Figure of the 'Tapori'

Cinema in late 20th century India has also engaged with cities to represent the new experience of modernity, and to produce new and complex representations, that often reflect the fluidity and fragmentary character of urban life in India. This essay is about recent appropriations of the city 'street' through the construction of a subculture of masculine performance, strongly rooted in the urban cultures of Mumbai. It is this subculture that gave rise and constructed the popular figure of the 'tapori' a male persona who was part small time streethood, and part the social conscience of the neighbourhood.