Bhakti in Bollywood
Hindi Cinema – One of India’s most
popular arts, and greatest exports
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More films than any other industry
Twice as many tickets as America
A major export
A political player
The Bollywood Critique
The Demonisation of Sentiment &
the Infantilisation of the Imagination
• I and my friend forced ourselves to sit till the end of the
movie in West Palm Beach, Florida. It was an
embarrassment and a relief to watch people walk out of
the theatre all the time. The crowd was very displeased and
did not hide their disappointment. There was jeering, mock
clapping and whistles at the intermission. I was completely
with the crowd though I did not jeer and whistle.
• the settings were made for a Dracula movie. What was the
director hiding? Why did he go for unrealistic settings with
lighted torches instead of showing the town of those days?
The first reaction of the audience to Shah Rukh Khan's
entry in a suit and hat was Charlie Chaplin!!
Emotion, Unrealism, and Repetition
• The western artistic ideal for narrative arts, since
the modern development of the novel, has been
that it should be
– Realistic
– Original
– Critical of ‘happy’ polemical ideologies that make us
content with our lot
1. Greek Mimesis and Catharsis – the Imitation of
Reality
2. Marxist Critical Theory – liberation comes from
disillusionment and tearing away the fantasies
Art in another Cultural Matrix
• Like other cultures, India’s arts have their own
distinctive history….
“I would not wish to change my style
Film scholarship has rarely taken
Bollywood seriously. Arguably this
holds for Indian commentators as
much as Westerm ones. More
recently scholars (such as those
referenced in this chapter) have
tried to analyse the origins of Hindi
cinema’s distinctive character, its
representational strategies, and its
implication in India’s national
identity. (Melanie Wright)
of filmmaking to try to cater to the
West. It has to be accepted the way it
is.”
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, (cited on
cbsnews, copyright reuters in
reference to Cannes 2002, Devdas)
Art in another Cultural Matrix
• Like other cultures, India’s arts have their own
distinctive history….
– Epic poetry has remained a more prominent
template for narrative arts – rather, for instance
than the pre-eminence of the novel as ‘the’ precinematic art.
Drama remains key: Chidanand Das Gupta in The
Painted Face 1991 points to the theatrical heritage
of India
Art in another Cultural Matrix
• Like other cultures, India’s arts have their own
distinctive history….
– Epic poetry has remained a more prominent template
for narrative arts – rather, for instance than the preeminence of the novel as ‘the’ pre-cinematic art.
– The popular arts of Bhajan and of Ornamentation
influence Hindi cinema.
Geeta Kapur (1987) points to: forms of direct address:
flat, diagrammatic and simply profiled figures; a figureground pattern with notational perspective; repetition of
motifs in terms of ritual play; and a decorative mis-enscene…
Art in another Cultural Matrix
• Like other cultures, India’s arts have their own
distinctive history….
• Epic poetry has remained a more prominent
template for narrative arts – rather, for instance
than the pre-eminence of the novel as ‘the’ precinematic art.
• At the popular level one of the most popular verbal
arts is the sung arts of Bhajan and devotional
poetry, as well as Persian poetics.
• India also has its own very different tradition of
aesthetics, its own PHILOSOPHY of the arts.
Revisiting Emotion
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The Speciality of the Connoisseur…
The Basis of Social Struggle and Reform…
The Uniting Force…
A Heightened State of Humanity…
Bharata’s Natya Sastra
• Rati – śṛngāra-rasa (desire – passionate)
(longing?)
• Krodha – raudra-rasa (anger – furious) (ragefilled, incensed)
• Vīra – utsāha-rasa (courage – heroic)
• Jugupsā – bībhatsa-rasa (disgust – disgusted?)
• Hāsa – hāsya-rasa (comical – humorous)
• Śoka – karuṇa-rasa (sorrow – com-passion)
• Vismaya – adbhuta-rasa (wonder – marvellous)
• Bhaya – bhayānaka-rasa (fear – fearful)
Bhoja’s Theory of Rasa
• Rasa is different from the normal emotions:
It is…
• ‘Otherworldly’ (alaukika)
• Full of ‘wonder’ (camatkāra)
• ‘Uniting’ (sādhārāṇi-kṛti)
A Spiritual State
or a Secular Spirituality?
