Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema

Download Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811501912
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (115 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema by : Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan

Download or read book Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema written by Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-03 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, film scholars, anthropologists, and critics discuss star-making in the contemporary Hindi-language film industry in India, also known as “Bollywood.” Drawing on theories of stardom, globalization, transnationalism, gender, and new media studies, the chapters explore contemporary Hindi film celebrity. With the rise of social media and India’s increased engagement in the global economy, Hindi film stars are forging their identities not just through their on-screen images and magazine and advertising appearances, but also through an array of media platforms, product endorsements, setting fashion trends, and involvement in social causes. Focusing on some of the best-known Indian stars since the late 1990s, the book discusses the multiplying avenues for forging a star identity, the strategies industry outsiders adopt to become stars, and the contradictions and conflicts that such star-making produces. It addresses questions such as: What traits of contemporary stars have contributed most to longevity and success in the industry? How has filmmaking technology and practice altered the nature of stardom? How has the manufacture of celebrity altered with the recent appearance of commodity culture in India and the rise of a hyper-connected global economy? By doing so, it describes a distinct moment in India and in the world in which stars and stardom are drawn more closely than ever into the vital events of global culture. Hindi films and their stars are part of the national and global entertainment circuits that are bigger and more competitive than ever. As such, this is a timely book creates opportunities for examining stardom in other industries and provides fruitful cross-cultural perspectives on star identities today. "Grounded in rigorous scholarship as well as a palpable love of Hindi cinema, this collection of 19 essays on a dizzying array of contemporary Hindi film stars makes for an informative, thought-provoking, illuminating, and most of all, a joyful read. Pushing boundaries of not only global Star Studies but also film theory as a whole, this de-colonised and de-colonising volume is a must read for film scholars, students and cinephiles!" Dr. Sunny Singh, Senior Lecturer - Creative Writing and English Literature, Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture & Design, London Metropolitan University “A wide-ranging overview of Hindi cinema’s filmi firmament today, focussing on its most intriguing and brightest-burning stars. The variety of approaches to stardom and celebrity by both established and upcoming scholars reveals a web of interconnecting stories and concerns that provide fascinating new insights into the workings of today's Hindi film industry, while shining fresh light on contemporary India and the world we live in.” Professor Rosie Thomas, Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries, University of Westminster

Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema

Download Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031102320
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (311 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema by : Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan

Download or read book Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi Cinema written by Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive anthology comprising essays on women film directors, producers and screenwriters from Bollywood, or the popular Hindi film industry. It derives from the major theories of modernity, postmodern feminism, semiotics, cultural production, and gender performativity in globalized times. The collection transcends the traditional approaches of looking at films made by women filmmakers as ‘feminist’ cinema, and focuses on an extraordinary group of women filmmakers like Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, Bhavani Iyer, Farah Khan, Mira Nair Vijaya Mehta, and Zoya Akthar. The volume will be of interest to academics and theorists of gender and Hindi cinema, as well as anybody interested in contemporary Hindi films in their various manifestations.

Indian Film Stars

Download Indian Film Stars PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1911239937
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (112 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Indian Film Stars by : Michael Lawrence

Download or read book Indian Film Stars written by Michael Lawrence and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indian Film Stars offers original insights and important reappraisals of film stardom in India from the early talkie era of the 1930s to the contemporary period of global blockbusters. The collection represents a substantial intervention to our understanding of the development of film star cultures in India during the 20th and 21st centuries. The contributors seek to inspire and inform further inquiries into the histories of film stardom-the industrial construction and promotion of star personalities, the actual labouring and imagined lifestyles of professional stars, the stars' relationship to specific aesthetic cinematic conventions (such as frontality and song-dance) and production technologies (such as the play-back system and post-synchronization), and audiences' investment in and devotion to specific star bodies-across the country's multiple centres of film production and across the overlapping (and increasingly international) zones of the films' distribution and reception. The star images, star bodies and star careers discussed are examined in relation to a wide range of issues, including the negotiation and contestation of tradition and modernity, the embodiment and articulation of both Indian and non-Indian values and vogues; the representation of gender and sexuality, of race and ethnicity, and of cosmopolitan mobility and transnational migration; innovations and conventions in performance style; the construction and transformation of public persona; the star's association with film studios and the mainstream media; the star's relationship with historical, political and cultural change and memory; and the star's meaning and value for specific (including marginalised) sectors of the audience.

