across national space, Anderson asks: What more vivid figure for the secular, historically clocked, imagined community can be envisioned? . . . The newspaper reader observing exact replicas of his own paper being consumed by his subway, barbershop, or residential neighbors is continually reassured that the imagined world is visibly rooted in everyday life. (1991, 35–6)

Thus, “the newspaper summons its readers to a ‘mass ceremony’ predicated on the simultaneous participation of unaccounted other readers elsewhere” (Redfield 2003, 80). Printed images of Rajinikanth that are created, erected, and ritualized by fans across the world on the FDFS augment spaces for a similar “mass ceremony” predicated on the simultaneous ritualization of these images. Like Anderson’s print capitalism, the newspaper, the printed, ritualized images of the star deity in every release of a Rajinikanth film bind together fans of all nationalities into one mass, the Rajini Fan, generating a seemingly united devotee-fan consciousness constructed on an ultra translocal stage that transcends national borders. However, unlike Anderson’s empty homogeneous time that consolidates nationalism, the simultaneity of time constructed by the star deity’s image and the publics of fan-bhakti manifest an alternative space. This space is neither fueled only by feelings of ethnicity and nationalism nor driven by recognized religions; rather, it intersects and transcends these known categories into a novel space of devotional fandom. By mobilizing the materiality of the star deity in the form of posters and banners and activating the space around it through devotional fandom, fans create a new realm of collective identity. The deified star image is the centrifugal and centripetal force of

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this space, and the publics of fan-bhakti sustained by the material, “bodily” presence of the star deity in the printed image provides the conceptual and visual anchor upon which devotional fandom thrives. The virtual afterlife of divinized images and ritual celebrations in the form of YouTube videos, many of which are uploaded on rajinifans​.com​, RFA’s local fan club websites, leading news channels, Twitter, blogs, and other forms of social media give an “immortal” presence to devotee-fan rituals that can be invoked by the community of fans anytime and anywhere in the world with a single click on a phone/laptop. Unlike the newspaper or the star deity’s poster that has a limited life, the virtual afterlife of ritualized images of devotional fandom, or virtual star murtis allows fans to simultaneously partake in each other’s celebrations, consolidating transnational devotional fandom. The time-space framework constructed globally on the FDFS of Rajinikanth films is actualized when fans follow similar ritual criteria to divinize his posters, and their collective publics of fan-bhakti tear through different time zones, nationalities, and locations such that time and space are integrated. Thus, the chronological linearity of time first becomes fragmented (by different time zones), then unified (through the simultaneity of rituals), and is ultimately reconstructed (into the time-space of the Rajini Fan that transcends national and geographical distances). This time-space of devotional fandom that is activated around the body of the star deity in printed images enhances its potency. In Bhakti and Embodiment, Holdrege argues that constructions of divine embodiment celebrate the notion that a deity, “while remaining translocal, can appear in manifold corporeal forms in different times and different localities on different planes of existence” (2015). Just as time is not chronological in devotional fandom, space is abstracted and fused with the concept of time. In the context of the chronotope in Greek novels, Bakhtin argues that the concept of time and space are abstractly connected and there is no sense that events occur at a local temporal site. He explains that the nature of a given place does not figure as a component in the event. For example, if there is a shipwreck scene described by the author, it does not relate to a specific event in history or a particular geographical site (1981, 100). When watching a Rajinikanth film on the FDFS, it does not matter which country or city his devotee-fans are in. They create a unified space of devotional fandom that cuts across geographical and territorial borders. Balaji, who leads the Rajinikanth Fan Club in the Bay Area and serves as chief technology officer in a prominent software company, says, “We want to re-create the atmosphere of South India here” (interview with the author, 2010, 2014). In fact, their description of the event for an online magazine was titled, “San Jose: Best ‘Out of India’ Endhiran Experience” (2010). This idea is embedded in almost every description of the transmigrant Rajinikanth fan

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experience of watching his films outside of India expressed in print media, blogs, and social networking websites. Thus, the euphoria and collective frenzy experienced in Indian cinema halls is recreated in the United States, as devotee-fans charge both spaces with their devotional fandom. In such instances, the territorial distance and spatio-geographical difference between India and the United States collapses; theaters in the United States transform into theaters in India, and vice-versa. For Bakhtin, the chronotope becomes “a primary means for materializing time in space, and emerges as a center for concretizing representation, as a force giving body to the entire novel” (1981, 250). Ritualized star images help materialize conventional time into the time-space of the Rajini Fan. The publics of fan-bhakti create a collective, transnational devotee-fan consciousness that cut across commonly understood notions of time and space. In invoking Bakhtin’s chronotope to examine transnational devotional fandom, I am not suggesting that this space of collective ritualization, though in appearance visually and performatively homogenous, is ideologically so. There are differences in how devotee-fans relate to Rajinikanth, in how they think about his potential political future, and in their class, social background, and gender. Whether national or transnational, Rajinikanth fans cannot be contained by a uniform category. While some fans I interviewed in the United States acknowledged Rajinikanth as God (2010, 2014, 2022), others (especially when they realized they were the topic of my research) denied it or refused to comment on it, although they engaged in publics of fan-bhakti, performing arati, and so on, for his posters. Whether they refused to acknowledge it on camera or did not see Rajinikanth as a star deity shows that several variations co-exist in the category of the Rajini Fan. I will return to this concept of diversity in the category of the devotee-fan in the conclusion of this book. In this study, I have primarily focused on devotee-fans who openly claim that their star deity is a God, united through the publics of fan-bhakti. Embedded in the idea of a Rajini Fan are different kinds of fans who relate to him in their own way, yet are bound together through collective worship rites for his images. With the perceived notion of oneness produced through gestural darshan, around the ritualized image of their star deity, the Rajini Fan becomes a charged space with the potential for sociopolitical activism. It is the publics of fan-bhakti through which they celebrate their devotional fandom, rallying around the image of the star deity for almost two decades now in the United States, which has transformed transmigrant fans into an organized transnational devotee-fan community. The term “transnational community” refers to “communities made up of individuals or groups that are established within different national societies, and who act on the basis of shared interests and references (which may be territorial, religious or linguistic), and use

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networks to strengthen their solidarity beyond national borders” (Kastoryano 2000). This is a new social space of the global that is created based on transnational connections between the country of origin and the country of residence; as transmigrants “travel back and forth, they carry cultural and political currents in both directions” (Portes 2001). However, ritualization of Rajinikanth images and the devotional fandom practiced by fans spans across different countries that gives shape to “non-territorial solidarity expressed in global religious terms, mostly virtual, diffused by the Internet, which attracts the young generation, urging them to reject any or all national identification, to develop a new pride, a sense of community” based on an ultra trans-local global identification (Kastoryano 2018). In this manner, the transnational community is an impregnated force with the potential to mobilize people for social causes both for their country of origin as well as their country of residence, across the globe. As Rajinikanth fans in the United States are becoming culturally and socially visible, fan clubs become fertile grounds for sociopolitical articulations. Before discussing the political aspect of devotional fandom in transnational spaces, let me examine how RFA members in India have created a political space to project their ideas and acquire agency in Tamil politics.

PART III: RAJINIKANTH FAN ASSOCIATION AS A “POPULAR POLITICAL SOCIETY” In the introduction of the book, I briefly discussed the works of scholars who have investigated the collusion of cinema and politics in South India. While Prasad (2014) calls this unique juxtaposition that enables film stars to become politicians “cine-politics,” Dickey (1993a) and S. V. Srinivas (2009), along with others (Rogers 2009a; Gerritsen 2014), emphasize the political role of fans in the negotiation between cinema and politics. Focusing on MGR fans, Dickey describes how fan clubs, in many cases, “serve as political launch pads” (Karthikeyan 2009). In the context of Chiranjeevi fans, Srinivas echoes a similar view of “the transformation of fans into political cadres” (2009, 17). An active site for the convergence of fandom and politics is the devoteefan art produced by fans that is displayed in the cityscape and shared on social media. In this part of the chapter, my objective is to understand this complex collusion of the cinematic and the political in India as well as in the United States by centralizing the role of the visual through devotee-fan art. I would like to examine how the publics of fan-bhakti manifest around such artifacts, through which Rajinikanth fans insert themselves into the sociopolitical narrative of the state.

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On the website rajinifans​.co​m, Rajinikanth fans claim their fan club to be the largest e-fans association of the film star.34 They assert that it is a voluntary, nonprofit organization dedicated to social welfare activities that officially resituate and legitimize the fan club as a platform invested in bringing positive change in the society. By projecting itself in this manner, the RFA is able to expand its parameters, channeling devotional fandom into political activism by articulating their discontent with the present structure of the state via the larger-than-life image of their star deity. They emphasize that their website is the first one dedicated to a “leader from Tamil Nadu.” By presenting Rajinikanth as the leader of the masses who can make a significant impact in Tamil politics rather than just being a film star, they try to chart a trajectory they want their star deity to follow. Their motto on the website reads more like a manifesto that outlines their social goals and has strong political undertones: We are the ardent followers of the only “Beacon” to the Tamil Nadu People at this rotten, agonised time to get them out of the hell they are going through at the hands of politicians for the past 50 years. . . . We took pride in all his achievements and convinced ourselves that none Other than SUPER STAR shall guide us to the better future. . . . We intend do lot of a [sic] non-profitable social work which will ultimately benefit the society. . . . We will give priority to only those people who have abundant interest in studies, but due to their economic situations did [sic] not able to make it. Because we strongly believe EDUCATION is the only source of light to all those people who are being played as PAWNS in the hands of corrupted power centres. (emphasis original)

In their manifesto, Rajinikanth fans state their objective of providing educational opportunities in the state, especially for the downtrodden, so that people can make informed choices in elections and other democratic processes. Though Rajinikanth is referenced with the word “superstar,” the entire text of the above quote is geared toward the sociopolitical vision of the fans. Thus, at this point, the star deity functions like a framework rather than the core of their ideology on which the devotee-fans can project their own ideas. To make their political desires concrete, RFA members have been mounting pressure on Rajinikanth to join politics for the past several years. Some RFA members made both verbal and visual statements in the media and popular culture, announcing that Rajinikanth will enter politics. The devotee-fan art created by fans not only helps in mobilizing the RFA around their star deity and promoting themselves in these images (S. V. Srinivas 2009), but also, as I have elsewhere argued, star hoardings, banners, and posters open up a sacral visual screen on which fans project their own political desires (Kakar 2010).35 Out of the plethora of images generated by the RFA over the years, I will discuss a few through which fans have invoked political icons such as MGR and

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Gandhi and also Hindu deities who have been used as a backdrop to set the stage for Rajinikanth’s potential political future. “SACRO-POLITICAL SCREENS”: DEVOTEE-FAN ART AND THE VISUALITY OF THE CINEDIVINE POLITICAL A running theme in RFA-generated, politically loaded devotee-fan art has been to present Rajinikanth as the rightful successor of MGR. For example, a banner that was displayed outside of Gnanakumar, a small theater with a 700-seating capacity, by Thiruchendur fans in Tamil Nadu before the April 2007 screening of Rajinikanth’s Sivaji (“When the gods” 2007; figure 5.7) was one of the many such visual documents of the fans’ political desires. A huge arch at the entrance was decorated with big banners by the local fan club. Atop the theater flew a Rajinikanth flag in blue, white, and red stripes with an image of the superstar framed inside of a star-shaped border (“When the gods” 2007). One of the banners at the entrance showed quadruple images of Rajinikanth (two mirror images from Sivaji and two others), and, on the extreme right side, MGR and Sivaji Ganesan (another respected superstar of Tamil cinema) are depicted blessing Rajinikanth with flowers from heaven. In the film, two scenes invoke MGR and Sivaji Ganeshan. In one, Rajinikanth

Figure 5.7  Rajinikanth’s Fans Display a Banner for His Film, Sivaji (2007). Photo Courtesy, Rediff​.co​m.

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does a spoof of the on-screen character and acting styles through his famous song numbers, and, in the other, Rajinikanth declares, “I am Shivaji, I am MGR too.” Since Rajinikanth’s real name before joining the film industry was Shivaji, this punchline frames the star as a three-in-one figure: Shivaji Ganeshan, MGR, and Rajinikanth himself. However, Rajinikanth’s emulation of yesteryears stars empowers his own cinematic star body as his re-presentation of “iconic film stars like MGR and Sivaji Ganeshan” is used to reanimate his own persona “while reflexively indexing difference from them” (Nakassis 2016, 207). Although Rajinikanth cinematically claims the charismatic power of both Sivaji Ganeshan and MGR, redirected to his own star body, the ultimate message conveyed is that he is Rajini, the God of Style, who is beyond them. The banner constructed by the RFA takes on the cinematic dialogue of the film to visually convey the trimurti concept in which Rajinikanth is Sivaji, MGR, and Rajini all rolled into one (Gopalan 2007). When such banners are displayed in the expanded space of popular culture, they function as projection screens that articulate RFA members’ own aspirations. The banner depicts the actors, MGR and Ganeshan, in their off-screen personae, wearing simple attire. In lieu of the decades-long pressure the fans have been exerting on Rajinikanth to enter politics, the “noncinematic” representation of MGR and Ganeshan showering flowers from heaven on Rajinikanth (which has no direct relationship to the story of Sivaji) can be read as an indication of their blessings on the superstar for entering politics. The space and size allotted to Rajinikanth (notice the large floating visage of the superstar) and the sheer multiplicity of his images enhances the potency invested in his persona. The technique of hieratic scaling employed in the composition of the banner visually consolidates his supremacy. For example, notice how the central picture of Rajinikanth, showing only his enlarged portrait image, is equivalent in size to the figures of MGR and Ganeshan, and the one below it is the destination for the stream of flowers being showered by them; thus making a political statement, visually establishing Rajinikanth as the ideal heir of MGR. The insertion of fan club members in the space of the banner, especially the positioning of the image of a prominent member (once again, with the use of hieratic scaling), mediates the space between MGR and Ganeshan, on one side, and Rajinikanth, on the other. Thus, the banner articulates the political aspirations of the fans in a visual format in which they see Rajinikanth as their political leader. It also emphasizes Rajinikanth fans at the locus of “exchange” between the change of power, relocating devotee-fans in a central position in the cinedivine political space.36 Other political figures that enhance Rajinikanth’s image as a future leader also appear on fan hoardings and banners. An image displayed by local fan club members in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district shows a larger-than-life figure of Rajinikanth in jeans walking alongside Mahatma Gandhi, the Father

