Jai Santoshi Maa - Analysis and Social Significance

Analysis and Social Significance

In an era dominated by violent masala action films aimed primarily at urban male audiences, Jai Santoshi Maa spoke to rural and female audiences, invoking a storytelling style dear to them and conveying a message of vindication and ultimate triumph for the sincerely devoted (and upwardly-mobile). Above all, it concerns the life experience that is typically the most traumatic for an Indian woman: that of being wrenched from her mayka or maternal home and forced to adjust to a new household in which she is often treated as an outsider who must be tested and disciplined, sometimes harshly, before she can be integrated into the family. Satyavati’s relationship with Santoshi Ma enables her to endure the sufferings inflicted on her by her sisters-in-law and to triumph over them, but it also accomplishes more. It insures that Satyavati’s life consistently departs from the script that patriarchal society writes for a girl of her status: she marries a man of her own choosing, enjoys a companionate relationship (and independent travel) with her husband, and ultimately acquires a prosperous home of her own, beyond her in-laws’ reach. While appearing to adhere to the code of a conservative extended family (the systemic abuses of which are dramatically highlighted), Satyavati nevertheless quietly achieves goals, shared by many women, that subvert this code.

This oblique assertiveness has a class dimension as well. The three goddesses are seen to be “established” both religiously and materially: they preside over plush celestial homes and expect expensive offerings. Santoshi Ma, who is happy with offerings of gur-chana (raw sugar and chickpeas—snack foods of the poor) and is in fact associated with “little,” less-educated, and less-advantaged people, is in their view a newcomer threatening to usurp their status. Yet in the end they must concede defeat and bestow their (reluctant?) blessing on the nouvelle arrivée. The socio-domestic aspect of the film (goddesses as senior in-laws, oppressing a young bahu or new bride) thus parallels its socio-economic aspect (goddesses as established bourgeois matrons, looking scornfully at the aspirations of poorer women).

Satyavati’s relationship to Santoshi Ma, established through the parallel story of the goddesses, suggests that there is more agency involved here than at first appears to be the case—though it is the diffused, depersonalized agency favored in Hindu narrative (as in Santoshi Ma’s own birth story). Satyavati’s successful integration into Birju’s family, indeed her emergence as its most prosperous female member, parallels Santoshi Ma’s acceptance in her divine clan and revelation as its most potent shakti. Santoshi Ma's rise as a goddess happens without the intervention, so common in Indian cinema, of a male hero.

Satyavati's rise to wealth is partly dependent on her husband Birju. Birju is portrayed as a devotee of Santoshi Ma from the start, and it is this that first attracts Satyavati's interest. He then rescues her from being molested, and this leads to their marriage. His infidelity with the merchant's daughter is balanced by his honest labour that becomes the source of his and Satyavati's later wealth. Satyavati's story would hardly be satisfying if she did not have a worthy husband, capable of displaying strength when necessary, and anger on her behalf when he sees how his family have treated her in her absence. Ultimately her gentleness wins through as she persuades him to re-unite with her family.

Through its visual treatment of the reciprocal gaze of darshan and its use of parallel narratives, the film also suggests that Satyavati and Santoshi Ma are, in fact, one—a truth finally declared, at film’s end, by Birju’s wise and compassionate elder brother Daya Ram. As in the ideology of tantric ritual (or the conventions of “superhero” narrative in the West), the “mild-mannered” and submissive Satyavati merges, through devotion and sheer endurance, with her ideal and alter-ego, the cosmic superpower Santoshi Ma. There is a further theological argument that the film visually offers: not only is Santoshi Ma available to all women through her vrat ritual, she is, in fact, all women. Appearing as a little girl at the film’s beginning, as a self-confident young woman in her manifestations throughout most of the story, and as a grandmotherly crone on the final Friday of Satyavati’s fast, Santoshi Ma makes herself available to viewers as an embodiment of the female life cycle, and conveys the quietly mobilizing message that it is reasonable for every woman to expect, within that cycle, her own “satisfaction” in the form of love, comfort, and respect.

Following the release of the film Santoshi Maa has been worshipped as a goddess, particularly by women in Northern India.

In the film, Santoshi Maa is depicted as a daughter of Ganesha.

In the film Ganesha is depicted as a householder (gṛhastha) with wives, sons, and a sister(Mansa:a godess,known as mansa mata {tample at haridwaarand many places ,} . As is common in North India his wives are depicted as Riddhi and Siddhi. His sons are depicted as Shubha and Labha. The boys are unhappy because they, unlike Ganesha, have no sister. But Ganesha is ambivalent about having another child. The boys and the women plead with Ganesha, and the sage Nārada convinces him that having a daughter would be good. Ganesha assents and from Riddhi and Siddhi emerges a flame that engenders Santoshī Mā. There is dispute over this, between various scholars, whether it is myth or not. Saying it as totally myth will also be totally wrong. Women in North India are a huge follower of Santoshi Maa and her main temple is situated in Lal Sagar, near Mandore, which is about 10 kilometres away from Jodhpur city.

The script for the film has no basis in Puranic legend or other known scripture. In particular the claims that Ganesha had a sister and a daughter appear to be unique to this film. In Maharashtra there is a popular belief that Ganesha has a sister in each of the four directions and he goes to meet each of them annually on the occasion of Ganesha Caturthi.

The film was remade in 2006, with Usha Mangeshkar again singing most of the devotional songs. Other films like Solah Shukravaar, Santoshi Maa ki Mahima and Jai Santoshi Maa,a tele serial was also produced.