Bollywood Weddings

Bollywood Weddings explores how Indian-American Hindus negotiate two vastly different wedding cultures: those of mainstream America and of Hindu India. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and drawing on recent advances in material culture studies, Ramdya suggests that Bollywood, whose Indian origins grants it authenticity from the Hindu perspective and whose emphasis on romance accommodates American values, emerges as the key mediating third culture that allows Indian-American Hindus to reinforce their community's identity as ethnic and American even as it confirms that success in America need not be bought at the expense of one's religious background and cultural heritage.