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of the Nation. Gandhi and Rajinikanth are depicted as the same height, and the latter is also represented closely following the steps of Mahatma, visually equating the two in terms of their persona and political vision. According to fans, there is too much corruption in politics, and Rajini is the only honest man, other than the Mahatma (Nadar 2005). In this avatar, Rajinikanth becomes a new, jeans-clad Gandhi; endowed with the aura of Mahatma, he is portrayed as a modernist visionary of his times. The RFA’s representation of Rajinikanth through such images gives materiality and visual articulation to their political vision for their star deity. Commenting on the reason for creating such political imagery, “a functionary of the Rajinikanth fans’ association, Ilango, said ‘[W]e want to coerce our leader to enter politics, and this is only a tactic’” (“Posters Urge Rajini” 2008). Other fans reasoned, “As fans, we naturally want him to lead the state. But what is interesting is that the people also want the superstar to enter politics. The public may not be vocal about this, and thus we are speaking for them” (Rajendran 2017; emphasis mine). Just as fans visually insert themselves in the role of mediator in the transference of power from MGR to Rajinikanth in the image discussed before (figure 5.6), they function as selfappointed ambassadors of the political will of the people of Tamil Nadu. The proliferation of such images for decades in different parts of Tamil Nadu by the countless fan clubs of Rajinikanth reinforce the significance of their vision and their role in the future of the state. These cinedivine political visual orientations continued to be erected in different parts of Tamil Nadu through 2020. Although the political framing of Rajinikanth in these images visually manifests the vision of fans in the cityscape; parallelly fans continue to animate and perpetuate the star’s divinity through regular worship practices in the same shared space. The ritualization of the star deity is what imparts Rajinikanth’s image with the dual potency of the territorial and the celestial, and it is this very image, which is sustained through the publics of fan-bhakti that becomes a vehicle to convey the political desires of the fans. The divine element of the star deity is sometimes reinforced by including figures such as Krishna, Buddha, and even Jesus in the same space as Rajinikanth. Unlike the ABFA’s fandom, here Hindu deities and other sacred figures appear more like props that reiterate the superiority of “Brand Rajini.” For example, before the 2014 election, some fans put up a hoarding that showed Rajinikanth voting “ahead” of the Hindu gods Ganesh and Krishna, who were shown squeezed in the queue with other voters and Rajinikanth fans. The poster read, “Even gods would cast their vote if you come to politics” (“Rajinikanth’s Controversial Poster” 2017). When these political posters appear in the city space, an additional layer of the cinedivine political is added to the preexisting superhuman stature of Rajinikanth. Here, the message that gets rechristened is not that Rajinikanth, a superstar is entering

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politics, but rather a star deity is getting ready to don the mantle of the political (this sentiment was encapsulated in the Rajini joke that trended on Twitter in 2017, after he announced his decision to join politics: “Politics has joined Rajini”). Yet, the same figure remains the God of Style on the screen and an honest, humble human being known for his charity work off-screen. As sociologist Shiv Visvanathan points out, “The miracle of Rajinikanth is that he’s the guy next door who could be the god next door” (Chaudhry 2010). He further adds, Rajinikanth, “doesn’t need to project a divine aura. He’s made simplicity divine.” This “human” side of Rajinikanth allows devotee-fans to engage with their star deity through dialogue, emotional pressure, coercion and even confrontation in order to express their political ideas. As mentioned earlier, the cinedivine political space that MGR created remained one-sided; the star deity controlled his image while fans remained on the periphery, often used by the star to his advantage. In the case of Rajinikanth, however, RFA members with a strong media and internet presence, restructure the cinedivine political space, openly expressing the political path they want their star deity to pursue and also make him answerable for his actions. For example, for decades Rajinikanth did not make a decision on whether or not he would enter politics, which did not go well with many of his fans. One fan questioned Rajinikanth, “The media often accuses you of not having a stable mind. They say you are perpetually confused. I feel bad, thalaiva. Why do you give room for this” (Srinivasan 2008). Other fans asked what Rajinikanth had done for them so far. The actor responded to them in the following manner: You see, when I entered the industry, I was keen on doing off-beat films and weighty characters alone. I studied at the film institute and came under the guidance of KB (K. Balachander) sir. In most of my initial films, all my roles were like that. Later, you wanted me to fight, I did action films. You wanted me to dance, I danced. You wanted me to try out comedy, I did that too. As an actor, haven’t I done my duty by giving good films and pleasing my fans? (Srinivasan 2008)

Through such open interactions with their star deity devotee-fans expand the cinedivine political space, making it dialectical. While doing so, the RFA members seek a stake in the deified star persona they help to construct and ritualize. Through devotee-fan images, they help to harness Brand Rajini for a potential political role, yoked to the cinedivine political visual screen of the city and cyberscape that is orchestrated by the fans’ own desires and political aspirations. The mannerisms, gestures and, most importantly, the style quotient of Rajinikanth helps fuel their politically charged sacro-visual articulations.

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Rajini Mudra As discussed earlier, Rajinikanth’s style is one of the defining characteristics of the devotional fandom activated around him. According to Nakassis (2017), even simple gestures such as raising an index finger, through his “stylish fingers,” combined with his “mass and his auratic presence” in cinematic characters, “vests images of Rajinikanth with a particular kind of indexicality and performativity” (222–23, 209). Through an analysis of some of Rajinikanth’s gestures in films, Nakassis argues that he “enables his fingers to figurate the encompassment and incorporation of his audience into his body politic,” facilitating “Rajini’s cine-political potential” (209, 226). The camera angles that capture Rajinikanth’s performatively potent fingers show how they “haptically touch, grab, and encompass their onscreen/offscreen objects . . . incorporating them into the very being of the ultimate ground of those indexical acts: Rajinikanth himself” (204). Rajinikanth’s “stylish fingers” thereby become a mode of communicating his cinematic and political ideology to his fans, “grabbing the audience” and “fixing them on his finger”, ultimately relocating them onto his political body.37 In the context of devotional fandom, Rajinikanth’s gestures act as special conduits of communication between the God of Style and his devotee-fans. The citation of these gestures by devotee-fans not only adds more potency to the “body politic” of the star image, as suggested by Nakassis, but, when performed in front of Rajinikanth’s deified images through the publics of fan-bhakti, they insert devotee-fans back into the body of the star deity, reigniting it with their presence and desires. By mirroring the gesture back to and through the media to their star, devotee-fans make his gestures simultaneously reside not just in Rajinikanth, but also in their own iconographic repertoire of the cinematic sacred. Using such gestures in the sociopolitical realm via the ritualized image of the star deity, they claim physical and ideological territoriality of Rajinikanth’s body-politic as a vehicle to launch their own political will. Let me explain this point with an example. An iconic gesture, also known as the “Baba Symbol” that has become synonymous with the star, which I have termed as Rajini Mudra, first surfaced in his movie Baba (2002). In the mudra, “the actor holds the two middle fingers down with his thumb and raises the little and index fingers in a broad vee” (“Rajinikanth’s ‘Baba’” 2018). Resonating with the yogic symbol known for detoxification, purification, and rejuvenating the body, Apana mudra, it has become a trademark of the star and has been cited by his devotee-fans since 2002.38 Rajini Mudra has been used by the star to create an image in which the hand gesture is shown emerging from a white lotus, encircled by a snake, and set against a bluishblack background. A reworked version of this insignia was prominently

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displayed at all fan meetings and during Rajinikanth’s official media communication in 2017 and was even reported to be a possible logo for his future political party, one that symbolically represented the detoxification of the state through the purging of a corrupt political system. Through the years, the collective and repeated performance of the Rajini Mudra by the devotee-fans has kept it alive in popular culture, making it a part of cinedivine iconography and redirecting it toward devotional fandom (figure 5.2). The Rajini Mudra is also performed while devotee-fans conduct worship rituals of posters and cutouts and has been incorporated into political banners.39 As an iconographic element of the cinedivine political space of the star deity, it resides in all three spheres: cinematic, religio-spiritual, and the sociopolitical. The cinematic element is rooted in Rajinikanth’s film Baba. The religious, spiritual, and ritualistic stems from yogic philosophy, Rajinikanth’s spiritual ideology, and from its use by fans in their publics of fan-bhakti through gestural darshan; the sociopolitical, by imparting a feeling of unity among devotee-fans across class, caste, religion, and national boundaries. Transversing different categories, the Rajini Mudra animates the globalizing image of the star deity, and also associates the idea of the Rajini Fan with purity, power, and regeneration. Through the charged image of the Rajini Fan and the devotee-fan art of RFC, it is enacted and visually inserted into sacro-political screens. As a powerful vehicle of Rajinikanth’s devotional fandom, the Rajini Mudra expands the cinedivine political space beyond the ritualized body of the star deity, incorporating into its devoteefans, who, in turn, use it to articulate their own sociopolitical desires. Star Deity’s Political Entry Since 1995, Rajinikanth has been involved in the politics of Tamil Nadu in more than one way.40 On December 31, 2017, ending decades of speculation and suspense, Rajinikanth finally announced his political debut, promising to launch a new political party for the Tamil Nadu 2021 assembly elections. In preparation, in 2018 Rajinikanth converted the All India Rajini Rasigar Mandram (fan associations) to Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM), asking new members to enroll. He “informed the RMM district secretaries that being in the fan club or mandaram alone won’t guarantee them a top position in his party” and that he would recruit “honest members who are deprived of opportunities from other parties” in his political front (Koushik 2020). To make matters even more confusing for fans, Rajinikanth said that he would not contest the elections and be the contender for the chief minister’s post. Instead, he proposed the concept of “spiritual politics,” an honest and corruption-free system of governance that “will be above caste, creed, and religion” (Govardhan 2020). He told fans that “we will change everything.

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Miracle and wonder will happen” and that they should work not for any political post but for the welfare of the state of Tamil Nadu. However, on December 29, 2020, Rajinikanth abruptly decided to retreat from his political plunge, citing health reasons as a “warning from god” (“Rajinikanth Cancels Political Plans” 2020). His political back and forth was a breaking point for some fans, who “worried that in the pages of history, their star will be considered as a ‘paper tiger’ on the political front” (“It’s Hard News” 2020). Thousands of fans carried out protests, urging him to reconsider his decision. Rajinikanth assured them that even without forming a political party, he would be involved in changing the political future of the state by continuing to work for the people, and the RMMs (now converted back to being the Rajinikanth Welfare Association) would keep functioning as before, fully focused on serving the people of the state. As the sociopolitical vision of the star deity and devotee-fans takes shape into newer possibilities, one aspect stands out in the unfolding saga of Rajinikanth’s cinedivine political space and “spiritual politics.” Rajinikanth has taken control of his deified star image. He seeks to align his devotee-fans in accordance with his decision. However, as evident through the political posters of devotee-fans, they have their own distinct ideas that have been circulating around the cityspace for many years. Their dissatisfaction with Rajinikanth’s indecisiveness, and what some fans have considered his lack of political maturity, has also been articulated in the media. In this dialectics of power between Rajinikanth and devotee-fans, the deified star image is transfixed at the center. Both the star and his fans endeavor to meet their respective desires in this interlocking terrain of similar/conflicting social and political ideologies. Viewed in a Marxist vein, the deified image of the star deity can be seen as a product of capitalist labor. Danae Clark (2004, 16) articulates how actors in the Hollywood star system are caught between their star images and the studios that wish to control their images. Shifting between bodily labor and the commodified image, a “politics of persona” ensues, where both the actor and the studio claim a stake in the star image. If applied to Rajinikanth, the creation of his deified star image awards a partial ideological ownership to the devotee-fans through which they commodify the image to enhance their own collective identity. However, as Clark points out, the star image is a “slippery commodity,” as it is “not ‘property’ in the usual sense and could not be entirely owned” (2004, 17). Rather, the “star is ultimately the possessor of the image” and always retains its physical ownership (17). The star freely consents to the wishes of the studio (16), and in this case, to his devotee-fans, relegating to them some control over his subjectivity. Rajinikanth thereby allows, or, it can be argued, enables the construction of his deified star image. He seeks the active support of his fans and tries to keep them happy by choosing films and roles that complement his idealized and ritualized star

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image because his fans play a key role in assuring the success of his films at the box office.41 In this sense, Rajinikanth is “trapped in the superstar image” (Sreekanth 2008, 85). In addition to maintaining a cinematic image in tandem with the one constructed by the fans, Rajinikanth is still answerable in real life to his fans for his actions. Oscillating between the star and the devotee-fans, the deified star image’s value as a commodity relies partially on its devalorized potential, embedded in a sacral aura by the devotee-fan. The RFA tries to redirect the star’s labor toward his deified star image, maneuvering it toward their devotional fandom, coercing the star to constantly fit into the deified status that is manufactured and sustained by devotee-fans, who use it as a medium to convey their own sociopolitical vision in popular culture.

TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM OF DEVOTEE-FANS The RFA’s active social work also helps to situate them in a larger social context. Their projects are listed on different platforms of the RFA, such as rajinifans.com and Twitter and Facebook pages of individual fan clubs. These include helping children with education materials, the distribution of school uniforms, blood, and organ donation camps, and providing support for people afflicted by natural disasters. Since there are thousands of Rajinikanth fans clubs, their social work activities are widespread. Similar to the other two case studies of the devotional fandom of ABFA and Pappu Sardar, these activities provide legitimacy to fan activities, earning them social respect. When fans cross borders, they carry with them a vision of the sociopolitical regeneration of their home state. Through the publics of fan-bhakti and under the aegis of the transnational Rajini Fan, they remain united. Like their Indian counterparts, Rajinikanth fans in the United States have started to engage in social work activities. For example, during the Chicago celebrations of Sivaji (2007), fans wore Rajinikanth t-shirts encouraging people to donate blood and save lives.42 Hence, the cinema becomes a space not only for devotional fandom but also for social activism. In the Bay Area, fans have been successful in raising funds to help 250 children out of child labor in Chennai (interview with the author, 2010). On May 6, 2018, informal Rajinikanth fan clubs in the United States and Canada were officially united under the banner of the Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America (RMMNA), a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Texas and twenty chapters in the United States (California, Boston, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, New Jersey, North Carolina, Atlanta, Phoneix, etc.) and Canada. Each location has its own chapter secretary, who co-ordinates with a team of specialized secretaries (joint secretary, deputy secretary,

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youth secretary, women’s wing secretary, etc.) under the leadership of M. R. Narayanan.43 Those in office have been appointed by Rajinikanth, and their goal is to give shape to their “Thalaivar’s vision.” Along with social work, the RMMNA is also involved in bringing the transmigrant devotee-fan community together in the United States and Canada and motivating them for sociopolitical objectives. On their Facebook page, they state their mission in the following way: Within a short span of time, RMMNA has established a good network among highly enthusiastic, energetic Thalaivar fans with a mission to follow his footsteps. The entire team of RMMNA highlighted Thalaivar’s honest and noble intention for the betterment of Tamil Nadu and the society through his motto of “Unmai, Uzhaippu, Uyarvu” (Truth, Hard Work and Success). The primary mission of RMMNA as a non-profit organization is to support Mr. Rajinikanth’s initiatives for overall inclusive and sustainable development in Tamil Nadu to make progress on all fronts. The organization also actively supports and is involved in various social welfare activities and community events across North America, serving the local communities through our chapters in various states of USA and Canada.

