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Two days ago marked the end of Chaturmaas and the beginning of Shraadh where we offer prayers for our departed ancestors.

Once upon a time in the seventies and the eighties, the film industry came to a standstill during the shraadh period.

There were no announcement of any new films, no mahurats, no celebrations, no advertisements, posters, trailers snd definetly no releases were scheduled during this allegedly ‘inauspicious’ month.

In fact, I clearly remember many cinema halls screening old hits for four weeks till the shraadh month was over and nobody complained, on tge contrary enjoyed the old hits screened at lower ticket rates.

I think it was after the multiplexes emerged in the nineties that the smaller films forever struggling for theatres said to hell with superstition and grabbed the dates that top banners rejected during this period.

Come 2000 and the new generation left no choice for the shraadh crow to but fly up in the sky snd disappear in the horizon.