Why nostalgia in India has become a tool for reclaiming identity

Across India, the past is being re-edited: low rise jeans are back, Avatar has returned to the cinema, Backstreet Boys is playing sold-out concerts, and Gen Z is flirting with phones that resist the selfie logic of the smartphone era. Even rice beer and Pallonji’s raspberry soda have resurfaced. At first, it might seem like a time capsule from the 1990s and 2000s, even though we are in 2025. But in a decade shaped by digital overload, political tension, and a loss of the simple stories that were once shared, nostalgia in India has become a cultural anchor. 

This turn towards the past functions as a form of calibration, where seeking comfort in the familiar becomes a means of continuity in a world that refuses to pause.

Food and flavour as memory work

At Hearsch Bakery (established in 1890) in Bandra, Mumbai, the chicken puff remains a time marker. Gresham Fernandes, chef-partner at Bandra Born, grew up eating it for ₹10, long before he began serving a reinterpretation at his own restaurant.  

“Bandra has always had a mix of people—Catholics, Sindhis, Bohri Muslims, and Parsis—and this diversity is reflected in the food. At Bandra Born, the idea was to give diners a peek into Bandra from when I was growing up in the suburb—women playing bridge, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey tonics, grandfathers wearing suits and playing the trumpet. That’s the story behind the bakery’s nostalgic dish that makes it work, and it needs to be communicated to guests,” says Fernandes, whose Posh Hersch Puff is a chicken puff drowned in truffle and red wine. “Because the chicken puff is still available at Hersh Bakery, along with its famous Venus Jam Cake. The trick is when it might look alien but still tastes like home.,” says Fernandes, who also serves Venus Jam Cake with mixed berry sorbet. 

Food is perhaps one of the easiest ways to return to what feels familiar. Yet, nostalgia is rarely enough on its own. While nostalgia draws the crowds, building solely on it limits the audience. 

It is a tension that Shamsul Wahid, group executive chef at Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., recognises. At Social, while he added the classic Nihari to the menu—largely for the generation that grew up eating it—he also put Nihari Ramen and a Nihari croissant called Nihari Prashant, to cater to younger, experimental diners. All three dishes taste of the same umami broth. “The challenge and risk are both higher while redoing a classic dish meant to inspire nostalgia, because you’ve got to nail the original version to make anything out of it,” says Wahid. “It’s crucial because there’s also a neurological aspect to why nostalgia works: getting a sense of nostalgia triggers happy memories, especially when people are in the zone of being homesick or under stress.”

A 2023 study noted that nostalgia activates the brain's reward system, releasing dopamine and creating pleasure, belonging, and emotional safety. Comfort is often sparked by flavours that carry deep regional memories, like bal mithai, gondhoraj, herbs from the mountains, roselle, plum, mahua, or even something as simple as pickle.  “India also drinks with memory,” says Jeet Rana, mixologist and co-founder, Barbet & Pals. “That’s why our cocktails are built on home-style ingredients like curd rice foam, maltas, plum wine, and pisiyu loon.”

As India becomes a booming producer and consumer of craft spirits, there’s a renewed curiosity about traditional regional alcohol like feni, toddy, lugdi, and chang. “These regional alcohols are also popular among Gen Z, as it becomes a means to learn about specific cultures. But, not everything that is nostalgic needs to be a cocktail,” says Rana. “That restraint matters—comebacks often fail when you force an ingredient into a drink.” 

Film nostalgia and the rise of recycled sequels

The same recalibration is visible in cinema in India.  Mainstream Bollywood continues to rely on its own archives, transforming nostalgia into an industrial loop. For instance, Don has been remade twice, first with Amitabh Bachchan as the protagonist (1978), which became  a cult classic, and later with  Shah Rukh Khan (2006), which performed well at the box office. A third remake is now underway starring Ranveer Singh.

“It’s a classic example of filmmakers banking on an IP and a name. Producers today are incurring massive losses because they aren’t sure what audiences are coming back to. So, if a film does well, filmmakers are willing to make a thematic sequel, which might be a random story but be called the sequel. A lot of these scripts are not written as sequels—they’re just existing scripts a producer realises works as a part two,” says Mumbai-based film critic Abhimanyu Mathur. 

"Producers today are incurring massive losses because they aren’t sure what audiences are coming back to. So, if a film does well, filmmakers are willing to make a thematic sequel, which might be a random story but be called the sequel.”- Abhimanyu Mathur

Bhool Bhulaiyaa reflects this pattern. “They had no connection, except the name, theme song, and production house. Part one (2007) was a psychological thriller with no supernatural elements, while part two (2022) had a lot of them—it was a horror comedy,” he says. Even Dream Girl 2(2023)  “has the same producer, director and actor, but the characters are completely different,” says Mathur, pointing to how branding has overtaken narrative.