RMMNA members engage in the active celebration of and worship rites for the images of Rajinikanth that are erected in different U.S. cinemas during film releases. They organize social events, volunteer activities, blood donation camps, and summer camps, and are already making a difference in Tamil Nadu with their social projects. On Facebook, they list their core initiatives as ValueBased Rural Education, the Save Farmer’s Initiative, Community Welfare and Disaster Relief, Online Learning Platforms, and Women’s Empowerment and Child Safety, among others (January 19, 2019, Facebook post). In 2018, the RMMNA secretary, Mr. Narayanan, donated to the government middle school in a village in the Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu, a gesture “aimed at helping the school invest in smart classroom equipment and technology such as video projectors, screens, internet connectivity etc. to assist with conducting smart classes” (August 5, 2018, Facebook post). In 2019, the Rajini Makkal Mandram North America, Atlanta chapter, in collaboration with RMM Virudhnagar, organized the Free Heart Check Up Camp. For Rajinikanth’s birthday, “tricycles were distributed for the needy on behalf of RMMNA North Carolina Chapter” (December 12, 2019, Facebook post). Similarly, in 2020, the RMMNA, Arkansas chapter, in partnership with an Indian nonprofit, Cure Trust in Tamil Nadu, sponsored annadhanam (a sacred tradition of offering food) at an old age home in Madurai (December 12, 2020, Facebook post). As an emerging transnational community, Rajinikanth devotee-fans come together not only based on their ethnic identity, an institutionalized religious leaning, or by invoking nationalism, but also by mobilizing around

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Rajinikanth’s posters and engaging in their publics of fan-bhakti. Within this community, the creation of the RMMNA signals newer sites of sociopolitical formations. Although disappointment over Rajinikanth not joining active politics might be a setback for the organization, perhaps the future course of Rajinikanth and Rajinikanth fan club associations both in India and the United States is succinctly summed up in a banner displayed in Dallas in 2020 by the fan, Rajini Vasu on the release of the film Darbar. It reads: “Leadership is action, not position, Tamil Nadu is looking for a leader.”44 Unlike political banners put up in Southern India, this image frames Rajinikanth in the role of a leader who neither needs the position of chief minister nor direct electoral participation. In the coming years, the continuity of this organization will determine if devotee-fans are able to make a significant change in Tamil Nadu and provide a more tangible shape to the “spiritual politics” of Rajinikanth. In their engagement with the sociopolitical, the RFA’s devotional fandom has some characteristics of what Partha Chatterjee calls a political society—a domain of mass politics that differs from a civil society (2004, 2011). Citing the example of slum dwellers, Chatterjee explains how such politics is performed. Squatters illegally occupy state land and yet are able to demand civic amenities like electricity and water on the basis of entitlement rather than legal rights (2004). They form their own unions or act through local NGOs (non‑governmental organizations). This “politics of democractization” is “a site of negotiations between the population and the state” that is carried out in the ill-defined, “legally ambiguous, contextually and strategically demarcated terrain of political society” (1998, 282). The RFA’s devotional fandom, in which they occupy urban spaces to deify a film star to articulate sociopolitical desires within the rubric of a nonprofit, seems to embody Chatterjee’s idea of democratic politics, grounded in his concept of popular sovereignty. However, since the RFA comprises members from different economic and geographic backgrounds, ranging from laborers to software engineers, from the city to the rural areas, it is thus constituted of people coming both from “inside” and “outside” of a civil society, and from inside and outside of national borders. Bound together by their publics of fanbhakti, they aim to reconfigure local sociopolitical power relations. Sutured within an apparently monolithic vision of devotee-fan consciousness, the Rajini Fan reinvents Chatterjee’s political society such that different classes coexist and are mobilized toward a common sociopolitical objective that works for the upliftment of the people of Tamil Nadu. Seen in this light, devotional fandom may be investigated as an extension of the politics of the popular. Or, it can be framed as an emerging popular political society that ruptures the conventional notion of a civil society, manifesting democratic ideals in unconventional spaces and carving out its own social and political “time-space” in postcolonial modernity.

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NOTES 1. After an engaging conversation with Rajinikanth fans in Northern Chennai in Tamil Nadu, as I was about to leave, Kannan gleefully shook my hands. He then quickly pulled out his business card from his wallet, which showed a picture of him and Rajinikanth bound together in a circular frame. Written on the right side of the card under Kannan’s name was “President of Rajinikanth Fan Club Association.” Even though he was living in a slum, Kannan had successfully inserted himself into his star deity’s “pantheon” both visually and socially by becoming the president of his fan club. He has several social work activities to his credit for which he was also honored with awards from the RFA’s president, Sathyanaryanan, in 2007. Dickey has described how fan club members from underprivileged background, by portraying themselves as helpers and leaders of the poor are able to project their superior status in their respective communities (1993a, 156, 176). 2. Rajinikanth’s name is also spelt without the “i” as “Rajni” and “Rajnikanth” in popular media and by his fans. 3. “We have defined transnationalism as the processes by which immigrants build social fields that link together their country of origin and their country of settlement. Immigrants who build such social fields are designated ‘transmigrants’. Transmigrants develop and maintain multiple relations—familial, economic, social, organizational, religious, and political that span borders. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, and feel concerns, and develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously” (Schiller, Basch, and Blanc‐ Szanton 1992, 1–2). 4. Earlier versions of this chapter have been presented at the following conferences/talks: “Devotional Fanscapes in Popular Culture: Rajinikanth Fan Club, A New Political Force?” (lecture, South Asian Studies Association (SASA) Conference, University of Florida, Florida, 2009); “Transnational Star-Deities and Devotional Fandom: A Case of USA Rajinikanth Fans” (lecture, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011); “When ‘Star Deities’ Cross Borders: Devotee-fans and Political Transnationalism” (lecture, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012). 5. SRTFC (SuperStar Rajinikanth Telugu Fans Club) 2019. 6. “Rajinikanth’s ‘Petta’,” 2019; emphasis mine. 7. “The relics and accoutrements of fandom are omnipresent in Tamilnadu and are often infused with political symbolism. Multicolored lithographs present dream images of the stars: M.G.R. against the embattled banner of the DMK; M.G.R in spacesuit in DMK armpatch, as the first man on the sun” (303). 8. See MGR’s ritualized images in the temple in the YouTube video “MGR Temple,” www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=IfE8Djsu0Eo. 9. Although DMK has been known for its atheistic ideology, in more recent observations, Pandian (2012) notes the “ideological compromises made by the DMK on rationalism and atheism.”

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10. The term “cinedivine political space” is my expansion of Madhava Prasad’s idea of “cine-politics.” Prasad uses “cine-politics” to bring attention to the conflation of cinema and politics in South India (1999, 2014). He defines it as “a distinct form of political engagement that emerged in some of the linguistically defined states of southern India at a certain historical juncture where Indian nationalism’s ideological suturing could not take care of certain gaps in the symbolic chain. A set of contingent factors led to a situation where cinema, a form of entertainment that was then learning to speak, came to be chosen as the site of a strong political investment, where audiences responded with enthusiasm to an offer of leadership emanating from the screen and, through the fan associations that emerged later, established a concrete set of everyday practices that reaffirmed the position of the star as leader” (1999, 49). As I have argued in this book, one of the missing pieces in this negotiation between cinema and politics is the divinized star image. Hence, I use the term, “cinedivine political space” to centralize the worship practices around divinized images of the star deity by devotee-fans, around which the play between cinema, religion, art, and politics is reinvented. 11. MGR launched several populist programs for the underprivileged, such as his famous Nutritious Noon Meal Program, which provided free lunches to children, endearing him even further to the masses. Although according to Pandian (1992) these schemes ended up widening the gap between the rich and the poor, yet in the eyes of a common person, MGR was the savior and champion of the poor. 12. For a timeline of Jayalalithaa’s political journey see, “Jayalalithaa: a political career with sharp rises and steep falls,” The Hindu, December 6, 2016a. 13. Unlike MGR, Jayalalithaa had not seen poverty in her real life; she was from a privileged background and remained an elite figure to the masses, who were unable to relate to her “somewhat scandalously ‘modern’” lifestyle “with her convent education and Western clothes” (Dickey 1993b, 348). Moreover, her film roles had portrayed her as an object of desire that did not complement her off-screen persona of Amma. Unlike MGR, who was able to cultivate a positive image in the media as the caretaker of the poor, Jayalalithaa had her share of negative media coverage mired in controversy with several corruption charges leveled against her and her authoritarian style of working. Her fans are mostly party workers of AIADMK, and, though she made sure that Chennai was decked with her cutouts and posters when she was in power, the ritualization and divinization of her images never captured the masses the same way as MGR’s. 14. Lakshmi Chaudhry brings attention to the link between adulation of folk heroes in Tamil culture and Rajinikanth. She says, “to the [Rajinikanth] fan bathing his image in milk or beer, village heroes, warrior gods and superstars exist in the same continuum of folk tradition. The fantastic synthesis of the human and divine is ever-present in our folk narratives: of gods who disguise themselves as men, and mere mortals who attain sacred powers.” (“The Last Indian Superstar” 2010). 15. Actor-politician Vijaykanth (addressed as Black MGR) emulated MGR’s style in his films and politics (Wyatt 2011). Kamal Haasan, another celebrated actor, tried to claim the legacy of MGR in his election campaign in an attempt to move the electorate in his favor (“Kamal Haasan” 2020).

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16. Richard Dyer draws attention to the slippage between the screen image and “real” persona of the star and the role of authenticity in the construction of the star image. He describes authenticity as “both a quality necessary to the star phenomenon to make it work, and also the quality that guarantees the authenticity of the other particular values a star embodies” (1991,133). 17. Mahavatar Babaji, also known as Triambak Nath, Shiv Baba, deathless guru, or Babaji, is an Indian monk mentioned in Paramhansa Yogananda’s much-celebrated book, Autobiography of a Yogi (2006). Rajinikanth is known to be a devotee of Babaji and has been distributing copies of his books to fans for many years. See the following video of the star talking about how the book changed his life: “Super Star Rajnikanth’s experience about the Autobiography of a Yogi!” (Srihari, n.d.) www​ .youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=V88aStJWEKk 18. “The citation is an act that re-presents some other event of discourse and marks that re-presentation as not(-quite) what it presences. The citation is a play of sameness and difference, identity and alterity, an interdiscursive calibration of an event of citing and a cited event, and is reflexive about that very fact. As such, citational acts can open up new social horizons of possibility, signification, and performative power” (Nakassis 2013; emphasis mine). 19. In chapter 2, beginning with Ravi Verma’s earthy and colorful renditions of Hindu deities, I have discussed representation of gods in popular art (calender, poster art, etc.) that reinvent the Hindu pantheon in novel ways. More recently, one striking cinematic example is portrayed in the film OMG: Oh My God (2012), which shows an urban version of Krishna played by Bollywood star Akshay Kumar. Krishna wears designer suits and zips on his mobike as his sudarashna chakra “reveals itself” to the viewer every time Akshay swirls his set of motorcycle keys in his hand. Distant from the Hindu God’s traditional iconography, I would argue that Akshay Kumar’s cinematic portrayal of an unabashed stylish version of Krishna seems more inspired by Rajinikanth’s on-screen persona and style (flipping glasses, etc.). For more on how Hindu divinity is being reconfigured in Bollywood cinema, see Basu and Sen (2013). 20. While the element of style has become uniquely constitutive of Rajinikanth’s cinematic oeuvre, I would like to point out that within a generic definition of style, ABFA fans also enact their own version of style-blended bhakti and have begun using the term “Bachchanism” to describe their devotional fandom. For example, at the release of Sarkar 3 (2017), ABFA members all wore the black garb of Amitabh’s character intact with the red tilak on their foreheads as they performed arati and puja. In 2022, ABFA members celebrated the release of Amitabh’s new film, Jhund in which the actor plays the role of a football coach. ABFA fans performed arati of his film posters outside of the cinema hall, reciting his dialogues and bouncing a football around a ritualized poster of Amitabh and in front of his murti in the Bachchan Dham (“Team #ABFAKOLKATA” 2022). Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom is also representative of his eclectic style, suffused with fan-bhakti. It is reflected in his museum displays on social themes, his one-man publics of fan-bhakti, the distribution of free chaat on Madhuri’s birthday, and his dancing with underrepresented women of society. However, in his case, all elements of style ensue only from the devotee-fan himself, rather than from the cinematic screen. For Rajinikanth’s devotee-fans, the style quotient is part of the

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iconography of the star deity’s image and has a particular significance given the historical base of devotional fandom in the state of Tamil Nadu, the organizational structure of his fan clubs, and their sheer numbers across the globe. 21. “Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (Anderson 1991, 7; emphasis original). 22. The fan club designations of the LIC Rajini fans Chennai division cut across religions and classes. Their unit includes Christians, Hindus, and Muslims. Their fan club members include LIC employees, professionals, carpenters, and drivers (interview with the author, 2005). 23. Bay Area Rajinikanth fans also add other events, such as cake cutting or displaying Rajinikanth sketches and collages inside the theater before the screening of the film, with the consent of the owner of the theater (2010, 2014). 24. L. Srinivas’s focal point of research is the Bangalore film viewing audience in Southern India, where she builds her narrative around the lesser-known Kannada film industry. Srinivas recounts that in contrast to a universalist notion of Western filmwatching norms, fans “territorialize the theatre” engaging in an entertainment spectacle before and during the film, through which the marginalized youth are able to gain visibility (2016, 195, 197). She highlights the “active audience” and the immersive experience of public spectatorship in film viewing as a characteristic of the movie-going audience in India as being different from the experience of movie watching in the West. 25. To watch transmigrants dance and ritualize Rajinikanth images at the Serra Theatres, see “USA—Endhiran Celebrations (Part 2)” at http://rajinifans​.com​/endhiran​/fdfs​-usa2​.php, and “Endhiran Release and Pooja in Serra Theatres Milpitas” at www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=shLPjKIzgG8​&t​=6s 26. See Tedeschi, Vorobeva, & Jauhiainen’s article, “Transnationalism: current debates and new perspectives” (2022). Also see Sahoo and Purkayastha (2019) for a discussion on Indian transnationalism. 27. The timeline presented is a preliminary framework to analyze transnational devotional fandom around Rajinikanth images. It is based on my personal interviews with fans, blogs, newspaper articles, YouTube videos, and rajinifans.​co​m. 28. Rajinikanth’s transmigrant fan, Sriram shares his experience of watching Chandramukhi (2005) in a theater in New Jersey, “the hall was filled [sic] to the brim with software professionals.  .  .  . As soon as SUPERSTAR name came on screen, hell broke loose. There were Jigna papers flying and I could smell fire. Ten guys had a coconut with camphor and went to the dias and started doing Arthi [arati]. This is really shocking because I did not expect this in NJ from the so called educated guys. So many guys were shouting Thaliva in the theatre,” Rajinifans, “USA—Chandramukhi FDFS Celebrations”; emphasis mine. 29. Watch how fans in Detriot perform arati when their superstar appears and dance with his moving cinematic image during the screening of Chandramukhi in the video, “Rajini Fans celebrate Chandramukhi release in Detroit”: www​.youtube​.com​/ watch​?v​=EpzPtGcbfk4. Another video, “Shivaji Mania in San Antonio,” shows how

