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鈥�No other art genre mirrors the psyche of Indians as does the popular film: the cinema hall is a temple, a psychiatric clinic, a parliament, and a court of law, and, of course, these in themselves are for them a great source of entertainment鈥�

(Nagaraj as cited in Valan i nas: 2008: 173)

Film scholars have opined that the format of popular Indian cinema violates the Aristotelian concept of the three unities of time, space, and action. On the other hand, this can neither be designated as a modern variation of preserved folk tradition. There are two worlds, completely different to each other, in fact set at opposite poles which are in continuous confrontation. These are the Western or Euro-American world and the vigorous forms of folk theatre. Indian cinema is something that is influenced by both, establishing its existence on a no-man鈥檚 land. Popular Indian cinema has imitated, mimicked, distorted and plagiarized the western world and tried to assimilate it within the Indian psyche of traditional values, to present a totally new world in front of the audience (Saari: 2009: 3). Thus the western way of life has influenced Indian filmmakers to a great extent. However, in this study the researcher has concentrated on how the synthesis between folklore and Indian cinema has developed through time and how cinema has contributed its lot towards the growth of new folk lives through the past decades.

While we discuss the relationship between folklore and Indian cinema, the first thing that comes to one鈥檚 mind is the portrayal of folktales and folk-based elements through the medium of films. The nine emotions or rasas are the predominant factors in Indian classical form of performing arts in contrast to the Western Stanislavski鈥檚 method where the actor must become 鈥榓 living, breathing embodiment of a character鈥� rather than 鈥榮imply conveying emotion鈥�. These nine emotions of love, hate, sorrow, pity, disgust, fear, anger and compassion also quantify entertainment in all the forms of traditional performing arts as well. Without a perfect blend of one or two of these emotions as the main element and being complemented by the other emotions, aesthetics and entertainment is never complete. Popular Indian cinema is nothing but an heir to this formula of blending the emotions and presenting it before the audience in a packaged manner. That is why traditional storyline, long and exaggerated poetic dialogues, utter predictability of the plot, the black and white moral oppositions between characters, punctuated with compulsory sequences of songs and dances have distinguished popular Indian cinema from the rest of the world. All these are the constituents of the traditional dramatic genres. According to Babb, 鈥榝ilms of all kinds are shaped by the conventions of folk drama, which traditionally presents mainly religious material鈥� (as quoted in Joycee: 2014: 244).

Speaking about the plot structure and character designing, Indian films, especially those from the Bollywood, heavily draw shades from Hindu mythical stereotypes. For instance, positive female characters or heroines appear as demure, passive, selfsacrificing, dutiful and long-suffering sister, mother, daughter, or wife, depicting Sitas and Savitris, long rooted into the Indian psyche. Protesting and strong women are projected as goddesses of valour like Durga and Kali. Vamps, on the other hand, are women who smoke, drink, and wear western outfits. Mythological male models like that of the courageous Rama, the hot-headed but loyal brother Lakshmana, the playful and clever Krishna, the villainous Ravana, the scheming Shakuni, the wicked uncle, Kamsa, are constantly invoked in Indian cinema. Steve Derne in his study on religious themes in commercial Hindi films, observes that 鈥榝ilmmakers create a film religious culture that develops around a standardized repertoire of mythological images presented as merely part of the mix of rousing fights, provocative dances, slapstick humor, nationalist sentiment, and family dynamics that makes up secular Hindi films鈥� (as quoted in Joycee: 2014: 245). Tradition in popular Indian cinema is not the reality but the ideal. As an ideal, it has been sanitized, concerning itself not with the harsh realities of caste, untouchability, gender discrimination and the varieties of feudal economic oppression that exist in traditional society, but rather to evoke a nostalgic sentiment and a sense of belonging to the certainties of tradition.

