"The woman waylaid at the well" or Panaghata-lila: an Indian folk theme appropriated in myth and movies

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to studying manifold and interesting ways Indian popular movies have appropriated folk and mythological materials by focusing on paṇaghaṭa-līlā or theme of the woman waylaid at well. This theme is an important one because it raises 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 folk and mythological treatments of paṇaghaṭa-līlā, before analyzing its adaptations in song in three popular Hindi movies: recent remaking of Devdas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (2002), P. L. Santoshi's Barsaat ki Raat (1960), which deploys theme in a Qawwālī context, and finally classic Mother India by Mehboob Khan (1957). Each movie illustrates a different type of contextualization of theme. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27821480

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