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fans perform arati for a garlanded poster of Sivaji outside of a cinema: rajinifans​.com​ /sivaji​/theater​/usa​​.php. 30. Also see, “Media Reports on Sivaji Movie Craze” (2007). 31. To watch USA fans divinize Rajinikanth’s images in various cities of the United States, see rajinifans​.com​/sivaji​/fdfs​-usa​​.php. 32. See fans in New Jersey with a garlanded image of the star deity performing Hindu rituals as part of their devotional fandom in “Rajini Makkal Mandram North America Commemorates Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth’s New Movie Darbar”: www​ .youtube​.com​/watch​?fbclid​=IwAR2​_1rVnPrDk​_zIH​R9cx​ZrHn​ndux​tPY8​ChbW​ VcnfuH​-zhV6Nej7cC6aPTLQ​&v​=jRq2O55zPMY​&feature​=youtu​.be. 33. To see the FDFS of Enthiran at the Serra Theatres, I paid forty dollars at the ticket counter for a ten-dollar ticket in 2010. 34. According to their website, “Rajinifans​.c​om is dedicated to the fans of Super Star Rajinikanth. It is definitely a first and largest E-Fans association for a South Indian Actor who made an impact in Tamil Nadu politics also. This website is the first site meant for a leader from Tamil Nadu” (Superstar Rajinikanth E-Fans Association, n.d.) 35. Also see, Roos Gerritsen (2014), “Canvases of Political Competition: Image Production as Politics in Tamil Nadu, India.” 36. Over the years, fans have displayed many images where Rajinikanth is depicted as an heir of MGR. These posters include local fan club presidents who often share the visual space with Rajinikanth and MGR. Another example is a poster in Madurai made by fans to mount pressure on him to launch his political party. It read, “I am not MGR. But I can give governance like MGR. Change in politics, change in government. Now or never” (Nath 2020). 37. “Such acts of pointing at the audience position the audience not as simple spectators (i.e., those who watch the screen from its other side) but as those who, by being pointed at and by seeing proxies of themselves watching Rajini pointing with approval and admiration, welcome Rajini into the consanguineal ethnolinguistic community as their (adopted) kin and willing martyr. In doing so the film invites its spectators to pass through the screen so as to stand behind and with Rajini. And we might add, so that Rajini may come to stand as their political representative” (Nakassis 2017, 228). 38. “The symbol from the film is supposed to be the apana mudra. The five fingers of the hand represent the five yogic elements: thumb is fire, index finger is air, middle finger is space, ring finger is earth and the little finger is water. In this mudra, the middle finger and the ring finger are held down by the thumb, symbolically representing the calming down of the ether and the earth. According to Kriya Yoga, the repeated holding of that posture helps in digestion and improves stomach-related ailments. However, it is rather curious as a political symbol” (Rao 2018). 39. A banner that shows Rajinikanth, MGR, and fan club members with the Rajini Mudra positioned at the center was displayed in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (“Rajini Flayed” 2018). 40. In 1995, Rajinikanth received an invitation from the then prime minister of India, Narsimha Rao, to stand for the post of the chief minister of Tamil Nadu (Shreekanth 2008). Though Rajinikanth refused, he supported the DMK and the Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) alliance, and the party even used the star’s photos

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in political campaigning. The DMK–TMC alliance used the bicycle as their party symbol and also included an image of Rajinikanth riding a bicycle from the film Annamalai in their posters. Rajinikanth openly criticized the state government and remarked, “Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if AIADMK returns to power.” He supported the DMK–TMC alliance and asked the people of Tamil Nadu, as well as his fans, to vote for them. In 2002, Rajinikanth undertook a day-long fast on the political issue of Cauvery waters, during which the Congress government also issued posters of Rajinikanth waving together with its party president, Sonia Gandhi. Again in 2007, after the release of Shivaji, another political party, the Third Front, virtually invited him to join the proposed political formation, but the actor remained noncommittal. In 2014, the meeting of Rajinikanth and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who at that time was seeking the film star’s support) was seen as a political gesture; however, the film star brushed it aside as a personal meeting. 41. In Rajinikanth’s film, Kuselan (2008), a dialogue was written in an attempt to demystify the superstar image of Rajinikanth and make him appear as an ordinary actor. “Asked by one of the characters in the movie why the superstar doesn’t enter politics after repeatedly delivering dialogues that indicate his imminent entry into politics, Rajnikanth replies: ‘These words were written by a dialogue writer. What can I do if you treat them as real.’ Rajnikanth fans were upset with this and appealed to director P Vasu to remove them from the film. Vasu obliged.” The director said that when Rajinikanth realized that his fans were hurt by the dialogue, he requested him to immediately remove it (“Rajni’s lines on politics” 2008). 42. “Local fans were there to wear a Rajini Fans Club t-shirt, which he got by donating his blood with a divine intention to save few lives. It was a proud moment for him, as it attracted many folks who had gathered to watch super star movie. Fans had this good opportunity to encourage the folks to donate blood for the noble cause of saving lives, and it really made his day” (Velan, n.d.). 43. For more information on RMMNA and their activities, check their Facebook page: www​.facebook​.com​/Raj​iniM​akka​lMan​dram​Nort​hAmerica/. 44. See the YouTube video: “Darbar Release celebration USA fans,” www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=sDJv9rnl3to

Conclusion Devotional Fandom and Its Global Praxis

On a television debate when Subramanian Swamy, an Indian politician known to make provocative statements, said, “India is a murti-puja society,” one whose citizens are enamored by the worship of human beings (cinematic, sports, and political idols) and vote on the basis of a personality cult, the news anchor and the other speakers vociferously disagreed. They considered Swamy’s comments to be uneducated, degenerative remarks about the Indian polity and insisted that the Indian youth value the modern (Western) ideals of democracy instead (“Newshour Debate” 2014). For them, Swamy’s comments harked back to a colonial vision of India steeped in superstitious beliefs, such as the worshipping of human beings, and deviating from the “modern” image of a well-informed electorate that votes based on the rational ideas of a Eurocentric model of progress. What is ironic here is that the system of worshipping celebrities and the making of deities from popular culture has been part of the West for a long time. Although the deification of cultural and political icons is unique and deeply embedded in the Hindu ethos and the nexus between cinema, divinization, and politics is more pronounced in India (especially in Tamil Nadu) than anywhere else in the world, the phenomena of devotional fandom should not be considered a characteristic of India or Indians alone. There are devotee-fan communities in other parts of the world, where stars and cultural icons are worshipped, and scholars have been writing about them for decades. Unlike their Indian counterparts, who suffer from the aftermath of a “colonial consciousness,” (Deepak 2021), wrestling to shed the baggage of a “superstitious society” and earn India’s berth in the club of “modern” nations, scholars in the West have produced prolific research on the intermingling of religion and fan culture. They have examined cinematic and media spaces that have the potential to augment alternative expressions of the sacred. 225

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Studies of fandom around TV shows/popular icons demonstrate how fan and Christian identity can come together to produce new expressions of faith (Crome 2014, 2019). Not quite like the claim of a “murti-puja” society of India that Swamy describes, but not too unlike it either. For example, the American singer Beyonce is envisioned as both an incarnation of Jesus and a goddess by her devotee-fans, who organize “Beyoncé Mass” and claim to follow the religion of Beyism (“Church Service” 2018). According to the “Minister Diva” Pauline John Andrews of the National Church of Bey, “Deity’s [sic] often walk the Earth in their flesh form. Beyoncé will transcend back to the spirit once her work here on Mother Earth has been completed” (Lodge 2014). Similarly, devotee-fans of Elvis Presley describe him as “Jesus-like” and call themselves Presleytarians. According to Erika Doss, author of Elvis Culture, the “veneration of Elvis is one strong form of religiosity” (1999, 75). The “pilgrims who flock to Graceland, the burial place and former home of Elvis Presley, do not so much honor a dead God as proclaim the presence of a living secular one in popular culture,” augmenting a new form of religious identity (Rojek 2001, 63; Bickerdike 2016). Similarly, in his analysis of fans of Bruce Springsteen, Daniel Cavicchi compares the entry into fandom to the process of religious conversion. He affirms, “the descriptions of transformations found in narratives of becoming a fan are remarkably similar to those found in the conversion narratives of evangelical Christians in the modern United States” (1998, 43). Observing this growing resonance of conventional religious practices around icons and celebrity culture, Rojek explains that “celebrities replaced the monarchy as the new symbols of recognition and belonging, and as the belief in God waned, celebrities became immortal,” attaining an almost magical and superhuman status (2001, 14). Cultural icons such as Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey also have a cult following, while soccer players such as Maradona are worshipped by fans. The Church of Maradona in Argentina was founded in 1998 and in Mexico in 2021 (Solís 2019; Carillo 2021). Half a million fans claimed to worship the sports star, known as the “football-saint,” as a modern messiah. Scholars have argued that worship practices around his images amplify “a new form of church-like, global spatiality,” ushering in a “neo-religious icon” (Salazar Sutil 2008, 445, 447). In the city of Rosario, the Maradonean Church brings together “fans from around the world in a syncretistic space that blends Catholicism with the worship of the Argentinean idol” and “often refer to their God as D10S, a portmanteau word that fuses Maradona’s shirt number with the Spanish word for God (Dios)” (446). A report from The Guardian describes it: The lights dim, and six men in white tunics walk up the aisle. Each member of La Iglesia Maradoniana—the Church of Maradona—has the great footballer’s number ten on his back. Up front, an altar boy holds aloft a bloody football. It

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looks as if it has been tortured. Blood drips off its leather hexagons. Coils of barbed wire crown it. Behind the altar is a huge portrait of the man whom the crowd have come to worship—Diego Armando Maradona. (Franklin 2008)

Maradona’s elevation to a transcendental level is enhanced by the fans’ claim that the miracles the sports star displays on the field awaken a divine spirit in them (2008). Films and television shows such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and The Matrix, among others, have their own religious fan communities. Henry Jenkins (1992) was one of the first scholars to recognize the power that fans exert over the stars/ shows they eulogize. In his influential book Textual Poachers, Television Fans and Participatory Cultures, Jenkins rejects the stereotypical notion of fans as mindless, passive consumers and instead posits them as strategically engaged producers of popular culture. Citing the example of Star Trek fans, or Trekkers, he elucidates how through their fan activities, they acquire the ability to transform “spectator culture into participatory culture” (1988, 88). According to him, artifacts by Trekkers create an “alternate universe” that deepens our understanding of popular culture, religion, media, gender, sexuality, and marginalization, asserting that his study “documents a group insistent on making meaning from materials others have characterized as trivial and worthless” (1992, 3). Artifacts of modern fandom have also been framed as an expression of an “inherently religious participatory culture” and point to the emergence of new religious sensibilities that take shape from fan practices (Cusack, Morehead, and Robertson 2019, 3). Michael Jindra locates Star Trek fandom within a quasireligious domain, advocating that it “had features that paralleled a religioustype movement: an origin myth, a set of beliefs, an organization, and some of the most active and creative members to be found anywhere . . . Religion often points us to another world; ST [Star Trek] does the same” (1994, 30, 33). Porter brings attention to how the Star Trek conventions function as a place of sacred pilgrimage for the fans (2004, 161). The discursive space where religion and fandom intersect is further blurred by courses, such as “Star Trek and Religion,” taught at Indiana University, that allow students to consider how “Star Trek fandom itself also reveals many religious and ritualistic elements,” including the “practice of pilgrimage” (Porter and McLaren 1999, 3). Another course, taught at Northwestern University, explores the connection between Star Trek fandom and religious identity formation,1 while one at the University of Pittsburgh focuses on sports fandom and religious devotion.2 Emanating from a similar intersection of fandom and religion, Snapeism and Matrixism are also examples of fandom-inspired religions (Alderton 2014; Morehead 2012; Cusack, Morehead, Robertson 2019). Likewise, Star

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Wars fans expand the cinematic sacred through Jediism (Possamai 2005, 2012; Porter 2006; Laderman 2009a; Cusack 2010; Cusack and Kosnáč 2017; Davidsen 2013, 2017; Lužný 2020). On its website, the International Temple of Jedi Order declares that it represents a legally recognized religion based on “the Force and international ministry of the Jedi religion, Jediism, and the Jedi way of life.” Jediisim is believed to be the most popular online virtual religion of our times (Bainbridge 2017). The onus of “proof” in Jediism falls on the devotee-fans, writes Gary Laderman (2009b), author of Sacred Matters who urges us to realign our conventional ideas of what constitutes the “sacred” and the “religious” to the metaphysical undertones embedded in popular culture: I can hear my New Testament and Systematic Theologian colleagues reading this with skepticism if not disgust—and indeed I have encountered these kinds of reactions in public forums. “Surely anyone identifying their religion as Jedi is just being silly,” they say. Or “How do you know this is genuine religion and not just some passing fancy?” I imagine after the death of Christ members of early Christian community may have faced the same kind of incredulity and disdain. My Response: Welcome to the twenty-first century, when sacred matters are not limited to monotheists or confined by conventional religious traditions. Bono and Warren Buffet, Master Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi are legitimate guiding religious lights whose words and actions stir the imagination and rally the faithful in ways those of you who study religion are only beginning to understand. (2009a, June 22)

