Zara hatke!: The new middle classes and the segmentation of Hindi cinema

Abstract

Zara hatke! shows how the Indian new middle classes, previously assessed by income or consumption, can be examined by looking at newly differentiated audiences for Hindi films which have emerged in the last two decades. The films cluster along a continuum into three main groups from the Bollywood mainstream Hindi film at one end through the new hatke (‘different’) or multiplex film to the local Hindi film such as the Bhojpuri cinema at the other. The paper concentrates on the hatke films, in particular those of Dibakar Banerjee, to show the emergence of a new middle class sensibility.