Stardom in Cinema, Television and the Web

Download Stardom in Cinema, Television and the Web PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1527566846
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (275 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Stardom in Cinema, Television and the Web by : Vanni Codeluppi

Download or read book Stardom in Cinema, Television and the Web written by Vanni Codeluppi and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last 50 years, the social importance of stars has steadily grown, to the point that stars have now become key role models who strongly influence people’s behaviours. This book considers the connections between the three main media (cinema, television and the web) and each of the three phases into which the history of stardom can be divided. The first phase can largely be credited with the creation and codification of contemporary stardom, while the second is linked to the spread of television, which weakened the Hollywood stardom model and gradually transformed the figure of the star, making it more intimate and familiar. In the last of these phases, we have many ‘outsiders’ (personalities from a variety of professional domains and experiences) who are able to achieve considerable social visibility thanks to their skilful use of the web.

Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!

Download Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252091787
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! by : Neepa Majumdar

Download or read book Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! written by Neepa Majumdar and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! maps out the early culture of cinema stardom in India from its emergence in the silent era to the decade after Indian independence in the mid-twentieth century. Neepa Majumdar combines readings of specific films and stars with an analysis of the historical and cultural configurations that gave rise to distinctly Indian notions of celebrity. She argues that discussions of early cinematic stardom in India must be placed in the context of the general legitimizing discourse of colonial "improvement" that marked other civic and cultural spheres as well, and that "vernacular modernist" anxieties over the New Woman had limited resonance here. Rather, it was through emphatically nationalist discourses that Indian cinema found its model for modern female identities. Considering questions of spectatorship, gossip, popularity, and the dominance of a star-based production system, Majumdar details the rise of film stars such as Sulochana, Fearless Nadia, Lata Mangeshkar, and Nargis.

Networked Bollywood

Download Networked Bollywood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009445316
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Networked Bollywood by : Swapnil Rai

Download or read book Networked Bollywood written by Swapnil Rai and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Networked Bollywood provides interdisciplinary analysis of the role of the stars in the transformation of Hindi cinema into a global entertainment industry. The first Indian film was made in 1913. However, filmmaking was recognized as an industry almost a hundred years later. Yet, Indian films have been circulating globally since their inception. This book unearths this oft-elided history of Bollywood's globalization through multilingual, transnational research and discursive cultural analysis. The author illustrates how over the decades, a handful of primarily male megastars, as the heads of the industry's most prominent productions and corporations, combined overwhelming charismatic affect with unparalleled business influence. Through their “star switching power,” theorized here as a deeply gendered phenomenon and manifesting broader social inequalities, India's most prominent stars instigated new flows of cinema, industrial collaborations, structured distinctive business models, influenced state policy and diplomatic exchange, thereby defining the future of Bollywood's globalization.

A Companion to Indian Cinema

Download A Companion to Indian Cinema PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119048192
Total Pages : 628 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Companion to Indian Cinema by : Neepa Majumdar

Download or read book A Companion to Indian Cinema written by Neepa Majumdar and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new collection in the Wiley Blackwell Companions to National Cinemas series, featuring the cinemas of India In A Companion to Indian Cinema, film scholars Neepa Majumdar and Ranjani Mazumdar along with 25 established and emerging scholars, deliver new research on contemporary and historical questions on Indian cinema. The collection considers Indian cinema's widespread presence both within and outside the country, and pays particular attention to regional cinemas such as Bhojpuri, Bengali, Malayalam, Manipuri, and Marathi. The volume also reflects on the changing dimensions of technology, aesthetics, and the archival impulse of film. The editors have included scholarship that discusses a range of films and film experiences that include commercial cinema, art cinema, and non-fiction film. Even as scholarship on earlier decades of Indian cinema is challenged by the absence of documentation and films, the innovative archival and field work in this Companion extends from cinema in early twentieth century India to a historicized engagement with new technologies and contemporary cinematic practices. There is a focus on production cultures and circulation, material cultures, media aesthetics, censorship, stardom, non-fiction practices, new technologies, and the transnational networks relevant to Indian cinema. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate students of film and media studies, South Asian studies, and history, A Companion to Indian Cinema is also an important new resource for scholars with an interest in the context and theoretical framework for the study of India's moving image cultures.

