Hindi cinema and National festivals
Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network
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When the signposts of rituals, part of the popular culture in a very minuscule manner, become an event gravitating towards a national festival, the credit for this conversion to a large extent goes to the most popular idiom of communication for the mass media aka the cinema. Hindi cinema from this proposition assumes a prominent position as it has been able to spin out of nowhere, identities, which either have a very hazy presence or the festivals whose spread is limited to a geographical reason, and the examples of this kind include worship of Santoshi Ma all over the country, as also the celebration of Karva Chauth all over India. Santoshi Ma rose into the national conscience after the release of a film by the same name, JAI SANTOSHI MA, while Karwa Chauth gets asserted into the national conscience time and again through one film or the other,
Interestingly enough, the first attempt to bring Karva Chauth into the national conscience was done by a film from the south MAANG BHARO SAJNA, a Jeetendra, Maushmi Chaterjee and Rekha starrer and produced by Dasari Narayan Rao who had become an establishment in producing tear-jerker on a regular basis. Unfortunately those where the early eighties, and the media boom still in its larva stage, it could not set it up on the agenda of national conscience.
It was given a new lease of life with Suraj Barjatya's HUM AAPKE KAUN and from this point when Yash Chopra produced DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE; it became the turning point for Karva Chauth. After this, the festival predominantly celebrated in North of the country side just moved into a different orbit and started getting celebrated all over the country side, that it became the ultimate symbol of commitment between lovers. Probably this film also started a trend of gender equality as well, for the simple reason that hence forth even the lovers and the husbands started keeping the fast, and became the in-thing henceforth. It also transcended religious barriers as well, and became sort of the Valentine's Day for India.
Subsequently the elaborate and rich portrayal of celebration of this occasion through the Indian films also contributed to development of this occasion into setting the market on fire. The copy writers of the diamond jeweler brand which Aishwarya Rai endorses have indeed lost out on a wonderful opportunity to market this occasion to promote their product as this was the first Karva Chauth for Abhie-Ash. KUCH KUCH KOTA HAI and KABHIE KHUSHI KABHIE GHUM went on to give it more firmer and solid grounding on a national level. The huge success of BAGHBAAN and the scene of Karva Chauth associated with the film was one of the highlights which was used in a subtle manner to portray the love between a husband and a wife, a sort of baptism by fire, as it was getting further honed through the pangs of separation.
BIWI HO TO AISI also used this festival as a turning point for the film and forcefully drove the point home that a woman cannot share the husband come what may. An Indian style of love where the love generally happens after marriage finds its celebration through Karva Chauth and Hindi films have turned out to be its publicity department to set it into the psyche of the nation on a pan-India basis.
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