• The later aesthetic theorists agree that it is not
– Dhvani – the suggestion of constructed reality…
…but…
– Rasa – emotional sensitisation and response to the
significance of situations, that is the goal of the arts
• It is otherworldly and sublime, and unites us all
• The Bhakti theologians of various traditions take
up this idea in a religious context and realise it on
a popular scale…
Bhakti Art & Emotion
Abhinavagupta
Rupa Gosvami
• Santa-Rasa,
• Srngara-Rasa,
the peaceful
emotion is the
goal…
• the passionate
emotion is the
goal
Bhakti Drama
• 'The gopîs thus hearing the words of Govinda unpleasant to
them felt, dejected of being disappointed in their strong
desires, an anxiety hard to overcome. (29) Letting their faces
hang down in sorrow and their bimba-red lips dry up sighing,
stood they scratching the ground and bore they, with their
tears spoiling their make-up and washing away the kunkuma
on their breasts, silently the burden of their great distress…
• One, with frowning eyebrows biting her lips was, beside
herself in her love of God, agitated throwing sidelong looks like
she would do something to Him. (7) Another one [said to be
Râdhâ] with staring eyes relishing His lotus face could,
although having the full taste, just like saints meditating on His
feet, not get enough. (8) One of them, placed Him through the
openings of her eyes in her heart and kept on embracing Him
there with her eyes closed, while her hairs stood on end being
drowned in ecstasy as if she was a yogi. []
Bhakti Poetry
Anybody can attain the Supreme by just
surrendering unto My will with loving
devotion, O Arjuna.
Bhagavad Gita 9.33
He bartered my heart
looted my flesh,
claimed as tribute
my pleasure,
took over
all of me.
Mahadevi
Akka
I'm the woman of love
for my lord, white as jasmine
It was like a stream
running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants
parched to sticks.
It was like this world's pleasure
and the path to the other world,
both
walking towards me.
Even in seeing the feet of my master
The lord white as jasmine,
I was made
worthwhile.
Even Deities Need Emotional Catharsis
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One day in Mathura Lord Krsna was sitting on a throne in His Palace. As He
looked out He could see the flowers had started to bloom and new leaves were
sprouting on the trees. He thought to Himself that Mathura looks like a new bride.
As He was appreciating that sweet scene, the remembrance of His Vrndavana
pastimes bloomed in His heart.
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Thereafter Lord Krsna due to the sudden remembrance of His Vrndavana
pastimes started to breathe very heavily and the lotus garland around His neck
began to shake. As Krsna remembered His amazing pastimes with the Vraja gopis,
incessant tears flowed from His eyes. Due to His being unable to enjoy those
pastimes again He became stunned and looked like a painted picture.
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Then Lord Krsna thought for a moment how to cross to the other shore of
that ocean ofdistress and proceeded up to the jewel-studded roof of the palace.
Seeing that Uddhava had come close to Him, He wished to reveal His heart to him
but due to feelings of love no words were able to come.
From the Uddhava Sandesa of Rupa Gosvami
Genre, Repetition and
becoming ‘sa-hrdaya’
• decisive or foundational texts that get endlessly
rewritten, though not necessarily endorsed. They
are critiqued, their values are challenged, their
structures destabilised or even parodied, but they
remain foundational nevertheless… The literary
evidence everywhere demonstrates a delight in
mixed forms, a kind of restless generic
permutation – “what is not here is nowhere to be
found”. (4-5)
• Viyay Mishra, Temples of Desire
Hrda – the ‘heart-mind’
4 Bollywood case studies
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Devdas
Lagaan
Jodha Akbar
Mohabbatein
A Modern Art of
Rasa
Devdas: God as Passionate Lover
Early Realism
From Bimal Roy’s 1955 Devdas
Set, spectacle and colour saturation
Detail, Pattern and Texture
Saturated scenarios
Ramprasad Sen: Bhakti and Suffering
• Does suffering scare me? O Mother,
Let me suffer in this world. Do I require more?
Suffering runs ahead of me and runs after me.
I carry it on my head and set up a stand
In the bazaar to peddle it.
I’m a poison worm, I thrive on poison.
I carry it wherever I go.
Bhakti as the Basis of Rebellion and Justice
Empathy:
Shared
Emotion as
Social
Union
Mohabbatein:
Bhakti as Natural Ethics and Youth Rebellion