Although scholars argue whether or not to locate such pop-culture-inspired fandom in the category of contemporary religion, some conceptualize “a new category against history‑based religion” (Davidsen 2013, 2016; Cusack 2010; Cusack, Morehead, Robertson 2019). They propose the term “fiction-based religion” as “the basis for a loosely organized religious movement that is made up of several small, independent, but networked groups” ­(Davidsen 2016, 383). Others argue for a rethinking of religion that encompasses “pop-culture spirituality,” or the “postmodern sacred,” or the “hyper-real,” as different from traditional religions (McAvan 2012; Possamai 2012). The intertwining of the secular and the sacred in these “fantastic fandoms,” where the sacred is seen not as a universal category but as “emotional, cognitive, spiritual, material moments and actions,” infiltrates the religious landscape of devotee-fans (Cusack, Morehead, Robertson 2019, 10). In Sacred in Fantastic Fandoms, Carole Cusack, Venetia Robertson and John Morehead see the secularization and sacralization of cultural products as a new way of defining religion and fandom: The academy needs to embrace a more dynamic, deregulated, and possibly more secular definition of religion if it wants to fully grasp the profundity with which

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many fans engage with their media, and the degree to which concepts like the sacred, the divine, scripture, dogma, gnosis, and enchantment are embedded in their experiences. (2019, 10)

The emergence of a global contemporary religiosity originating from the cinematic/virtual screen and the ensuing practice of devotional fandom paves way for a rethinking of the conventional understanding of religion and fan culture. With this cyber-visual turn, the conversion of the fan into a devoteefan has become easier because images and online communities reign in the virtual world.3 Within the Indian context, this phenomenon has gained greater relevance as fan clubs function within a defined structure, vision, and framework, declaring themselves nonprofit organizations geared toward the betterment of society. With their regular social work activities that span decades, these devotee-fan clubs are able to garner social mobility in their particular city/state, and, through their media and online communities, they project their identity in the national/transnational space. Through their sustained social organizational format, circumvented with the publics of fan-bhakti, they are able to galvanize themselves in support of collective causes that validate their credibility and strengthen their identity. In this book, I have tried to map out the phenomena of fan culture from the perspective of devotee-fans within a framework of publics of fan-bhakti and show how they legitimize their devotional fandom through the appropriation of religion, architecture, art, and politics. By making the mode of the visual (i.e., the devotee-fan art) a pivotal point of study, I have highlighted the significance of the materiality through which devotee-fans negotiate and establish their religious identity in popular culture. The efficacy of devotee-fan art imparts visibility to new sociopolitical communities that are forged through the publics of fan-bhakti, showcasing how the desires of devotee-fans manifest and are being circulated through these images. While fandom can be used for acquiring electoral success, sometimes devotee-fans have political ideas and aspirations that differ from those of the star deity. Rajinikanth fans, for instance, seem to have developed their own version of what their star deity has described as a type of “secular spiritual politics,” even though Rajinikanth has decided not to form his own political party (as discussed in chapter 5).4 Some fans upset by his decision asked him to reconsider; they expressed their disappointment in the media claiming that they have worked for their thalaivar “without going to any other political party” for thirty years (Bharathi 2020). Others, such as Thamizhazhagan, the administrator of the webpages titled Rajinikanth Fans and Rajini: Biggest Superstar of India (RBSI), maintain that “we didn’t become his fans based on his future in politics.” Hence, they will abide by his decision: “whatever his call is, we will follow that.” Another fan, Yuvaraj, who belongs to the group

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Rajini Makkal Mandram, stresses his loyalty to Rajini: “Thalaivar’s way is our path. Even if he chooses spirituality, we will follow him on the spiritual path. If he decides to do service, we will as well do service for the people. Even if he had showed us a way in politics, then we would have jumped into politics” (Bharathi 2020). In spite of Rajinikanth’s decision, his fan clubs both in India and the United States have pledged to continue their social activism and work for the eradication of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and so on, without any apparent personal electoral political gains. Whether the political aspect of the “Rajini Fan” will dissipate or continue to steer the nonprofit organization, serving as an important medium for fostering ­sociopolitical change, will become evident in a few years. While electoral political agency can be acquired through devotional fandom, it is not the ultimate aim of all devotee-fans or devotee-fan clubs. For example, ABFA members do not wish to see their star deity in politics, as Amitabh has already attempted and failed as a politician.5 In 2007 and again in 2016, there were media reports that Amitabh was being considered for the highest political position in the country, the President of India, but the star refused to consider it. Unlike Rajinikanth fans, ABFA members did not voice their protest. Their deification of Amitabh has no discernible link to direct electoral politics either for their star deity or for themselves. Instead of participation in electoral politics, their fandom focuses on further solidifying devotee-fan identity and projecting the ABFA as an organization that is “based on serving humanity and does good for the society” (interview with Bhutoria, 2022). Another distinction between the ABFA and Rajinikanth fans manifests through their respective reactions to their star deity’s choice of films. Unlike Rajinikanth fans, who have been known to interfere with the kind of films their star chooses, sometimes coercing him to accept only roles that help glorify his image, the ABFA celebrates and divinizes every film role that features Amitabh. As mentioned in chapter 1, they continue to worship him in roles where he plays ordinary or even negative characters, often reversing their meaning by adding their own mantras and slogans to film posters, coloring it with their devotional fandom. Unlike Rajinikanth devotee-fans, for the ABFA, the cinematic screen and the star’s characters seem to have become peripheral, as their devotional fandom and identity construct of Amitabh as Ram gains center stage in the Bachchan Dham. Unhinged from the cinematic screen as the center that fuels star power, the star deity now functions as a self-sustaining model; although moored to Hindu religiosity, but with a life of its own: constructed, contoured, and maneuvered by the ABFA. On asking why the temple was not named after Amitabh’s first name, Rohit Bhutoria explains, “Our temple space is dedicated to the entire family of our God. Hence, the name Bachchan Dham is apt and more inclusive” (interview with

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the author, 2022). The ritualization of Amitabh’s parents’ images and posters of the entire family of Amitabh inside the temple alludes to this point. In the case of Rajinikanth, fans only worship his images, and do not extend those practices either to his parents, or to the rest of the family in their deification project. As of now, no known temple is reported to have been built for Rajinikanth in India. So, unlike a vision for a sociopolitical change in their state which Rajinikanth fans’ harbor, ABFA’s most important objective is to convert as many people as possible into Amitabh bhakts so that they can “add as many Amitabh followers to the ABFA,” declares Sanjay Patodiya (interview with the author 2010). To do so, they aim to extend their occupation of the city space by expanding the Amitabh museum‑temple into a “sacred entertainment zone” that includes a full-fledged museum, park, library, and restaurant. Devoid of any visible aspirations for electoral politics, they also seek to expand their cinematic sacred in the national space by establishing a chain of Amitabh temples in every state of India. In this process, Sanjay Patodiya and some other prominent fans of the ABFA have become mini celebrities of their own. Similarly, Pappu Sardar’s devotional fandom does not yet incorporate or envision an electoral political role for his star deity. Madhuri, who is a mother of two and now more of a television personality than a screen star, did not campaign for any political party in the election of 2019. However, Pappu Sardar actively campaigns for social projects such as an anti-corruption drive, a save water campaign (2013), the fight against female oppression through the formation of the “Shaktirupa Gulab Gang” (modeled after Madhuri Dixit’s film Gulaab Gang, 2014), a voter awareness campaign (2018), and a recent endeavor aimed at creating awareness of COVID-19. He has been involved in these projects and others, particularly those that benefit the underprivileged, the transgender community, and the specially abled women of the Cheshire Home, and more recently, the Santhal tribals in the state (2018), in his continued social activism for over the past thirty years. The local government has honored and declared him the Brand Ambassador of the Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) of the city to help educate other citizens about civic matters. In the past decade and a half that I have known him, whenever I bring up the subject of him becoming more active in politics, he shrugs his shoulders and disdainfully remarks, “People respect me as Madhuri’s bhakt and have given me so much love. I have no desire to join politics and become someone else” (interview with the author, 2022). Nevertheless, he has strategically created a space for a potential electoral political entry for himself through his social activism engineered through devotional fandom. Although the potential for success in electoral politics through devotional fandom is present in all three case studies discussed in this book, it differs in how it manifests. Sometimes electoral politics is a near invisible entity,

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an impregnated force that remains suspended. At other times, it can become dynamic, animated, and actualized at the will of the devotee-fan and the star deity. Inscribing fan practices within a unilocular framework, as a means for fans to achieve an active political career would eclipse its other significant dimensions, some of which I have tried to highlight in this book. Just like the trajectory of devotional fandom can vary, the term “devoteefan” should not be understood as a homogenous category. Instead, it is a composite entity with an amalgam of complex typologies—a heterogeneous, pluralistic space. Within a single devotee-fan club, there are marked differences of color, gender, religion, political views, interests, individual personality, and so on, among devotee-fans. For example, Rajinikanth’s rural fans, like their urban counterparts, deify cutouts and posters of the star deity, and yet their devotional practices are sometimes grounded in certain worship traditions of Lord Murugan and other rituals to which urban fans may not relate.6 Their rituals include eating man soru (mud rice), carrying kavdi by piercing their skin with metal rods and hooks while displaying the superstar’s images, and, more recently, conducting a goat sacrifice before the release of Rajinikanth’s film Anathee (2021). These differences do not disappear but are negotiated through the publics of fan-bhakti when mutually agreed upon collective devotional activities (such as arati, puja, etc.) are performed around star images that provide fans with a sense of community and unification. Thus, the identity of the fan is not monadic and cannot be bracketed into a singular domain. Rather, it flips, fuses, and mediates between multivalent identities. As Novetzke notes in the context of bhakti: “Bhakti is a locus for the creation of publics. . . . But publics can, in turn, portray bhakti in any way that serves the constituency of a particular public: as a social movement, as a personal communication with God, or as a Protestant revolution, a nationalist focal point, or a system of social protest” (2007, 266). Through the publics of fan-bhakti, the devotee-fan uses all of these dimensions—the devotional, the social, the political, the translocal, and the transnational—to navigate his way through popular culture. He can be an active agent of electoral politics, a regional icon/a local hero/city ambassador, a social/political activist, a local entertainer/performer, a media personality who delights twenty-four-hour news stations with a display of an unconventional form of devotion, or all of these rolled into one and more. Based on the case studies presented in this book, I have proposed that the identity of the fan as a devotee is the locus around which multiple identity formations emerge and coalesce, galvanized through the performative publics of fan-bhakti and rituals centered upon the star-murti. Through these devotional practices, fandom gains momentum and helps the fan mediate and meld together a network of identities or choose one for himself. Devotee-fans acquire their novelty, sensationalism, intrigue, identity, and power from their contemporary style

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of worship, rooted in Hindu religiosity, through which they shape the cinematic sacred in popular culture. Through the publics of devotee-fan bhakti performed across regions and nations, the devotee-fans define, bind, and consolidate their fandom. In this manner, they activate a parallel transnational democratic formation, mobilizing religious identity and cultural politics through the visual/material sign of the star deity. The deified star image created by devotee-fans and around which such collectivities are formed remains a contested site. Although the star may use it to harness the power and sustain his or her popularity, it is increasingly being invested with multiple meanings by devotee-fans to fulfill their own desires: social, religious, and political.

AFTERWORD From the resounding chants of the audience in the starlit Ramlila grounds of the Panjab University campus in Chandigarh, where the outpouring of bhakti rechristened Uncle Ram as Lord Ram, to the pulsating jives of Rajinikanth devotee-fans who hail him as their God of Style in the darkened movie theater of Milpitas, California, devotional fandom seems to have come full circle. Or has it? What has changed is perhaps the social status, educational background, and the technology of worship (with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as major sites of virtual star deification). The intent and performance are similar but have been intensified and expanded. Indeed, the emotive content of devotion is taking shape in its transnational form, not just in the high-strung vocal cords of the devotee-fans who erupt into a seismic frenzy at the mere mention of their superstar in theaters across the world but, more so, in the multiplicity, recreation, and re-engagement of the cinematic sacred on various sites: national, transnational, local-global, and real-virtual. NOTES 1. See the syllabus for the course, “American Religion and Popular Culture in Theoretical Perspective” (2005) taught by Professor Sarah McFarland Taylor, Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University: raac.​​iupui​​.edu/​​wp​-co​​ntent​​/uplo​​ ads​/2​​017​/0​​9​/​Tay​​lor​.p​​df. 2. See the course, “Religion and Sports”: www​.religiousstudies​.pitt​.edu​/undergrad​ /courses​#1428. 3. Martin Jay (2002, 267–278) used the term “visual turn” to describe the emergence of vision and visuality as important issues in the humanities and social sciences in the 1990s. Also see Sandria Freitag’s, “The Visual Turn: Approaching South Asia

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across the Disciplines” (2014) in which she expands this idea to argue how the “visual turn” is useful in constructing the larger narrative of modern India. 4. “In the forthcoming Assembly elections, with the support of the people, it is certain that honest, monetary, transparent, non-corrupt, secular and secular spiritual politics will emerge in Tamil Nadu,” Rajinikanth announced on Twitter (Oka 2021). 5. In 1984, Amitabh won an election from his hometown, Allahabad, with a whopping majority, but later resigned. The following statement was attributed to him on his blog: “Many ask me why I joined politics and then why I left it. I joined it because I was asked to and left because I was inadequate for the job” (“I Was Inadequate” 2009). 6. When I met the LIC Unit Rajini fans in 2008, I asked the members about these rituals, but they refused to talk. However, these practices, which are not as common in Chennai, are followed by Rajinikanth fans in other parts of Tamil Nadu and are routinely reported in the media (“2.0: Rajinikanth Fans” 2018).

