Karachi to Mumbai via Bollywood Express

Karachi to Mumbai via Bollywood Express: Accessing and Remembering a Mythical

Abstract

As a Pakistani who grew up watching pirated Bollywood cinema, I have an intimate but distant relationship with Mumbai on screen. I have been watching fewer Bollywood films lately and am also starting to forget the narratives of the ones I watched growing up. But I still remember certain details of my mythical Mumbai, as constructed by the Hindi films I consumed as a child and teenager. In my video Karachi to Mumbai via Bollywood Express (2023), I use Hindi film imagery of Mumbai’s local railways as a means of transportation to this mythical city. The video is a comment on my relationship with this city, its trains, and the films that feature them. Intended to be played as a loop, much like imagery being replayed in one’s mind, the video makes use of fragmented, glitchy footage from Saathiya (“Companion,” Ali 2002) and Ek Chalis Ki Last Local (“The Last Local of 1:40,” Khanduri 2007), two films that feature the city and its railway system. In this essay, I reflect on the process of making the video loop and build on scholarship and works that explore how films depict and construct spaces, how they bypass bans and barriers, how they travel and transport viewers, and how they are remembered and forgotten.