SOCIAL SCIENTIST routine practices-homogenising cultural elements - so called Americanisation as in shopping malls, food chains like Macdonalds and entertainment such as American movies and television confront the deeper sense of belonging to a culture in which social and religious practices and family relations are central signs of specific kinds of cultural belonging. I shall examine the process of gender representations in Indian cinema - and how larger ideological forces and market forces impact this process. I shall be looking chiefly at Hindi cinema but also at works of some women filmmakers of Asian origin working outside India. I would argue that the process of globalisation is not altogether new or belonging entirely to the present. Particularly with Indian cinema - its history shows the continued influence of world cinema, in particular European and Hollywood cinema. In the 1920's an Indian film maker Himanshu Rai made Indo-German collaborative films. Starting with silent films and moving on to the talkies, Rai made a number of films based on Indian mythology, history and later on social issues. Like his predecessor Phalke who was more indigenous and worked within the Swadeshi project, Rai was also responding to the colonial experience by constructing self conscious Indian images and narratives, a sense of Indianness not only for the Indian audience but for the European market. The very nature of his collaborations (the early historical - Shiraz, Prapanch Pash) unavoidably fell within the discourse of orientalism leading to a certain glamorisation of Indian history. Rai used a number of Eurasian actresses to play the female lead characters. These women were given Hindu names like Sita Devi - and were introduced to the public as "educated Hindu women". This anomaly of Eurasian actresses representing Indian historical/mythological characters sets up an interesting colonial moment and underlines the problematics of its representation. I would pin this as an early moment of global forces in operation - where an European technical team, a set of Eurasian actresses, an Indian scriptwriter and director - set about filming Indian narratives. Devika Rani joined this unit as costume designer and upgraded as heroine and later as co-partner of Bombay Talkies - the production company Rai set up in Bombay. In Achyut Kanya Devika Rani introduced the village belle look (a curious blend of western sophistication and Indian costumes). This representation has had a lasting impact on how Indian rural women should look on screen, a construct from which later realist directors had to struggle to break away from.