Bollywood Music in Global Cultural Flows: The Transnational Circulation and Recontextualization of “Aankhein Khuli” in China

In 2025, the classic Bollywood song “Aankhein Khuli” experienced a resurgence in popularity on Chinese short-video platforms, including Bilibili, TikTok, and Rednote, due to its distinctive melodic features and unique timbre. Its circulation demonstrates pronounced characteristics of music spreadability and earworm effect. In its traditional context, Bollywood music is typically embedded within cinematic narrative structures, serving both to advance plot development and to convey emotional expression, while also constituting a key component of Indian film genre aesthetics. However, under the combined influence of digital media platforms and global cultural flows, the logic of Bollywood music circulation is undergoing a profound transformation: music can now circulate independently of its original cinematic visuals. This article takes the Bollywood love song “Aankhein Khuli” as a case study, focusing on its circulation mechanisms and processes of re-evolution within the Chinese context. In the course of cross-cultural transmission, this musical text gradually detaches from its original filmic context and is continuously reproduced and reinterpreted across diverse media platforms and audience practices. Building on his, this article systematically analyzes the various transformed forms and media pathways through which “Aankhein Khuli” circulates in China, with the aim of elucidating its underlying dissemination logic and sonic trajectory in cross-cultural circulation. Specifically, the study examines how the song is continuously re-encoded and reconstructed through participatory practices of different audience groups, thereby generating a multi-layered and dynamic pathway of cross-cultural circulation.