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Index

ABABFA. See All Bengal Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association ABFA. See Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association Abhijnanasakuntalam, 155 Acafan, 21 “Action Speaks Louder than Words” exhibit, 61–62 Agneepath (1990), 52, 94, 95 Agnivarsha (2002), 99–100, 100, 101 AIADMK. See All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Ajaib Ghar, 117–18, 121 Akhtar, Javed, 41 Aks, 52 Alderton, Zoe, 18 All Bengal Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association (ABABFA), 37–38. See also Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), 30n13; cinema used by, 183; formation of, 182; Jayalalithaa temples by, 184; on MGR fan club, 184 All India Rajinikanth Fan Association, 177, 188. See also Rajinikanth Fan Association

All India Rajinikanth Rasigar Mandaram. See All India Rajinikanth Fan Association All India Rajini Rasigar Mandram, 213 Althusser, Louis, 65, 67 Ambedkar, B. R., 12 Amitabh. See Bachchan, Amitabh Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association (ABFA), 6, 25; activities of, 26; Amitabh arati in, 7, 42–43, 46–48, 193; Amitabh puja in, 43, 44, 46, 56, 70n8, 97; AmitAkshar by, 62; arc of divinity in, 11–12; Bachchan engagement with, 31n19, 62–63, 63, 72n23, 98; birthday celebration by, 43, 70nn8–9; blood donation camp by, 62, 62, 105; cinematic darshan in, 48–51; communities of practice in, 46–48, 71n12; darshan in, 42–43; deep faith in, 33n32; devotee-fan art of, 43, 51–54, 53; devotional fandom lineages in, 77; devotion expressed in, 11, 39–40, 64; expanded cinematic space and marking the sacred in, 56; fans becoming devotees in, 37–42, 39; fan yatra in, 39, 43, 56, 70n9, 76; film viewing by, 47–48; guru-god fusion and ideological flexibility in, 43–46, 259

260

Index

44; on Hindu deities, 45–46; mantras in, 42–43; media role in, 54–55, 55; in mediascapes, 64, 77; as multireligious, 53–54, 71n16; objective of, 230–31; posters worshiped by, 76–77; privileged status claimed by, 61–62, 72n22; publics of fanbhakti of, 43, 67, 69; public worship by, 39, 39; puja in, 42–43, 44, 56, 97; re-constructing “normal” in, 68–69; rituals appropriated by, 42–43; shraddha in, 40, 69; as social welfare organization, 58, 61–63, 62; style‑bhakti in, 220n20. See also Bachchan Dham Amitabh Bachchan temple. See Bachchan Dham Amitabh shrine: Bachchan as Indra in, 99–102, 101; central murti in, 99–102, 101; darshanic grid in, 103; darshan in, 97, 99, 102; ritual-based accessories in, 104; saffron border in, 37, 104; shoes in, 104; textual references in, 101, 103–4; trimurti in, 101, 102 AmitAkshar, 62 ancestor worship, 97, 146n20 Anderson, Benedict, 203 Annamalai University, 195 Apana mudra, 212, 222n38 Appadurai, Arjun, 145n8; on fanscapes, 31n17; on repeat viewing, 48; on salvation, 41, 70n6; on transnationalism, 194 arati, 5; in ABFA, 7, 42–43, 46–48, 193; at Bharat Mata Temple, 117; by devotee-fans, 18; in fan-bhakti, 10, 18; at film theater, 190; at Madhuri Dixit Temple, 126, 134; for Rajinikanth, 179, 180, 195; for Rajinikanth films, 190; in Ramlila, 30n9; in star temples, 8; twice daily practice of, 46, 70n11; at U.S. cinemas, 197 Art and Cinema (Husain), 155

art history, 169–70 artifacts: from cinema, 96–97; of devotee-fans, 2–3, 21, 27; of RFA, 190. See also devotee-fan art Baba (2002), 212–13 Baba Symbol. See Rajini Mudra Babb, Lawrence, 49 Bachchan, Abhishek, 31n19, 43, 70n9 Bachchan, Amitabh: ABFA engagement with, 31n19, 62–63, 63, 72n23, 98; as “angry young man,” 6, 38, 41, 106n9; birthday of, 43, 70nn8–9; as Bollywood star, 24; against Bollywood term, 23, 34n34; career success of, 38; comeback by, 40, 70n4; cult inspired by, 6, 30n11; darshan given by, 49; devoteefan clubs for, 8, 38; fans of, 22; as guru-god fusion, 43–46, 44; hospitalizations of, 38–40, 45; as Indra, 59, 99–102, 100, 101, 104; mythic image of, 41–42; in politics, 38, 70n3, 234n5; posters of, 91–92, 92, 93, 97, 106n3; as Ram, 6, 26, 39, 42–43, 46–47, 52–54, 59, 64–65, 67, 69, 76–77, 99, 104; religions represented by, 53, 53–54; as Shivalike, 91, 92; songs of, 40–41; statue of, 60, 60–61, 104; temple for, 7; as Vijay, 33n32, 41, 70n7, 95, 106n9; in Zanjeer, 38. See also Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association; Amitabh shrine; Bachchan Dham Bachchan Dham, 26; “Action Speaks Louder than Words” exhibit in, 61–62; Bachchan support of, 62–63, 63, 72n23; cinematic avatars on, 53, 53; cinematic sacred in, 67; commercialization of, 67, 72n26; creation of, 57, 71n17, 104; darshanic grid in, 58, 103, 107n11; as devotee-fan art, 43; elements of, 56; exterior of, 57, 57–58, 67; garbhagriha of, 59, 59–60, 60, 99,

Index

104; “God and his Devotees” exhibit in, 63–64; interpellation in, 65, 67; murti in, 59, 59–61, 60, 71n20; museum-like space of, 58, 58–59, 61, 107n11; as museum-temple, 58, 58–59, 61; posters in, 12; prasad at, 66; Sarkar gear in, 61; social welfare projects at, 61–63, 62; statue in, 60, 60–61, 104; temple bell in, 104; tilak applied in, 66, 66; visitors at, 65–67, 66 Bajrang Dal, 150–51 Bakhtin, Mikhail M., 28, 201–2, 204–5 Balaji, 204 banners: as devotee-fan art, 44, 53–54; in mobile museum‑temples, 56; for Sivaji, 208, 208–9 baraat, 166–67 Baskaran, S. Theodore, 12 Benjamin, Walter, 83, 143 Beyoncé, 226 Bhabha, Homi, 194 bhakta, 17, 31n23 bhakti, 4; agency enabled through, 65; bodies required for, 42; definitions of, 8–9; in devotional fandom, 22; embodiment of, 135; feet and, 29n5; possession and, 14–15; prasad as, 9–10, 66; television watching as, 5. See also publics of fan-bhakti; raslila bhakts, 4–5. See also fan-bhakts Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 29n1 Bharat Mata: in Bharat Mata Temple, 115–17, 119; nationalist popular prints of, 83; in Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna, 84–85, 85 Bharat Mata Temple, 12; as Ajaib ghar, 121; arati at, 117; Bharat Mata figure in, 115–17; darshan in, 116, 120, 121; exterior of, 115, 116, 138; Gandhi, I., inauguration of, 115, 117; images in, 119–21, 120; inauguration of, 115; vs. Madhuri Dixit Temple,

261

137–38; map in, 115–16, 119, 145n9; as modern and traditional, 115–17; murti in, 115–17, 119; as museum-temple, 113, 117–21, 138; nationalism in, 117–18, 121, 138; shop in, 119; slogan for, 117, 144n7; textual references in, 118, 119; vahana in, 116; “Vande Bharat Maatram” in, 118 Bharat Uddhar (1931), 88 Bhatti, Shaila, 118 Bhrugubanda, Uma, 13–14 Bhutoria, Rohit, 60, 72n26, 230 “Big B.” See Bachchan, Amitabh BJP. See Bharatiya Janata Party Bollywood, 1–2; cultural legitimacy of, 24; definition of, 22–23; dreamlike scenes in, 93–94; negative connotations of, 22–23, 34n33; star temples for, 7–8, 12; superstars in, 2, 6, 8, 26; as “trashy, hocus-pocus” cinema, 22–25 Bose, Subhash Chandra, 84–86, 85 Brand Rajini, 187, 210–11 Breckenridge, Carol, 145n8 Brownmiller, Susan, 160 Bruce, Chris, 139 calendar art, 78, 82, 136, 137 caste. See class Cavicchi, Daniel, 226 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 21 Chandramukhi (2005), 177, 221n28 charanamrit, 4, 29n6 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 75 Chatterjee, Partha, 28, 75, 117, 145n10, 217 Chattopadhyay, Swati, 41; on masculinity, 70n7; on Saraswati, 157–59 Chaudhry, Lakshmi, 219n14 Cheshire Home, 123, 146n18; kinnars donating to, 172n14; posters in, 164, 164–65 Chicago Rajini Fans’ Association, 197

262

Index

Chicago Tribune, 195–96 Chinese Scroll Series, 171n7 Chiranjeevi, 13, 32n26, 64, 206 Chohan, Satinder, 1 Chopraji, Yash, 70n4 chronotope, 28; in adventure novels, 202; definition of, 201–2; in devotional fandom, 205 cinedivine, 145n13; in Madhuri Dixit Temple, 125, 138–39; star deity in, 182–88, 186 cinedivine political space, 219n10; devotee-fan art and, 208, 208–15; as dialectical, 211; historical base of, 185; of MGR, 183–84, 211; MGR creation of, 183–84; Rajini Mudra in, 212–13; star deity in, 182–88, 186; in Tamil Nadu, 182–85 cinema: AIADMK use of, 183; artifacts from, 96–97; collective viewing of, 47–48; DMK use of, 182; female audiences of, 14–15; frontality in, 49–51, 94–95; Indian, 23; masala films, 91, 106n8; mythologicals, 90–91; politics, devotional fandom and, 12–22; religious experience in, 15–16, 32n25; repeat viewing of, 48; salvation in, 41, 70n6; scopic field in, 102; scopic regimes in, 102; social activism in, 215; studies on politics and, 12–13; Varma influencing, 90, 94. See also Bollywood; Tamil cinema cinematic darshan: in ABFA, 48–51; film posters for, 105; frontality in, 49–51; scopic regime and scopic field in, 102; star murti mobilizing, 96–105, 99, 100, 101; virtual, 105 cinematic sacred, 20; within alternative modernity, 75–76, 105n1; in Bachchan Dham, 67; inventing of, 42–43; outside film theaters as, 189–90; space of, 76–77; visual trajectories of, 1–3. See also cinedivine political space

cine-politics, 219n10 citationality of performativity, 187 Clark, Danae, 214 class: assumptions about, 68, 72n28; devotional fandom and, 13, 16–17, 32n27; possession and, 14–15; in Ramlila performances, 29n7; scholarly perceptions of, 21–22 Cohen, Robin, 194 Collins, Alfred, 71n13 communities of practice, 47, 71n12 corpothetics, 19, 78, 190 Cusack, Carole, 17–18, 228–29 cutouts, 2, 29n3; for Enthiran, 198, 199, 200; as murti, 189–90; as propagandistic sites, 16; rituals with, 18; in star temples, 7–8 dancing: as gestural darshan, 193; at Madhuri Dixit Temple, 123–24, 127, 129, 135; by Sardar, 123–24, 127, 129, 135; Sufi, 135, 137. See also raslila Darbar (2020), 177 darshan: in ABFA, 42–43; in Amitabh shrine, 97, 99, 102; in bhakti, 9–10; in Bharat Mata Temple, 116, 120, 121; with posters, 94, 95; with printed murtis, 94, 96; seeing in, 49, 71n13; television watching as, 5; in temples, 48–49; as visual worship, 48. See also cinematic darshan; gestural darshan darshanic grid, 103, 107n11 Davis, Richard, 18, 79 Desai, Jigna, 24 Devdas (2002), 135–36 devotee-fan art, 25–26; of ABFA, 43, 51–54, 53; Bachchan Dham as, 43; banners as, 44, 53–54; chair from Aks as, 52, 60; cinedivine political and, 208, 208–15; images in, 16, 32n26; in politics, 206; of Rajinikanth, 185–86, 186; Rajinikanth collage as, 197; religions

Index

represented in, 53, 53–54; by Sardar, 168–69, 172n18; shoes from Agneepath as, 44, 52, 60, 104; star murti as, 101, 102. See also artifacts devotee-fan clubs: for Bachchan, 8, 38; for Dixit, 8, 25; as impactful, 69; as political launch pads, 206; for Rajinikanth, 8; social work in, 22, 26. See also All Bengal Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association; Amitabh Bachchan Fan Association; Rajinikanth Fan Association; Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America devotee-fans, 8, 30n16; artifacts of, 2–3, 21, 27; as diverse, 232–33; faith of, 33n32; fans becoming devotees in, 37–42, 39; as “normal,” 68–69; presumptions about, 68, 73n28; reciprocal touching by, 102–3; rituals of, 18–20; style cited by, 187, 220n18; transnational activism of, 215–17. See also fan-bhakts; Rajini Fan devotional fandom, 8; ABFA lineages of, 77; appropriation in, 27, 229; bhakti in, 22; book organization for, 25–28; chronotope in, 205; cinema, politics and, 12–22; city spaces for, 127–28, 128; class and, 13, 16–17, 32n27; conditional loyalty in, 13, 64, 72n24; electoral politics through, 231–32; on FDFS, 190–91; global dimension of, 28; global praxis of, 225–33; identity in, 54; images promoting, 136, 136–37; as male-centric and “homoerotic,” 192; as marginalized, 20; material legitimacy of, 77; media role in, 54–55, 55; modernist view of, 17, 19; multivalent layers of, 25; politics and, 229–30; as popular political society, 217; possession and, 14–15; as “premodern,” 17, 19–21; in publics of fan-bhakti, 10; Rajini Mudra in, 179, 213; raslila of, 192;

263

religiosity lacking in, 13–14, 17–18; research on, 21–22; self-promotion through, 13; sociopolitical agency from, 26; star deity support of, 31n19; studies on, 12–13; time in, 202–4; transnationalism in, 22, 194; in U.S., 193–206, 199, 200; visuality of, 11; Western, 225–28 devotional fanscapes, 8, 10, 31n17, 128 devotional hymn, 7, 30n15 Diaspora of the Gods (Waghorne), 113–14 Dickey, Sara, 12–13; on fan clubs, 206; on fans, 22, 32n27; on MGR fans, 18, 184 “Didi tera deevar deewana,” 150 divinity, 11–12, 98 Dixit, Madhuri: as Bollywood star, 24; calendar art of, 136, 137; devoteefan clubs for, 8, 25; in dreamlike romantic scenes, 94; as Durga, 122, 134, 150; fans of, 22; as Menaka, 155; as Mona Lisa, 166; as mother goddess, 165; Sardar endorsed by, 31n19; Sardar gift from, 31n19, 144n2; two fan-bhakts of, 149–51 DMK. See Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Doss, Erika, 226 Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), 182, 218n9 Dudrah, Rajendra, 24 Duncan, Carol, 146n21 Dussehra, 3 Dwyer, Rachel, 15–16, 41 Dyer, Richard, 220n16 Eck, Diana, 48 embodiment, 135 EMP. See Experience Music Project Enthiran (2010): earnings of, 177; FDFS for, 198, 199, 200, 201; international response to, 201; at Serra Theaters, 202; in U.S., 196–97, 198 exchange of gazes, 48

