Quote:
"The multivalent reception of Fire in India is most usefully seen as an arena wherein a number of discourses around femininity, sexuality and modern nationalism intersect and feed on each other. The various articles and commentaries presented radically polarized understandings of the function of cinema and of Fire's representations of middle-class Indian women. These responses can be understood only in the context of the difficult shifts and uneasy negotiations that mark the construction of modern India; the different valences accorded to gender, sexuality and religion in competing definitions of Indianness."
-- Sujata Moorti

Source:
Moorti, Sujata. "Inflamed Passions: Fire, the Woman Question, and the Policing of Cultural Borders." Genders, no. 32 (2000).