A striking aspect of the photographs we have collected is that many focus on young people and their sense of fun and style. In earlier chapters (notably Chapters 3 and 16), we looked at two themes – music and fashion – up to the mid-twentieth century. In this chapter and the next, we follow these themes in more recent times. They reveal the emergence of a youth culture and a strong interest in being ‘modern’ in a distinctively local way.

From violins to electric guitars

From the earliest photographs to the most recent ones, it is evident that musical expression was key to cultural change in Mizoram. Church choirs and Christmas carol parties had been remarkable innovations of the 1920s and 1930s, and the following decades had witnessed an outpouring of new songs and compositions. By the 1950s, however, something very different was taking off. Mizo audiences had first heard Hollywood songs on the gramophone in the 1930s (Figure 21.1) and the encounter with foreign troops during Second World War had further kindled an interest in popular music that was not necessarily church-related.