Ritual reverb: Two 'blockbuster' Hindi films

Abstract

This essay re-examines a highly successful and much discussed film of the mid-1970s, Jai Santoshi Maa, along with a comparably celebrated hit released two decades later, Hum Aapke Hain Koun.! Theorizing that the unexpected success of both these films may lie in their structuring around popular forms of ritual, it situates each in the context of its production and reception and considers the nature and implications of some of the forms of participatory practice that each film, at very different historical moments, encouraged. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.