Bollywood’s New Woman

Download Bollywood’s New Woman PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 1978814461
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (788 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Bollywood’s New Woman by : Megha Anwer

Download or read book Bollywood’s New Woman written by Megha Anwer and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-18 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bollywood’s New Woman examines Bollywood’s construction and presentation of the Indian Woman since the 1990s. The groundbreaking collection illuminates the contexts and contours of this contemporary figure that has been identified in sociological and historical discourses as the “New Woman.” On the one hand, this figure is a variant of the fin de siècle phenomenon of the “New Woman” in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the Indian context, the New Woman is a distinct articulation resulting from the nation’s tryst with neoliberal reform, consolidation of the middle class, and the ascendency of aggressive Hindu Right politics.

Music in Contemporary Indian Film

Download Music in Contemporary Indian Film PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1317399706
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Music in Contemporary Indian Film by : Jayson Beaster-Jones

Download or read book Music in Contemporary Indian Film written by Jayson Beaster-Jones and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music in Contemporary Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity provides a rich and detailed look into the unique dimensions of music in Indian film. Music is at the center of Indian cinema, and India’s film music industry has a far-reaching impact on popular, folk, and classical music across the subcontinent and the South Asian diaspora. In twelve essays written by an international array of scholars, this book explores the social, cultural, and musical aspects of the industry, including both the traditional center of "Bollywood" and regional film-making. Concentrating on films and songs created in contemporary, post-liberalization India, this book will appeal to classes in film studies, media studies, and world music, as well as all fans of Indian films.

Bollypolitics

Download Bollypolitics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350401900
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (54 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Bollypolitics by : Ajay Gehlawat

Download or read book Bollypolitics written by Ajay Gehlawat and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-21 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth exploration of the evolving landscape of Bollywood cinema in response to recent socio-political changes in India, including a surge in sectarian violence and the ascent of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership. Through a comprehensive analysis of prominent filmmakers and actors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Kangana Ranaut, Akshay Kumar, and Anupam Kher, Ajay Gehlawat investigates the extent to which their recent works align with key tenets of the Hindutva movement. He scrutinizes the growing influence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on film production, manifesting in collaborations covering diverse themes, from Modi's Clean India initiative to the nation's space exploration endeavors and grand historical epics such as Padmaavat (2018) and Manikarnika (2019) that seek to reshape Indian history in line with Hindutva ideology. Gehlawat goes on to dissect smaller budget films like Article 15 (2019) and Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020), which tackle pressing social issues like caste-based violence and homophobia exacerbated by the surge in right-wing extremism in India. In doing so, he elucidates the profound and far-reaching impact of Hindutva ideology on Indian cinematic narratives and aesthetics, while also considering the broader implications for Indian society as a whole.

Twenty-First Century Bollywood

Download Twenty-First Century Bollywood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131764400X
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Twenty-First Century Bollywood by : Ajay Gehlawat

Download or read book Twenty-First Century Bollywood written by Ajay Gehlawat and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Key changes have emerged in Bollywood in the new millennium. Twenty-First Century Bollywood traces the emerging shifts in both the content and form of Bollywood cinema and examines these new tendencies in relation to the changing dynamics of Indian culture. The book historically situates these emerging trends in relation to previous norms, and develops new, innovative paradigms for conceptualizing Bollywood in the twenty-first century. The particular shifts in contemporary Bollywood cinema that the book examines include the changing nature of the song and dance sequence, the evolving representations of male and female sexuality, and the increasing presence of whiteness as a dominant trope in Bollywood cinema. It also focuses on the increasing presence of Bollywood in higher education courses in the West, as well as how Bollywood’s growing presence in such academic contexts illuminates the changing ways in which this cinema is consumed by Western audiences. Shifting the focus back on the cinematic elements of contemporary films themselves, the book analyses Bollywood films by considering the film dynamics on their own terms, and related to their narrative and aesthetic usage, rather than through an analysis of large-scale industrial practices. It will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies.

Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India

Download Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000293319
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India by : Monika Mehta

Download or read book Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India written by Monika Mehta and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-12-13 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume points to the limits of models such as regional, national, and transnational, and develops ‘network’ as a conceptual category to study cinemas of India. Through grounded and interdisciplinary research, it shows how film industries located in disparate territories have not functioned as isolated units and draws attention to the industrial traffic – of filmic material, actors, performers, authors, technicians, genres, styles, sounds, expertise, languages, and capital, across trans-regional contexts -- since the inception of cinema. It excavates histories of film production, distribution and exhibition, and their connections beyond regional and national boundaries, and between places, industrial practices, and multiple media. The chapters in this volume address a range of themes such as transgressive female figures; networks of authors and technicians; trans-regional production links and changing technologies, and new media geographies. By tracking manifold changes in the contexts of transforming media, and inter-connections between diverse industrial nodal points, this book expands the critical vocabulary in media and production studies and foregrounds new methods for examining cinema. A generative account of industrial networks, this volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of film studies, cinema studies, media studies, production studies, media sociology, gender studies, South Asian studies, and cultural studies.