264

Index

exhibition-cum sale, 138, 146n22 exhibition temple: as hybrid polysemic space, 142; performative fan-bhakti and, 140–44, 141 Experience Music Project (EMP), 139 fan, 33nn31–32 fan-bhakts, 8, 10, 30n16; of Dixit, 149– 51; physical conversion to, 66–67 fanscapes, 31n18 fan yatra: in ABFA, 39, 43, 56, 70n9, 76; by Sardar, 127, 128, 129, 139 FDFS. See First Day First Show fiction-based religion, 228–29 film posters, 2; as art, 59, 71n19; of Bachchan, 91–92, 92, 93, 97, 106n3; in Bachchan Dham, 12; for cinematic darshan, 105; darshan with, 94, 95; dreamlike scenes in, 93–94; frontality in, 94–95; hieratic scaling in, 92, 92–93, 93; in Madhuri Dixit Temple, 112, 125–26; of Mahaan, 91, 92, 93; of MGR, 183; in mobile museum‑temples, 56; as murti, 26, 59, 59–60, 71n20, 76, 78, 90–96, 92, 93, 97; radiating golden rays in, 91– 92, 93; rituals with, 18–19; romantic gazing in, 95–96, 97; as star murti, 76, 90, 134; in star temples, 7–8; tripartite image in, 91, 92; worship of, 17, 39, 76–77 film theater: arati at, 190; in publics of fan-bhakti, 191; temple and, 189–90. See also cinema; First Day First Show First Day First Show (FDFS), 181; for Enthiran, 198, 199, 200, 201; palabhishekam on, 201; Rajini Fans at, 190–91, 193; at Serra Theatres, 198, 201; in U.S., 193 Foucault, Michel, 20, 68 Fouron, Georges, 194 Freud, Sigmund. See Oedipus complex frontality: in cinematic darshan, 49–51, 94–95; in Indian popular art, 71n14

Gaekwad, Shivaji Rao. See Rajinikanth Gaja Gamini (2000), 150, 155; Dixit as Mona Lisa in, 166; failure of, 166; logo for, 161, 161; Madhuri Dixit Temple theme, 168; Oedipus complex in, 162 Gandhi (1948), 86–88, 87 Gandhi (Mahatma), 12; collage prints of, 84; in Gandhi, 86–88, 87; in Gandhi as Vishnu, 88, 89; in Mahatma Gandhi Being Blessed by Rama, 84; Rajinikanth and, 209–10 Gandhi, Indira, 115, 117, 119 Gandhi as Vishnu, 88, 89 Gandhi Temple, 12, 121–22 Ganesan, Sivaji, 208–9 Ganti, Tejaswini, 24 garbhagriha: of Bachchan Dham, 59, 59–60, 60, 99, 104; cinema hall similar to, 50; in Gandhi Temple, 121; single murti in, 104 Genesis of Gaja Gamini (Husain), 155 George, David, 192 gestural darshan, 187–88; dancing as, 193; at film screenings, 190; oneness through, 205; Rajini Mudra as, 190, 196, 213; RFA unified through, 192–93 Get Rajinified: through dancing, 191; meaning of, 179–80; in publics of fan-bhakti, 181 Ghosh, Bishnupriya, 24 Ghoshal, Babua, 39, 47–48 God of Indian Children, 88–89 Gonda, Jan, 82 Govil, Arun, 5 Grieve, Price Gregory, 78–79 Guha, Anita, 91 Guha-Thakurta, Tapati: on deities, 80– 81; on museums, 117–18, 121; on Rape of Europa, 161; on Saraswati, 157, 171n10 guru: bhakt and, 43–44; darshan with, 49; as “spiritual,” 24, 34n35 Guru Purnima, 12, 43–44, 44

265

Index

Haasan, Kamal, 219n15 Hanna, Judith, 191 Hanuman Jayanti, 127 Hardgrave, Robert, Jr., 12 Hawley, John Stratton, 9, 65 Hendrix, Grady, 177 Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, 146n17 Hindu temples: building of, 113–14; cinema halls and, 95; darshan in, 48–49; diasporic, 129, 146n17; female empowerment in, 128; film theater and, 189–90; garbhagriha in, 50; MTV reality shows at, 114, 144n4; for Muneeshwaran, 31n18, 114, 129; as museum-like, 58, 58– 59, 61; new imaginations of, 113–22, 116, 119, 120; shoes removed inside of, 127; shop as, 122–30, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129; as street shrines, 115; structural types of, 115; television and, 114; urban, 128; worship practices in, 18. See also All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam; museum-temple; political temples; star temples Holdrege, Barbara, 105n1, 204 Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean: on pedagogic functions of museums, 133–34; on post-museum, 138–39, 147n24 Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1995), 150 Husain, Maqbool Fida, 25; Art and Cinema by, 155; as artist, 149; Chinese Scroll Series by, 171n7; on civilisational vision of nationhood, 149, 171n4; on color red, 161; as controversial, 157, 171n1; as eccentric, 167, 172n17; as fan-bhakt, 149–51; Genesis of Gaja Gamini by, 155; Krishna theme by, 151–55; on Madhuri, 149–50; on Madhuri as mother, 159, 162; on “massifying,” 165–66, 172n15; maternal love theme of, 152; mother of, 153, 157; on Mother Teresa, 152–53; MotherVII by, 153, 154; Oedipus complex

theme of, 159–60, 162; Our Planet Called Earth by, 172n15; painting as ritual object for, 162–71; painting of, 151–62, 152, 154, 156, 158, 161; Rape of Europa by, 160–61; on Saraswati, 157; Sardar clay copies of, 169, 170; success of, 149; Where Art Thou? by, 150. See also Gaja Gamini; Madhuri as Menaka; Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala; Saraswati Indian art, 145n8; art history on, 169– 70; calendar art, 78, 82; frontality in, 71n14; magical realism in, 80; popular, 71n14, 78; trimurti in, 91, 102. See also printed murtis International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 114, 144n4 interpellation, 65, 67 ISKCON. See International Society for Krishna Consciousness Jacob, Preminda, 13, 16, 29n3, 32n26 Jain, Jyotindra, 25, 93–94, 170 Jain, Kajri, 18, 25, 78, 170; on bazaar ethos, 82, 130; on Saraswati, 171n10 Jai Santoshi Maa (1975), 15, 90–91 Janamashtami, 114 Jay, Martin, 102, 145n8, 233n3 Jayalalithaa, 16, 114, 219n13; Amma persona of, 184; as chief minister, 184; cutouts for, 29n3; statue of, 7, 30n13; temple for, 18. See also All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Jediisim, 228 Jenkins, Henry, 20, 227; on fandom, 72n24; on fans, 33n31; on Western scholars, 21 Jindra, Michael, 227 Johar, Karan, 23 Kabali (2016), 177 Kabir, 44

266

Index

Kalidas, 155 Kangra line, 79 Kannada film industry, 221n24 Kannan, Rajesh, 202, 218n1 Kapur, Anuradha, 83 Kapur, Geeta, 71n14, 78 Karam Puja, 141 Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), 47 Keul, István, 82 Kevat, 3–4, 6, 30n9 Khan, Salim, 41 kinnars: ABFA aid for, 62; Cheshire Home donations from, 172n14; at Madhuri Dixit Temple, 124, 126, 141, 141 Kollywood. See Tamil cinema Kramrisch, Stella, 113 Kress, Gunther, 103 Krishna Adorns Radha, 80 Krishnalila, 93 Kumar, Dayala, 30n13 kurta, 37, 69n1 Kuselan (2008), 196, 223n41 Lacan, Jacques, 102 Laderman, Gary, 228 LIC Unit of Rajinifans, 177, 188–89, 221n22, 234n6 Lidchi, Henrietta, 133 Lutgendorf, Philip, 15–16 Maa, Radhe, 34n36 Madhuri. See Dixit, Madhuri Madhuri as Menaka (Husain), 156; Madhuri as Menaka in, 155; traditional story behind, 155–57; voluptuous form in, 155, 157 Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala (Husain), 27, 150; analysis of, 151–52; in art history, 169–70; baby in, 155; eroticism in, 155, 159; on greeting cards, 167–68, 168; Madhuri as Radha in, 157, 159; in Madhuri Dixit Temple, 151, 162–63, 163, 167–69; Mother Teresa in, 151–

52; Oedipus complex in, 159–60; painting of, 151–62, 152; as ritual object, 162–71, 163, 164, 168, 170; Sardar use of, 151, 162–63, 163 Madhuri Dixit Temple, 7; arati at, 126, 134; bazaar ethos of, 130–31; vs. Bharat Mata Temple, 137–38; birthday event at, 122–25, 124, 126, 139; celebrations at, 124–26; as chaat shop, 112, 122, 125, 130–31, 144n3; cinedivine in, 125, 138–39, 145n13; control of, 139–40, 142; dancing at, 123–24, 127, 129, 135; decoration of, 125; Durga posters in, 122, 126, 130, 133, 133–34; environmental conservation theme at, 132; exhibition and popular politics in, 137–40; as exhibition temple, 113, 142; as exhibition temple for performative fan-bhakti, 140–44, 141; exhibits at, 126, 132, 132; exterior of, 122, 123; fame of, 111; female empowerment promoted at, 128, 132; Gaja Gamini theme in, 168; Guru Nanak posters in, 112, 130, 133–34, 146n20; as Hindu temple reimagined, 26–27, 112–13; interviews at, 127; kinnar at, 124, 126, 141, 141; Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala in, 151, 162–63, 163, 167–69; Madhuri fan yatra from, 128, 129, 139, 166–67; Madhuri rath from, 123, 128, 135; marginalized people welcome at, 123–24, 132, 141, 141–42; media on, 111–12, 130; mode of exhibition in, 138; as museum ethos of, 130–37, 131, 132, 133, 136; pandal at, 125, 127; as para-museum, 141; posters in, 112, 125–26, 129, 130–34, 131, 136; pujas at, 112, 122–23, 125, 126–27; sanctum in, 126, 126, 130; save water campaign at, 147n26; social work through, 123–24, 130, 132, 142, 147n26; street celebration from,

Index

127, 128; as urban temple, 128; voter awareness exhibit at, 132, 132 Madhuri-McBull Creation, 150, 160; logo for, 161, 161; name of, 161–62 Mahaan (1983), 91, 92, 93 Mahabharat, 91 Mahatma Gandhi Being Blessed by Rama (c. 1940s), 84, 106n6 Mahavatar Babaji, 185–86, 186, 220n17 Maheshwari, Malvika, 171n5 Malhotra, Manish, 114 Malini, Hema, 1, 29n1 mandir. See Hindu temples mantras, 7, 42–43 Maqbool Fida (M. F.) Husain, 27 Maradona, 226–27 masala films, 91, 106n8 mass reproduction, 143 Mata, Bharat, 12 Menaka: in contemporary scholarship, 155; in traditional story, 155–57 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 102 Metamorphosis (Ovid), 160 Metz, Christian, 102 MGR. See Ramachandran, M. G. Michell, George, 113 Mishra, Vijay, 95 modern, 17, 33n28 modernity, 75–76, 105n1 Modi, Narendra, 24 Mohan, R., 191 Morehead, John, 17–18, 228–29 Mother India. See Bharat Mata Mother-VII (Husain): baby in, 155; mother-baby theme in, 153–54, 154; Mother Teresa in, 153, 154 mudra. See Apana mudra; Rajini Mudra Muneeshwaran, 31n18, 114, 129 murti, 15; in Bachchan Dham, 59, 59–61, 60, 71n20; in Bharat Mata Temple, 115–17; concept of, 78–79; cutout as, 189–90; darshan from, 48–49; divine presence in, 18; as mobile, 79; posters as, 26, 59, 59–60, 71n20, 76, 78, 90–96, 92, 93, 97;

267

transformation of, 114–15. See also printed murtis; star murti Muruganandam, 189 museums: Ajaib Ghar and, 117–18; colonial influence on, 117–18; exhibition modes in, 138; paramuseum, 140–41; pedagogic functions of, 133–34, 140; vs. post-museum, 138–39, 147nn23–24; as ritual sites, 134, 146n21 museum-temple: Ajaib Ghar and, 117–18; Bachchan Dham as, 58, 58–59, 61; Bharat Mata Temple as, 113, 117–21, 138; colonial influence on, 117–18; elements of, 137–38; Gandhi Temple to be, 121–22; Madhuri Dixit Temple like, 130–37, 131, 132, 133, 136; for political leaders and sport stars, 122, 145n12 mythologicals, 90–91 Nagma, 1 Nakassis, Constantine, 187, 212 Narayanan, Neel, 188 Nathadwara art, 84 national heroes, 83–84 nationalism, 26; in Bharat Mata Temple, 117–18, 121, 138; origin of, 117; in popular prints, 77, 84–86; time and, 203 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 88 Neumayer, Erwin, 86 newspapers, 203–4 normal, 37, 68–69, 69n2 normalizing judgment, 68 Novetzke, Christian Lee, 28; on bhakti, 9–10, 42, 232; Bhakti and Power by, 9, 65; on human medium, 54; on prasad, 66 NTR. See Rama Rao, N.T. Obama, Barack, 24 Oedipus complex: explanation of, 159– 60; in Gaja Gamini, 162; Husain use of, 159–60, 162; in Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, 159–60

