Ashish Vithal Rajadhyaksha (born 12 March 1957) is an Indian film scholar, art curator and cultural theorist. He was a Senior Fellow at the

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

-based Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.

Early life

Ashish Vithal Rajadhyaksha was born on 12 March 1957 in Bombay (later renamed

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

), India. His father was a soldier in the Indian army. Rajadhyaksha's serious interest in cinema developed in the late 1970s. In 1978, he graduated from the

University of Bombay University of Mumbai is a public university, public List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, state university in Mumbai. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, largest univ ...

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree.

Career

Rajadhyaksha developed a keenness for

Ritwik Ghatak Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (; 4 November 19256 February 1976) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during hi ...

's films after attending a course organised by the Film and Television Institute and the

National Film Archive of India The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was established as a media unit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in February 1964. It was a member of the International Federation of Film Archives. In March 2022, it was merged with th ...

in the early 1980s. The first book that he authored was ''Ritwik Ghatak: A Return to the Epic'', published in 1982. Starting in 1983, he wrote numerous articles for publications such as the

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

–based ''Journal of Arts & Ideas'' and Calcutta (now

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

)–based ''Journal of the Moving Image''. He authored, with

Paul Willemen Paul Willemen (17 August 1944 – 13 May 2012) was a Belgian-born British professor, author and essayist. According to the British Film Institute, he was regarded as "a pioneering figure in the revolution in thinking about the cinema that b ...

, ''Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema'' in 1994. After a long hiatus, Rajadhyaksha's next book, a solo, was ''Indian Cinema in the Time of Celluloid: From Bollywood to the Emergency'' in 2009, followed by ''The Last Cultural Mile: An Inquiry into Technology and Governance in India'' in 2011, and ''Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction'' in 2016.

Personal life

Rajadhyaksha was married to Pushpamala N., a Bangalore-based artist. The couple later divorced.

Books written

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajadhyaksha, Ashish 1957 births Film theorists Indian film historians Living people People from Mumbai University of Mumbai alumni