Reality of the Dispossessed

This chapter describes how addressing the issue of poverty has been a continuous feature of Indian cinema. Mira Nair's award-winning directorial debut Salaam Bombay! (1988), depicting the lives of Bombay's impoverished street children, is one of the most moving Indian films of the 1980s. It was also one of the few Indian films to find an international, largely arthouse, audience while launching the career of diaspora film-maker Mira Nair, who resides in America. The chapter deals with Indian diaspora cinema and Mira Nair as a female director. It also examines the production history of the shoot; the iconography of the urban slum in Indian cinema; representations of family, poverty, and power in the city of Bombay; and the film's criticisms of the state.