Indian Film Stars

Download Indian Film Stars PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1844578577
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (445 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Indian Film Stars by : Michael Lawrence

Download or read book Indian Film Stars written by Michael Lawrence and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indian Film Stars offers original insights and important reappraisals of film stardom in India from the early talkie era of the 1930s to the contemporary period of global blockbusters. The collection represents a substantial intervention to our understanding of the development of film star cultures in India during the 20th and 21st centuries. The contributors seek to inspire and inform further inquiries into the histories of film stardom-the industrial construction and promotion of star personalities, the actual labouring and imagined lifestyles of professional stars, the stars' relationship to specific aesthetic cinematic conventions (such as frontality and song-dance) and production technologies (such as the play-back system and post-synchronization), and audiences' investment in and devotion to specific star bodies-across the country's multiple centres of film production and across the overlapping (and increasingly international) zones of the films' distribution and reception. The star images, star bodies and star careers discussed are examined in relation to a wide range of issues, including the negotiation and contestation of tradition and modernity, the embodiment and articulation of both Indian and non-Indian values and vogues; the representation of gender and sexuality, of race and ethnicity, and of cosmopolitan mobility and transnational migration; innovations and conventions in performance style; the construction and transformation of public persona; the star's association with film studios and the mainstream media; the star's relationship with historical, political and cultural change and memory; and the star's meaning and value for specific (including marginalised) sectors of the audience.

The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema

Download The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000448959
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema by : Ajay Gehlawat

Download or read book The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema written by Ajay Gehlawat and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the evolution of song and dance in the popular Hindi film, this book examines how these quintessential elements have been and continue to be theorized. As song ‘picturizations’, as they are frequently called, have evolved, shifting from little more than impromptu moves around tree trunks to highly choreographed affairs featuring scores of professional dancers and exotic backgrounds, their theorization has also developed beyond the initial, peremptory dismissals of earlier critics. Featuring a landmark collection of essays from leading theorists, as well as newer contributions from up-and-coming scholars, this book develops new and exciting ways of thinking about song and dance in Hindi cinema and, in turn, explores how these elements work to (re)define popular Hindi cinema in the twenty-first century. This collection will be of interest to students and scholars of Hindi cinema, musicals, and global popular cultures. It was originally published as a special issue of South Asian Popular Culture.

Brought to Life by the Voice

Download Brought to Life by the Voice PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520976398
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Brought to Life by the Voice by : Amanda Weidman

Download or read book Brought to Life by the Voice written by Amanda Weidman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To produce the song sequences that are central to Indian popular cinema, singers’ voices are first recorded in the studio and then played back on the set to be lip-synced and danced to by actors and actresses as the visuals are filmed. Since the 1950s, playback singers have become revered celebrities in their own right. Brought to Life by the Voice explores the distinctive aesthetics and affective power generated by this division of labor between onscreen body and offscreen voice in South Indian Tamil cinema. In Amanda Weidman’s historical and ethnographic account, playback is not just a cinematic technique, but a powerful and ubiquitous element of aural public culture that has shaped the complex dynamics of postcolonial gendered subjectivity, politicized ethnolinguistic identity, and neoliberal transformation in South India.

Film Music in the Sound Era

Download Film Music in the Sound Era PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000091287
Total Pages : 1096 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Film Music in the Sound Era by : Jonathan Rhodes Lee

Download or read book Film Music in the Sound Era written by Jonathan Rhodes Lee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 1096 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.

Bollywood's Top 20

Download Bollywood's Top 20 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 8184755988
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (847 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Bollywood's Top 20 by : Bhaichand Patel

Download or read book Bollywood's Top 20 written by Bhaichand Patel and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spectacular collection that celebrates Bollywood’s most enduring superstars Hindi cinema has wielded a hypnotic charm over viewers for close to a century, with its melodious music, colourful drama and lively plotlines. But at the heart of its mystique is the galaxy of stars who continue to mesmerize audiences. Bollywood’s Top 20 is a definitive collection of original essays, paying tribute to the biggest stars of all time—from Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Nargis and Madhubala to Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor. Each piece offers unique insights into the struggles and triumphs, downfalls and scandals, and the inscrutable X factor of these talented actors that turned them into demigods and divas.