Originality in mainstream Bollywood often arrives as a derivation, whether from Western formats or book adaptations. “There, originality appears in divisive films like Animal (2023). Homebound (2025) is original but not mainstream. You can’t get too creative with iconic films. That’s why Ram Gopal Varma's Sholay remake in 2007 flopped,” says Mathur.

Hollywood is cycling through similar revival logic with sequels to Freaky Friday, The Devil Wears Prada, and My Best Friend’s Wedding, often returning with the original cast. “Comebacks fail when they rely solely on sentiment. If the production feels dated in a dull way, or if the revival doesn’t add a new perspective, it comes off like a copy instead of a reinterpretation,” says Rohan Mangalorkar, founder, Gaijin, a vinyl bar in Mumbai. 

Music nostalgia and the revival of retro sound

Some comebacks succeed when reframed in the right aesthetics. Kate Bush’s Running Up The Hill(1985) surged back after featuring in Netflix’s show Stranger Things (Season 4 in 2022). “A single synth line or tape-style warmth can transport you back decades. Nostalgic music works because music is so tightly tied to emotion. And so, there’s a revival of retro aesthetics—funk, disco, old Bollywood textures, analog-style production,” says Mangalorkar.

Globally, nostalgia is fuelling disco, funk, and rock revivals. India, too, has played host to millennial-era icons like  Backstreet Boys, Green Day, Blue, Westlife, Aqua, Maroon 5, and Coldplay in the recent pas

“Rock music and guitar-led songs are popular today because globally there’s a growing demand for organic instrumentation and acoustics over digital music. This nostalgic wave could be beneficial for musicians who went out of jobs as instrumentalists when music composition started becoming digital,” says singer and songwriter Armaan Malik. 

“In a hyper-digital world, analog feels grounding. For Gen Z, vinyl isn’t nostalgia, but something that feels real, warm, and immersive—almost like a rebellion against the current digital overload.”- Rohan Mangalorkar

That return to texture is mirrored in the rising popularity of vinyl records and the growing number of vinyl listening bars and cafes in India, where analog sound has fast become part of the experience. 

“In a hyper-digital world, analog feels grounding. For Gen Z, vinyl isn’t nostalgia, but something that feels real, warm, and immersive—almost like a rebellion against the current digital overload,” says Mangalorkar.

Going retro is a rebellion against digital overload

“For Gen Z, retro is an aesthetic rebellion. They grew up in a world of algorithmically optimised feeds, hyper-efficient apps, and infinite scrolling. So analog or low-tech experiences feel refreshing, even edgy,” says Dr Payal Arora, Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University. Her research at the Inclusive AI Lab has tracked the resurgence of ‘dumbphones’, film cameras, retro game consoles, portable radio sets, and early-internet aesthetics like pixelated fonts and lo-fi interfaces. “A typewriter, for instance, creates slowness and intentionality—an antidote to hustle culture and digital burnout. Retro tech, then, isn’t a memory, it’s a lifestyle critique,” adds Arora. 

Functionality primarily shapes which nostalgic comebacks will survive. Nokia’s 3310 phone, launched in 2000, succeeded in its 2017 reboot because while it was “indestructible”, it offered Bluetooth, better battery life, a colour screen, and an updated Snake game. “I did not expect dumbphones to become aspirational again—once symbols of limited functionality, today they’re positioned as tools for digital detox, parental control, and minimalist lifestyles,” says Arora. 

Analog photography reflects the same pattern. "There’s a certain dopamine high even in the analog photography process—buying the film, shooting constructive shots, and getting it right. It’s definitely more effort. Sometimes, the camera scratches the film or it gets light leaks. If not stored well, fungus can develop over the film. Besides the anxiety of storing and developing the film, there’s the satisfaction of creating something from scratch,” explains Vishal Kullarwar,a Mumbai-based photographer who switched from analog to digital photography around 2007, when convenience began to dominate the industry.

