Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film Dal-Pati retold the story of Kunti and Karna in modern times. A 13-year-old suffering labour pangs delivers a baby hiding in a cowshed. At a distance, the villagers are prancing around bonfire burning fallen branches. The unmarried girl has no choice but to abandon her new-born on a moving train. For 30 years, the guilty mother tours temples and every holi night, Srividya is hounded by ghosts of the past till she meets Rajnikant/ Karna who forgives her.
Often, the festival was a dramatic moment to build or break a relationship as in the case of Phagun where Waheeda Rehman is obliged to humiliate her husband / Dharmendra to pacify her angry father. Dharmendra walks out on his pregnant wife to return 20 years later, after he has collected a shop full of saris for his wife. Naseerudin Shah in Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika played a filmmaker who disapprovescelebrations but his heroine, Smita Patil ignores all warnings and colours him. The moment becomes the beginning of a new relationship for both.
The stigma of a widow participating in festivities was challenged by Shakti Samanta in Kati Patang whenRajesh Khanna applied shagun ka tikka to Asha Parekh, a young widow. Exploring unfamiliar nuances was Ketan Mehta’s Holi about ragging in college campus, a tragic tale of a young boy destroyed by peer pressure!
Concluded