268

Index

OMG: Oh My God (2012), 220n19 Our Planet Called Earth (Husain), 172n15 Ovid, 160 Pahari Miniatures, 78–79, 80 palabhishekam, 10; by devotee-fans, 18; on FDFS, 201; for Rajinikanth, 179, 179; at U.S. cinemas, 197 pallu, 80, 106n5 pandal, 125, 127 Pandian, M. S. S., 12–13, 96–97; on caste, 32n27; The Image Trap by, 13, 182–83; on star persona, 184 para-museum, 140–41 Patodiya, Sanjay, 31n19, 33n32; in ABABFA, 37–38; on ABFA members, 71n16; on actors, 64; Amitabh arati by, 46; on Amitabh’s shoes, 52; on Bachchan, Am., illness, 40; on Bachchan, Am., not visiting, 72n23; on birthday celebration, 70n9; blood donated by, 105; on “God and his Devotees” exhibit, 63; on gurus, 44–45; home of, 37, 56, 71n17, 97; media interviews with, 54–55, 55; as “normal,” 68; as priest, 60, 66; on puja, 45; rituals performed by, 76– 77; shawl of, 46, 70n10; on shrine, 107n10. See also Amitabh shrine performative fan-bhakti: exhibition temple and, 140–44, 141; impact of, 135; museum ethos and, 130–37, 131, 132, 133, 136; as sociopolitical action, 143–44 Phalke, D. G., 90 Pinney, Christopher, 15, 25, 170; on corpothetics, 19, 78, 190; on Phalke, 90; on rejection of colonial rationalities, 21; on Varma, 80, 83 political society, 28; devotional fandom as, 217; RFA as, 206–8 political temples, 12. See also Bharat Mata Temple politics: Bachchan, Am., in, 38, 70n3, 234n5; cinema, devotional fandom

and, 12–22; devotee-fan art in, 206; devotional fandom and, 229–30; exhibition and, 137–40; performance in, 143–44; performative fan-bhakti and, 143–44; spiritual, 213–14; star deity entry into, 213–15; star politicians in, 1, 29nn1–2; studies on cinema and, 12–13 popular Hinduism, 11, 31n18, 114, 129 popular sacred: bhakti in, 4; dialectics of, 3–5; Ramlila in, 3–5; television watching in, 5 possession, 14–15 posters. See film posters post-museum, 138–39, 147nn23–24 Prada, Jaya, 1 pranapratishtha, 82 prasad, 8; at Bachchan Dham, 66; as bhakti, 9–10, 66 Prasad, Madhava, 12–13; on Bachchan, Am., 41; on Bollywood term, 23–24; on cine-politics, 206, 219n10; on fan-bhakt, 30n16; on frontal image, 94; on modern, 17, 33n28; on subaltern sovereignty, 13, 31n22 pravachans, 12 Presley, Elvis, 226 printed murtis: of ancestors, 90; background of, 78–79; collages in, 84; darshan with, 94, 96; hieratic scaling in, 92, 92–93, 93; Hindu deities with national heroes in, 83–87, 85, 87, 89; mobility of, 83; political leaders in, 88–89; radiating golden rays in, 91–92, 96; romantic gazing in, 95–96, 98; seating of, 82– 83, 89; as transformation of Hindu god image in twentieth century, 78–90, 80, 81, 85, 87, 89 printed national murtis, 89, 92–93 public, 9 publics of fan-bhakti: of ABFA, 43, 67, 69; city spaces in, 127–28; contours of, 8–11; definition of, 10; devotional fandom in, 10; diverse community in, 141, 141–42; embodiment of,

Index

135; expressions in, 10–11; film theater in, 191; Get Rajinified in, 181; impact of, 12; inventing of, 42–43; religiosity manifested from, 20; of RFA, 189; within transnationalism, 22; in U.S., 205 puja: in ABFA, 42–43, 44, 56, 97; Amitabh, 43, 44, 46, 56, 70n8, 97; in bhakti, 9; by devotee-fans, 18; at Gandhi Temple, 121; at Madhuri Dixit Temple, 112, 122–23, 125, 126–27; rooms for, 2; in star temples, 7; thali for, 60 Puri, Om, 34n34 Radha Madhav (Varma), 80, 81, 83, 94 Rahim, Gurmeet Ram, 34n36 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, 23 rajini++, 177 Rajini Fan, 181–82; as devotee, 189; at FDFS, 190–91, 193; gestural darshan by, 187–88; as monolithic entity, 190; as post-national, 199– 200; role of, 188–93; sociopolitical actions of, 206–7; transnationalism of, 193–206, 199, 200; variations in, 205 rajinifans​.com​, 207, 222n34 Rajinikanth, 25; appearance of, 185; arati for, 179, 180, 195; austere lifestyle of, 181, 186; in Chandramukhi, 177; in cinedivine political space, 182–88, 186, 208, 208–15; collage of, 197; cutouts of, 189–90; in Darbar, 177; devoteefan art of, 185–86, 186; devotee-fan clubs for, 8; in Enthiran, 177; fame of, 176–77; fan clubs for, 177–78; fans of, 13, 22, 31n22, 232; as “God of our Gods,” 178, 202, 205; as god of style, 185–88, 186, 209; history of, 185; international appeal of, 177–78; issues of, 27; Japanese fans of, 177; in Kabali, 177; as leader, 207, 209–10; Mahatma Gandhi and, 209–10; mannerisms of, 179,

269

181, 187–88; as MGR successor, 208–9, 222n36; Murugan and, 175–76, 176; as “other angry young hero,” 181; palabhishekam for, 179, 179; political entry of, 213–15, 222n40; Rajinikanth jokes about, 179; Rajini style from, 180–81; reasons for success of, 181–82; RFA constructing, 188–93; ritual practices for, 179, 179, 180, 182; as scientist, 198, 200; spirituality of, 185–86, 186, 220n17; as star deity, 178–93, 179, 180, 186; as “style guru,” 12, 31n21, 181–82; style of, 186–87, 212; as Tamil cinema star, 24–25; Tamil Nadu impacted by, 178, 182; as Thalaivar, 12; U.S. star images of, 195–97; worship of, 202 Rajinikanth Fan Association (RFA), 27–28, 34n36, 178, 182; artifacts of, 190; dancing in, 191; devoteefan bhakti of, 190; film release festivities by, 189–90; gestural darshan unifying, 192–93; political activism of, 207; as “popular political society,” 206–8; publics of fan-bhakti of, 189; raslila by, 192–93; role of, 188–93; singular fan consciousness of, 190; sociopolitical activism of, 27–28; structures of, 188; transnational activism of, 215–17. See also Rajini Fan Rajinikanth jokes, 179 Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America (RMMNA), 28, 215–16 Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM), 213–14 Rajini Mudra, 187–88; in cinedivine political space, 212–13; in devotional fandom, 179, 213; as gestural darshan, 190, 196, 213 Rajinism, 179 Rajini style, 180–81 Ram: Bachchan as, 6, 26, 39, 42–43, 46–47, 52–54, 59, 64–65, 67, 69, 76–

270

Index

77, 99, 104; Govil as, 5; time of, 84, 106n7. See also Ramayan; Ramlila Ram, Kalpana, 16 Ramachandran, M. G. (MGR), 7, 114, 181; cinedivine political space of, 183–84, 211; death of, 184; devotional fandom for, 183; emergence of, 13; fan clubs for, 183–84; fan worship of, 18, 33n29; political stardom of, 182–83; posters of, 183; Rajinikanth as successor to, 208–9, 222n36; rise of, 182; star image of, 183–84; statues of, 7, 30n12, 33n29, 183; temple for, 183; welfare agendas of, 183, 219n11 Rama Rao, N.T. (NTR), 7 Ramayan: good triumphing over evil in, 91; religious metaphor from, 52, 104; retelling of, 48; television shows based on, 5 Ramlila, 29n7; arati in, 30n9; in popular sacred, 3–5; “Uncle Ram” in, 4, 30nn8–9 Ram Setu Project, 106n7 Rape of Europa (Husain), 160–61 rasigar mandarams, 177 rasik, 33n32 raslila, 11; of devotional fandom, 192; in popular theater, 191–92; by RFA, 192–93; spectators of, 192 rath, 33n32 Reddy, Deepa, 144n1 RFA. See Rajinikanth Fan Association RMM. See Rajini Makkal Mandram RMMNA. See Rajini Makkal Mandaram North America Robertson, Venetia, 17–18, 228–29 Rojek, Chris, 226 Saawariya (2007), 95–96, 97 sacrosanct masculinity, 41, 70n7 salvation, 41, 70n6 sanctum. See garbhagriha Saraswati (Husain), 158; as ambivalent, 159; as controversial, 157, 171n1,

171n10; erotic codes of, 157–58, 172n11 Sardar, Pappu, 25; agenda set by, 139; as bhakt, 134; calendar art of, 136, 137; celebrity status of, 111–12; in city spaces, 127–28, 128; control by, 139–40, 142; as curator, 132, 134; dancing by, 123–24, 127, 129, 135; at Devdas release, 135–36; devotional fandom of, 26–27, 128–30, 142; Dixit endorsing of, 31n19; Dixit gift to, 31n19, 144n2; domains of, 142; fan art by, 168–69, 172n18; as fan-bhakt, 149–51; fan yatra by, 127, 128, 129, 139; for female empowerment, 128, 132; greetings cards from, 167–68, 168; Husain clay copies made by, 169, 170; on Madhuri, 111, 149; Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala used by, 151, 162–63, 163; media interviews with, 112, 144n2; as Pappu Bhaiya, 142; performative fan-bhakti by, 135, 143; power of, 142–43; save water campaign by, 147n26; as Sikh, 129; social work by, 123–24, 130, 132, 142, 147n26, 231. See also Cheshire Home; Madhuri Dixit Temple Sarkar, 61 Sarkar, Bhaskar, 24 Sathyanarayanan, 186 satsangs, 12 Satyamitranand (Swami), 115, 119 Schelberger, Christine, 86 Schiller, Nina, 194 scopic field, 102 scopic regimes, 102–3 seeing, 49, 71n13 Serra Theatres: Enthiran at, 198, 199, 200, 202; FDFS at, 198, 201; spartan look of, 197–98, 201 Shah, Naseeruddin, 34n33 Shakti, 1 Sharma, Swapna, 9, 65 shraddha, 40, 69

Index

Shree Krishna Janma (1918), 90 sign-making, 103 Singaporean Hinduism, 31n18, 114 Sinha, Vineeta, 31n18, 114, 129 Sivaji (2007), 189, 191; banner for, 208, 208–9; in U.S., 195–96 Sivathamby, K., 12 Smith, Frederick, 14 Smith, J., 17 smriti, 34n35 social hierarchies, 14 Sood, Sonu, 30n14 Southern India, 1–2; cinema and politics in, 12–13; devotional fandom in, 8; star temples in, 7. See also Tamil Nadu Sreedhar, 188 Srinivas, Laxmi, 48 Srinivas, S. V., 13, 21; on Chiranjeevi fans, 206; on fan paraphernalia, 32n26; on fans, 22, 32n27, 33n32; on self-promotion, 64, 72n25 SRTFC. See Superstar Rajinikanth Telegu Fans Club star deity, 2, 8; in cinedivine political space, 182–88, 186; conditional loyalty for, 13, 64, 72n24; devotional image of, 12; materiality of, 203–4; political entry of, 213–15; Rajinikanth as, 178–93, 179, 180, 186; self-sustaining model for, 65; sociopolitical vision of, 214; studies lacking for, 16; as transcending Hindu gods, 175–78, 176; in U.S., 195–97; as vehicle of deliverance, 41 star murti, 19, 26; cinematic darshan mobilized in, 96–105, 99, 100, 101; creation of, 101, 102; emergence of, 90–91; film poster as, 76, 90, 134; in public space, 56; reciprocal touching with, 102–3; virtual, 204. See also film posters; printed murtis star politicians, 1, 29nn1–2 star temples, 2; of ABFA, 56; emergence of, 7–8; as mobile, 56.

271

See also Bachchan Dham; Madhuri Dixit Temple Star Trek, 227 Sternfeld, Nora, 140–41 style‑bhakti, 187–88, 220n20 subaltern. See class Subhash Chandra Bose Offering His Head to Bharat Mata in the Presence of Krishna (c. 1940s), 84–86, 85, 106n6 Sudhakar, V. M., 177 Superstar Rajinikanth Telegu Fans Club (SRTFC), 178–79 superstars: in Bollywood, 2, 6, 8, 26; in folk tradition, 219n14; in Southern India, 8, 13; of Tamil cinema, 24–25, 208. See also Bachchan, Amitabh; Rajinikanth Swaminarayan temples, 122 Swamy, Subramanian, 225–26 Tagore, Abanindranath, 78, 106n4 Tagore, Dwijendranath, 106n4 Tagore, Rabindranath, 75–76 Tamil (Mother), 12 Tamil cinema, 24–25 Tamil Nadu, 1, 16; cinedivine political space in, 182–85, 218n7; cinema in, 182; devotional fandom in, 18; history of, 181; Jayalalithaa as chief minister of, 184; Rajinikanth impact on, 178, 182; Rajinikanth political debut in, 213–14; Rajinikanth style cited in, 187, 220n18; rasigar mandarams in, 177; segregated caste and class-ridden society of, 190; temple building in, 113–14 Taylor, Woodman, 145n8 Teresa (Mother): in Chinese Scroll Series, 171n7; Husain influenced by, 152–53; in Madhuri as Radha with Nand Lala, 151–52; in Mother-VII, 153, 154. See also Cheshire Home textual Hinduism, 31n18 Thalaivaa. See Rajinikanth

272

Index

Thalaivar, 12 Thamizhazhagan, 229 Thugs of Hindostan (2018), 64, 106n3 tilak, 66, 66 Titian, 160–61 transmigrants, 194, 218n3; identity of, 198; as post-national, 199–200 transnational community, 205–6 transnationalism: devotee-fan activism in, 215–17; in devotional fandom, 22, 194; meaning of, 193–94; media role in, 55; publics of fanbhakti impacting, 12; of Rajini Fan, 193–206, 199, 200; trans-locality in, 198–99 transnational social fields, 194 trimurti, 91, 102, 209 Tunis, Courtney, 102

Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), 1

“Uncle Ram,” 4, 30nn8–9 United States (U.S.): arati in, 197; chrono-spatial convergence in, 197–206, 199, 200; devotional fandom in, 193–206, 199, 200; emergence of deified star images of Rajinikanth in, 195–97; FDFS in, 193; palabhishekam in, 197; publics of fan-bhakti in, 205; RFA activism in, 215–17, 223n42; Sivaji in, 195–96; trans-locality in, 199

Wadia, J. B. H., 90 Waghorne, Joanne Punzo, 128; on design influences, 114–15; Diaspora of the Gods by, 113–14 Where Art Thou? (Husain), 150 Wolfthal, Diane, 160 women, 14

vahana, 84–85, 116 Van Leeuwen, Theo, 103 Varma, Ravi, 78; cinema influenced by, 90, 94; magical realism by, 80–81; prints by, 79–81, 81, 90; Radha Madhav by, 80, 81, 83, 94 Vasu, Rajini, 217 Vasudevan, Ravi: on cinematic darshan, 50–51; on frontality, 49–50 Vertovec, Steven, 194 Vijaykanth, 219n15 virtual star murtis, 204 Vishwa Hindu Parishad, 115 visual paraphernalia. See devotee-fan art visual turn, 229, 233n3 Visvanathan, Shiv, 211

yatras, 42–43. See also fan yatra Zanjeer (1973), 38 Zavos, John, 144n1

About the Author

Shalini Kakar is an art historian and an independent scholar whose interdisciplinary research focuses on popular art emerging at the intersection of cinema, fan culture, religion, and politics in contemporary India. She curated the first exhibition on Bollywood film posters in the United States titled, ­“Bollywood 101: The Visual Culture of Bollywood Film Posters” at the Art, Design and Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa ­Barbara. As a lecturer, she has taught courses on South Asian Visual Culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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