Why is all of India so obsessed with cricket and what are the reasons for the fall of hockey from its Olympian height and the decline of football? What explains the continuing convention of singing and dancing in Hindi films? Why has everything desi suddenly become fashionable and hip? This collection of essays is based on the premise that such questions about Indian popular culture need to be examined if we are to make sense of the twenty-first century India. Following the growth of cable television, the rise of new technologies and the emergence of a culture of consumption; the products of contemporary culture have come to play an increasingly important role in shaping some Indian social practices. The book argues that the incredible draw of cricket can be understood in terms of a postcolonial anxiety about “catching up” with the West; the ubiquitous song-dance in Bollywood film must be seen not as escapist fare but rather as a device that enables the articulation of modernity; the quest for identity on part of the Indian diaspora has contributed to the rise of a global desi culture. What these and other instances demonstrate is that, far from being mindless diversion, popular culture serves as both a crucible and an agent for the formation of national consciousness and social identity. As the popular goes, so goes the nation.