Interest in analog photography returned in 2020 across age groups from 18 to 65 years. “People have realised there’s a different feeling, texture-wise, to every image taken on film as 99 per cent of it remains unedited. Digital photography is more sanitised and clinical with colour or skin tone correction,” he says. But this luxury of slowing down in the era of hustle culture comes at a price. Film rolls that once cost ₹100 now cost ₹1,500. Camera servicing can sometimes exceed the cost of the camera itself. Lenses cost lakhs. “The shutter repairs cost ₹ 8,000-9,000, and the cleaning the lens, ₹10,000. Cameras have become collectibles for some people—like vintage cars—where the parts cost a bomb,” says Kullarwar. 

Even cinema has joined the analog revival. Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer (2023) popularised the IMAX 65mm format. The analog revival isn’t isolated; Paul Thomas Anderson shot One Battle After Another (2025) on 35mm and selected 65mm sequences, adding to the global return to film stock after years of digital dominance. In India, filmmakers are increasingly using film stock—often 16mm—for shooting documentaries and motion pictures. “Half-frame cameras are also making a comeback, even though it only offers the portrait mode, which is a limiting factor. Yet, even Gen Z is invested because it slows one down when there are only 36 frames, not 100 angles or AI filters. So one wants to make the best of it,” he adds. 

Nostalgia as cultural reclamation and identity

As spending power grows, many Indians are turning towards art, design, and craft that echo personal and ancestral memory as self-definition. “Like Saviya Lopes’s painting which shows a messy kitchen in a middle-class home—it was very popular among viewers because they saw it as the kitchen they grew up in,” says Ayesha Parikh, 39, founder and gallerist, Art and Charlie, Mumbai. 

Parikh sees nostalgia entering the art landscape through a quiet rejection of the Western canon. Indian miniatures are returning through contemporary narratives, including feminist reinterpretations. Collaborations like Hermès x Sukanya Aiyde have helped, but the wider shift is inward.  “The hope is that Indigenous artforms like Gond and Warli get taken into more contemporary forms, helping Indians learn about their culture—something Gen Z is very cued into,” she says.

This reclamation is also a response to cultural flattening. “We just never owned [our crafts]. This nostalgic wave is a comment on the current state of identity politics,” says sociologist Shambhobhi Bagchi. For decades, she notes, urban India encouraged a homogenous palette: similar clothes, similar food, similar aspirations. Capitalism absorbed smaller cultures, erasing nuance. Social media, ironically, is now enabling a return.

Across food cultures, this is visible in the acceptance of regional flavours once dismissed as too pungent or too rural. Whether embracing  shukti (dried fish) in Bengal or the sudden rise of litti chokha stalls—a rustic Bihari classic of roasted dough and smoked vegetable mash—that have cropped up in Kolkata, nostalgia is reframing local taste as cultural inheritance rather than embarrassment.

Indians are also realising the problems and short-sightedness of having discarded tradition. Bagchi points to the Green Revolution,  which standardised the kind of crops cultivated in India and weakened regional immunity. Indigenous grains like jowar and ragi have returned, as has desi ghee, after years of using imported ‘health oils’.  

Nostalgia, however, has the tendency to become shallow when meaning is stripped away. Phulkari, for instance, is not simply a motif  from Punjab. “It’s not just a pretty pattern. It comes from the tradition of the women of a family blessing the girl by weaving a uniquely personalised heirloom textile according to the girl’s life story. Every motif in most weaving cultures has such uniqueness,” says museum designer and curator Prachi Joshi. Warrior shawls from Nagaland carry similar encoded histories, each pattern mapped to a particular life. 

“Cultural appropriation is easy. When people feel like they aren’t rooted in a culture, they beg, borrow, and steal from the past, often taking it out of context. That’s the most dangerous way of trying to connect with one’s roots because it’s capitalism, not genuine understanding or connection,” adds Joshi, who recently curated an exhibition at Journeying Across the Himalayas festival in Delhi. 

Migration further intensifies this longing. “When people move to cities, they start to forget where they come from. That’s  when that sense of loss of identity comes in,” she says. Which is why Fernandes, raising his daughter in Mumbai, anchors her Goan identity through food. “If I don’t feed her what I grew up eating, she will question where she comes from when she is 40,” he says. “This nostalgic wave is crucial for the younger generations. For millennials and older Indians, it’s more about feeling nostalgic about something they experience after a long gap and realise they have missed it,” he adds.

This revival is also filling silences in India’s cultural memory. “The history people think of is what’s normative for the hegemonic class that controls society. The complete story isn’t just of a dominant class but the anti-hegemonic groups’ stories as well. Those are the ones that are coming to the fore and filling the gaps in history through this nostalgia wave,” says Bagchi. 

Could nostalgia, then, lead to a more democratic cultural representation? Or, is it simply the next turn of the cycle?