Jai Santoshi Maa - Release and Response

Release and Response

This low-budget film with forgotten stars and unknown actors unexpectedly emerged as one of the highest-grossing releases of 1975—sharing the spotlight with the likes of Sholay and Deewar. This bewildered critics and intrigued scholars (resulting in a modest literature on the film as a religio-cultural phenomenon), but made perfect sense to millions of Indian women, who loved its folksy story about a new “Goddess of Satisfaction,” easily accessible through a simple ritual (which the film also demonstrates). A classic example of the “mythological” genre—the original narrative genre of Indian-made films—and one of the most popular such films ever made, it gave a new (and characteristically Indian inflection) to the American pop-critical term “cult film,” for viewers often turned cinemas into temporary temples, leaving their footwear at the door, pelting the screen with flowers and coins, and bowing reverently whenever the goddess herself appeared (which she frequently did, always accompanied by a clash of cymbals).

The screenplay is based on a vrat katha: a folktale (katha) meant for recitation during the performance of a ritual fast (vrat) honoring a particular deity and undertaken in order to achieve a stated goal. The Santoshi Ma vrat seems to have become popular in north India during the 1960s, spreading among lower middle-class women by word of mouth and through an inexpensive “how-to” pamphlet and religious poster of the goddess. However, the printed story is very sketchy and the film greatly embellishes it, adding a second narrative to its tale of a long-suffering housewife who gets relief through worshiping Santoshi Ma.