Films are visual texts and are products of culture. Hence the popular cultural texts expressed in the form of television series and cinemas find mass popularity. Cinema opens a new window into culture. India is a country with rich cultural traditions throughout its length and breadth. By studying cinema of the country, we get a deeper understanding of the customs, behavior patterns, values and arts and crafts of the Indian people. Deeper insights into the complex process of modernization, colonialism, nationalism and freedom and status of women can be acquired through Indian films.

Cinema not only mirrors culture but also shapes it. By studying Indian cinema we can see how they have in turn shaped and promoted modernization, westernization, urbanization, secularism and emancipation of women.

Folklorist Birendra Nath Dutta et al. while defining divisions of oral literature said that, 鈥榥arratives recounting unusual happenings accepted as truth on faith, or incidents rather vaguely believed to have taken place, and stories of purely fictitious formulations are told and retold. Correspondingly, myths, legends and folktales have been accepted as the three basic forms of narratives of universal distribution鈥� (Datta, Sarma, Das: 2015: 41).

In folktales there are always numerous references to the social life of a community. Since different communities have their own distinct social life, a folktale can generally be traced to a certain community. In other words, though it is difficult to identify the time of origin of a folktale, yet it is possible to identify the place and community of its origin.

Speaking about the Indian oral narratives, the country of diverse religions, languages and cultures has a complete range of tales, legends, and mythological stories. There was a time when childhood in every Indian household used to be filled with stories from the grandparents heard in a breezy courtyard under the moonlight. However, in spite of the changing patterns of living, urbanization and growth of the nuclear family, children in India still love listening to interesting stories from a big bouquet like Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, Jataka, Singhasan Battisi, Arabian Nights and many more, where they find talking trees, animals and birds. Tales from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita not only instill moral values in children but are equally admired by the adults. Pan-Indian clever men such as Birbal, Gopal Bhar and Mollah Naseeruddin are all-time favourites for every age-group. Apart from these, every region of the country has its own bunch of folktales that reflect the culture of the ethnic communities. For example, India鈥檚 North-Eastern region is home to innumerable tribal groups. Origin myths and other stories, told and retold through time are strong resources to study the folklife of such communities.

Folklore develops along generations with its various hues and structures. With the passage of time, folklore changes its form and moves along with other evolutionary processes. 

Similar is the case with folktales.

Flames and stories are never put off.
They change shapes and rush to the temple for a gossip session.

(Dharwadker & Ramanujan, as quoted in Joycee: 2014: 2)

Nothing is actually lost in transition; whatever is told simply changes forms of expression. Throughout human history story-telling has been an integral ingredient of the cultures of all societies. In ancient times, community drummers used to beat the drum in order to announce the king鈥檚 orders and messages. Minstrels and migrating singers spread stories with songs.

In India, stories from the Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, the epics and other legends have long been communicated to the masses through pre-existing genres and media, ranging across sanskrit texts, narrative retellings, folktales, songs, poems, music, paintings and dances, establishing a combination of visual, musical and dramatic conventions before the new nineteenth-century forms of urban theatre, photography and chromolithographs (popular prints also known as oleographs and 鈥榗alendar art鈥�) (Dwyer: 2006: 17).

During its infancy, the new mass media called cinema also rested its faith upon this feature of cultural blending in India. Let us roll back to the earliest records of moving picture exhibitions that were shown on Indian soil. It has been earlier stated in this report that even before the Lumiere Brothers鈥� short films were shown at Bombay, which for many film writers, is the first of its kind happening in the country. People in India had already watched magic lantern shows conducted by entrepreneurs like Madanrao Mahadev Pitale and Mahadeo Gopal Patwardhan. These people were well equipped both with instruments and the sharpness to use science for entertainment. Everything that happened through the magic lantern was purely scientific in nature. In spite of that, in order to bring alive the aesthetics which would touch the audience, they always relied upon stories from the Indian soil. The use of mythological stories, adventures involving even animal characters helped to establish instant rapport with the spectators. The show normally began with the entry of a sutradhar (narrator) coupled with two singers. This was followed by the main feature. Outlined in the Natya Shastra, this has been the ageold pattern in Indian dramatic traditions and is maintained even now in folk-theatres around the country.

