“Abhi Toh Main Jawan Hoon” (For I am forever young): Reflections on the agentic cinematic presence of Zohra Sehgal in British Indian films

ABSTRACT

Representations of older women in film and media have reiterated the negative stereotypes of age-induced incapacitation and loss of voice and agency. However, actor Zohra Sehgal, hailed as the “grand old lady of Bollywood”, re-engages with the normative construct of the passive/submissive screen characterization of an older female. Sehgal’s remarkable performances in The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Bhaji on the Beach (1993), and Bend It Like Beckham (2002) highlight the silenced realities of older women within the diasporic space in terms of desire, autonomy, and choice. In British cinema, where the subjectivities of South Asian older individuals (particularly women) were seldom acknowledged, Sehgal’s on-screen presence challenged and overturned marginalization based on age and ethnicity. Through the paradigm of active/successful ageing, this article argues that the politics of gendered representation and ageing have been recontextualized in British Indian diasporic films to reflect on a positive embodiment of Indian older women.

KEYWORDS:

• Female ageing
• diasporic space
• British Indian films
• active ageing
• older migrant women
• Zohra Sehgal

Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the editor, Professor Janet Wilson for her invaluable support and guidance throughout. We also express our gratitude to Professors Rajinder Dudrah and David Simmons, co-organizers of the Diaspora Screen Media Network virtual conference titled “Diaspora Cinema and Media: Globalising the Local,” alongside Professor Wilson, where this paper was presented and eventually developed. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their observations and recommendations that have enriched the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Bollywood, a Hindi-language film industry located in India, is a portmanteau word combining “Bombay” – the location where the film industry is centred – and “Hollywood”. Between 1930 and 1940, Bombay developed into a prominent hub for the making of motion pictures. It gained more weight in the context of international media when the Indian government designated it as an “industry” in May 1998.

2. Sexageist discourse includes ageist and sexist tendencies and stereotypes that negatively affect older women’s physical, emotional, and social well-being by oppressing and marginalizing them. These discriminatory practices dictate how an older woman should look, act, and behave in a way that is acceptable to society. They frequently permeate lifestyle choices, performative roles, eating and clothing habits, and other facets of daily life.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Debashrita Dey

Debashrita Dey is a senior research fellow and teaching assistant of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna. She is working on literary gerontology for her doctoral thesis and her areas of research interest comprise feminist studies and disability studies. She has published in National Identities (Taylor & Francis), South Asian Popular Culture (Taylor & Francis), Quarterly Review of Film and Video (Taylor & Francis), and International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare (Emerald Publishing) amongst others.

Priyanka Tripathi

Priyanka Tripathi is an associate professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Patna (India). She is also the co-executive editor of the Journal of International Women’s Studies (published by Bridgewater State University). She has been awarded a Visiting Research Fellowship (2022–23), by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh for her project titled “Optimizing Caste Intersectionality: A Decolonial Reading of Gender-Based Violence in Select Subaltern Fiction in India”. She has published extensively in Indian Literature, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, GeoHumanities, and Economic and Political Weekly amongst others. She works in the area of gender studies, South Asian fiction, geohumanities, and graphic novels.