Re-situating the Region: Media Technologies and Media Forms in India

Abstract

There is an air of deceptive obviousness about the idea of the ‘region’. Inheriting a sense of assurance from long established linguistic, geographical, and historical boundaries and contours, one feels secure in taking a somewhat simplistic cartographic view of the matter even as one acknowledges the overlaps and the blurring margins. But it shouldn’t take long to understand that the very use of the term ‘regional’ may imply that a researcher has probably placed himself/herself squarely at the center, taking recourse to binary contrasts through a construct such as Bollywood or some other imaginary nub or vantage point from where she surveys the cultural margins, the nooks and the by lanes. What if one reverses this view to see things from within the region aiming one’s sights at the distant cultural firmaments? This is not mere wordplay but only an instance of everyday living! The real purpose here is to underline the plurality of stances, perspectives and viewpoints that may be applied for the study of culture. The ‘regional’ thus may mean not simply a location but also a stance and a perspective to be made explicit and to be acknowledged. When you do try to locate a region physically on a map, you may often find your pointing finger hovering around a large mass of territory, peoples, settlements, and cultural milieus in their splendorous plurality, instead of hitting a bull’s eye so to speak! In the context of the new media backed by digital technology and the internet, it indeed becomes possible to seek and find a comfortable scholarly locus amidst the vast network of pathways that connect Delhi or Chennai to Assam or Kerala, Kolkata to Purulia, Mumbai to Patna and thence to the smaller towns of Chhapra and Ara. And yet, to enter the realm of the regional is to find a world that is distinctive in ways that are relatively easy to describe and characterize. The empirical comfort and concreteness of the regional lies in that it is mostly possible to physically locate the regional through maps, place names as well as people with residential addresses. Paradoxically, those who move their scholarly attention from the secure perch of the ‘centre’ to the region soon find that they are dealing with an empirical reality that seems far more concrete and tangible than constructs around mainstreams like Bollywood, Bangla cinema or the stridently sweeping ideas such as South Indian cinema. A focus on the region may also help us see the variety and pluralities within the larger monolithic constructs such as Bollywood or Tamil cinema, incrementally lending nuances to our broader generalizations and constructs. The regional also carries some subtler shades of meaning – as entities of secondary importance, as neglected or unknown locales, allowing investigations into the narrow chinks of the wider social fabric and telling tales yet untold. These unintended or overt, existential or parochial biases are indeed real hazards for a researcher wishing for a clear view of the wider landscapes without sacrificing the striking details, the textures and tenors that a closer view may bring. Fortunately, the essays in this volume reflect this SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE 2022, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 1–14 https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2022.2047447