Citation

Pauwels H. Asian Ethnology 2010; 69(1): 1-33.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Nazan Institute for Religion and Culture)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to studying the manifold and interesting ways Indian popular movies have appropriated folk and mythological materials by focusing on the paṇaghaṭa-līlā or the theme of "the woman waylaid at the well." This theme is an important one because it raises the issue of so-called "eve-teasing," a form of sexual harassment of women omnipresent in public spaces in South Asia. The article in turn discusses the folk and the mythological treatments of the paṇaghaṭa-līlā, before analyzing its adaptations in song in three popular Hindi movies: the recent remaking of Devdas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (2002), P. L. Santoshi's Barsaat ki Raat (1960), which deploys the theme in a Qawwālī context, and finally the classic Mother India by Mehboob Khan (1957). Each movie illustrates a different type of contextualization of the theme.

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27821480