Ashish Rajadhyaksha

Ashish Rajadhyaksha
Born
Ashish Vithal Rajadhyaksha

12 March 1957
Bombay, India
Occupation(s)Film scholar, cultural theorist
Years active1982–present
SpousePushpamala N. (divorced)
Websiteashishrajadhyaksha.academia.edu

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-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), 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 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Career

Rajadhyaksha developed a keenness for Ritwik Ghatak's films after attending a course organised by the Film and Television Institute and the National Film Archive of India 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–based Journal of Arts & Ideas and Calcutta (now Kolkata)–based Journal of the Moving Image. He authored, with Paul Willemen, 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

  • Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (1982). Ritwik Ghatak: A Return to the Epic. Screen Unit. OCLC 10516837.
  • Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (1998) [1994]. Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-563579-5.
  • Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (2009). Indian Cinema in the Time of Celluloid: From Bollywood to the Emergency. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-22048-6.
  • Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (2011). The Last Cultural Mile: An Inquiry into Technology and Governance in India. Centre for Internet and Society. OCLC 925374086.
  • Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (2016). Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-872309-7.