READING ROMANCE NOVELS IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA

This article examines the role of Harlequin and Mills and Boon romance novels in the lives of young, single, middle-class women renders in u rban India. The article focuses on the readers' interpretations of the novels given the differences in the sites of production of the romanc e novels and the sociocultural context of reception. Three themes are explored in this study: the influence of romance nor!els on the reader s' expectations; of marital sexuality and gender role patterns, the li mitations of navels in dealing with the social uncertainties that face the readers as young women in Indian culture, and the generation of r eaders' social anxieties due to the difference between the content of the novels and the sociocultural context in which they ape read. The a rticle concludes with a discussion of its implications for understandi ng global forms of culture, contested meanings of culturally transpose d texts, and the shaping of popular cultural practices in a transnatio nal arena around vectors of gender and socioeconomic class.