Not only the form, but the folk theatre was also a rich source of narrative for early Indian cinema. During the nineteenth century, the Puranas and epics were foundational to various new theatre traditions that developed in different parts of India, which in turn had important influences on local films. For example, the Telugu Surabhi Theatres took local traditions such as that of Andhra leather-puppet shows, and the Harikatha whose performers adapted the epics to the stage. The many companies that flourished in the area in the early twentieth century provided the Tamil and Telugu cinemas with their repertoire and their stars. However, the most important form was the Parsi theatre, named after the Zoroastrians, or Parsis, who founded it in the nineteenth century. Many groups in Bombay with names such as the Empress Victoria Natak Mandali and the Alfred Co. Groups soon became fixed in other cities such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Lahore.

The birth of cinema in India occurred in a nation which was mostly agrarian and hence rural. Early filmmakers, on the contrary, belonged to the rising middle class which dwelt in the newly developing cities like Bombay and Calcutta. Industrialization was beginning in the country and the urge for a better living resulted in the beginning of migration from villages to big towns and cities. Since the days of Phalke鈥檚 Raja Harishchandra (1913) filmmakers of India strived to strike a chord in the audience鈥檚 mind by satisfying their inherent desires,鈥攖he desires to liberate one鈥檚 mind from the harsh realities of existence. The filmmakers realized that in order to satiate the taste buds of the audience they would need to import folk elements from the society. Hence the impact of traditional forms of drama like Nautanki, Tamasha, Yakshagana, Ramlila, Raaslila, Puppetry etc., are clearly visible in the early years of Indian cinema. Since most of the filmmakers were also associated with theatre, especially the most successful Urdu-Parsi style of theatre, therefore cinema was not devoid of theatrical styles like melodrama and poetic dialogues. Aristotle鈥檚 proposition that fantasy is the behavioural form of desires holds true for popular Indian cinema as well. The psychoanalyst, Sudhir Kakar, believes that (popular Indian) cinema presents a collective fantasy鈥攁 group daydream, containing unconscious material and the hidden wishes of a vast number of people (Benegal: 2010: 17). The age-old epical stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata where good wins over evil has been the predominant factor in Indian cinema鈥檚 鈥榟ero wins over the villain鈥� style of storytelling. This is such a comfort zone for the filmmakers in which the audience can connect to their traditional values, and hence can make a film successful, even if the story is highly predictive. The early filmmakers felt that traditional forms of music, drama, mythological tales, folktales, epics, legends, and other oral traditions were rooted deep inside the psyche of a majority of Indians. Hence they need to rely upon these very forms in order to increase the reach of the new-born medium called cinema. Regional cinema in India also followed the trend of Bollywood and produced mythological films. For example, in 1917 the first feature film made in the south was Keechaka Vadham, based on a sub-plot of Mahabharata. As cinema began to grow in India, a number of directors sought to invest their mythological narratives with a clear social message relevant to contemporary society. The filmmakers associated with this phase in the growth of Indian cinema looked back to the past lovingly and sought to reconnect with tradition; at the same time, they sought to draw on the resources and innovations of Hollywood (Gokulsing & Dissanayake: 1998: 13).

The early genres in Indian cinema鈥搕he mythological, the devotional and the historical鈥揹rew their idea of clothes from art, chromolithography, religious processions and performances, folk and urban theatre, and foreign cinema as well (Dwyer: 2006: 17). Since genres of folklore are not only predominant in India but also throughout the world, hence these have always been reflected in drama, print media, television, advertisement and cinema. Shyam Benegal states that, 鈥渢he form of popular Indian film did not emerge from the aesthetic and narrative capabilities of the cinema as much as it did from the existent urban and folk theatrical forms rooted largely in agrarian traditions. The cinematic form of popular Indian cinema is, therefore, difficult to explain in post-renaissance Western aesthetic terms, or even in the context of international cinema鈥� (Benegal: 2010: 20).

Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake have identified six major influences that have shaped Indian popular cinema (Gokulsing & Dissanayake: 1998: 17-22). 

These can be elaborated in the following manner鈥�

i) The narratives in Indian cinema have been highly influenced by the epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana in terms of the narrative structure. We observe that, as the field of filmmaking grew older, filmmakers tried to move beyond the traditional linear style of storytelling. Instead they followed structuring the narrative with a side story, a backstory, sub-plots and sometimes one or more narratives within the same story. Bollywood releases like Life in a Metro (2007, Dir. Anurag Basu) involve such a narrative structure of sub-plots, very neatly woven within the same broader frame.

ii) Ancient Sanskrit dramas based on Natya Shastra by Bharata were spectacular and vibrant productions of dance dramas combined with music. Rasa or the emotions were the central component in these dramas, wherein the emotions were conveyed by the performers and received by the audience. This process of encoding and decoding of emotions was essential to involve the spectators鈥� psyche within the performance. Filmmakers in every part of India have been utilizing this Rasa method to gain as much involvement of the audience with their films as possible.

iii) The first shot of the film, perhaps a long one or that framed through a drone camera, and the audience hold their breaths in the movie theatre listening to narrations in mesmerizing voices of artists like Amitabh Bacchan, Om Puri or Naseeruddin Shah. They are the narrators who introduce the timeline, plot and other aspects of the story, and take the audience on a journey throughout the film. Sometimes the narrator is even a character of the film. This technique is directly imported from the Sutradhar or narrator style of beginning folk theatre, as has been discussed in an earlier part as well. Historical, mythological, fantasies and period dramas mostly involve this technique of storytelling along with dialogues just like the beginning of a grandmother鈥檚 tale or bedtime story which starts with the pattern, 鈥�Once upon a time there lived a king in a large country鈥�.

iv) Another important influence on the Indian mainstream cinema is that of the Parsi theatre. Parsi theatre was originally in English, then Gujarati, which the Parsi community speaks, and later it shifted to Urdu or Hindustani. The Parsi plays contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft blending realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a melodrama. Genres like historical, romance, mythological and fantasy have been contributed into Indian cinema by the Parsi theatre. It is evident that Indian spicy films are imitations of this pattern with different styles of combinations.

v) Indian filmmakers departed in many aspects from their Hollywood counterparts, but tended to follow the Hollywood musicals, produced extensively between the 1920s and 1960s. In Hollywood, filmmakers tried to make song and dance sequences as under layered as possible so that the narrative remains realistic. But in India, the story was entirely different. Indian popular films used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their films. As playback singing was a much later addition, the advent of the talkies in India demanded actors who could sing as well. This led to the rise of artists like K.L. Sehgal in Indian cinema, who in turn influenced others to become singing stars as playback singers. Filmmakers followed the strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology, history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance in their narratives in such a manner that some not so popular films had a very popular music album to their credit. Filmmakers experimented with interesting and complex ways to incorporate these elements in the story. In fact, there are instances when a music album was first produced and later a storyline was weaved around it to make it a film. The audience, in spite of the fact that they were aware of the fantasy, illusion or fiction created on the screen, demanded musically rich cinema. This trend dominated the industry until the rise of the parallel cinema movement.

vi) Indian cinema has not only been influenced by western cinema but also from the western musical television, particularly MTV. Indian cinema during the 1990s followed the pace, camera angles, dance sequences and music from MTV to a considerable extent.

We would now move on towards a broad analysis of Indian cinema on the basis of the folkloric content, considering aspects of narrative, aesthetics, production design and different layers of folklore that are constituents of Indian cinema, even if invisibly.