Paper short abstract:

After an analysis of the specificities of the Hindi version of the TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", this paper examines the ways this worldwide phenomenon has been fictionalized and made “local” in Swarup’s novel "Q & A", and questions the relevance of the concept of ‘glocalization’.

Paper long abstract:

The television game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is certainly one of the most eloquent illustrations of a contemporary phenomenon that has had a global effect (both geographically and socially) on the cultural world. Originally created in the UK in 1998, this show has been produced in Hindi since 2000 under the name "Kaun Banega Crorepati" (KBC). Inspired by the TV show, the novel "Q & A" (2005) by the Indian diplomat and writer Vikas Swarup became an immediate best-seller before being (quite freely) adapted to cinema by the English film director Danny Boyle, whose film, "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), won 8 Oscars.

After a short analysis of the cultural specificities of the Hindi TV show, this paper will examine the ways in which this worldwide phenomenon has been fictionalized and made "local" in Swarup's Indo-English novel. Although several studies have already dealt with either the game show or the book/film, none seems so far to have linked both aspects of this phenomenon, which may be seen as the perfect product of both the process of globalization and the cultural circulation of an object between the many means of communication constituting today's world (TV, cinema, literature, internet, etc.). Finally, this paper will question the relevance of the concept of 'glocalization' in this context.