Khalid Mohamed looks back at 1975, the year of Sholay and the miraculous success of Jai Santoshi Maa and its aftermath — a cinematic contrast that defined devotion, destiny, and the unpredictable pulse of the Indian audience.

This retrospective by veteran film critic Khalid Mohamed explores 1975 — a defining year in Indian cinema marked by the epic success of Sholay and the divine phenomenon of Jai Santoshi Maa. While Sholay redefined mainstream storytelling with its action, scale, and cinematic grandeur, Jai Santoshi Maa captivated the masses through faith, devotion, and simplicity. This rare double triumph revealed the extraordinary range of Indian audiences — from thrill-seekers to spiritual believers — and established 1975 as a landmark year that shaped the nation’s relationship with cinema, myth, and mass culture.

With the completion this year of 50 years of Sholay, it has been justly re-assessed and celebrated. Expectedly, the screenings of its restored prints were packed to the rafters. Initially when Sholay opened, the multi-starrer action epic featuring a constellation of actors – Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini and Jaya Bhaduri besides introducing Amjad Khan as the fearsome Gabbar Singh – was a slow starter but picked up on word-of-mouth praise, leading to a five-year consecutive run at Mumbai’s Minerva cinema. Made on the then-lavish budget of Rs 3 crore, it reportedly earned Rs 35 crore, without taking in its box office count on re-runs. Incidentally, another iconic cash-grabber, Deewaar, had been released earlier on January 24, 1975.

Unfortunately, in a reversal of fortune, the director of Sholay, Ramesh Sippy, was divested of its copyright after a fall-out with the Sippy family. In 2000, the late G. P. Sippy's grandson, Sascha Sippy, took control of the rights. The transfer of copyright via a gift deed was challenged by other members of the Sippy family; in 2015, the Delhi High Court confirmed that the copyright of the film and its constituent parts belonged to the producers, which at that time were SMEPL and Sippy Films.

A Divine Counterpart to a Cinematic Epic
Be that as it may, on the very day the godfather of Indian cinema’s blockbusters was released – August 15, 1975 – so was a lean-budgeted mythological Jai Santoshi Maa (some sources, however, stagger the date to May 30, 1975). The uncanny story of the mythological film’s phenomenal success, however, seems to have gone deep under the cracks, practically unknown by the ‘now’ generation. Directed by Vijay Sharma, its music was composed by C. Vyas, the lyrics were by Pradeep Kavi and the songs rendered among others by Usha Mangeshkar and Mahendra Kapoor. Of the supporting ensemble, there were Bharat Bhushan, Leela Mishra and the staples of mythological films such as Trilok Kapoor, Manhar Desai, B.M. Vyas, Tiwari and Mahipal.

The cinematography was by the seasoned art director Sudhendhu Roy. The acting crew was topped by Anita Guha as the Goddess of Joy and Satisfaction, Kanan Kaushal as Satyavati, her staunch devotee, and Ashish Kumar as her archetypal ‘pati parmeshwar’.
The devotional film, now cult, was pieced together with Rs 25-30 lakhs. Miraculously, it went on to earn collections of Rs 5 crore, even rivalling the profits of Sholay in quite a few of the rural centres. Its profit margin today is acknowledged as around 2,000 per cent of its investment.

Faith, Fervour, and Feminine Power
The sleeper mega-hit produced by Satram Rohra is believed to have been largely funded by a Mr Aggarwal, a Kolkata businessman. His wife and he were certain that their long-nurtured wish for the birth of a child was granted after keeping a fast for Santoshi Maa. At the outset, countless distributors had rejected the film as a risky proposition.
Ironically, when the practically unpublicised film opened at the more down-scale cinemas like Alankar and Super in Mumbai, its impact was such that women and children from villages travelled to the closest cities by bullock-carts to the cinemas, turning them into temporary temples.

For many women, attending a screening was akin to a religious experience. Viewers would prostrate at the entrance of the auditoria, remove their footwear, place garlands on posters, light incense sticks and shower coins at the screen as offerings, dance along with the “Jai Jai Santoshi Maa” garba, and at the end of the film, break their fast and distribute prasad. In fact, the connect with women viewers was such that it led to special Saturday screenings called Janani Shows. These were programmed on half-days for school children, allowing families to attend the show as an outing. Anita Guha, as Santoshi Maa, was so revered that people would bow down to seek her blessings whenever she stepped out of her Bandra house, where a vigil was kept for her darshan.

If has been stated by commentators of the time that the worship of Santoshi Maa was prevalent in parts of India. Yet the film has been credited with ‘upgrading’ her into the mainstream Hindu pantheon and sparking a boom in temples dedicated to her. The film's devotional songs, especially Main Toh Aarti Utaaru Re Santoshi Mata Ki, became bhajans and aartis sung in temples and at religious functions.

The Curse, the Legacy, and the Imitations
Quite incredibly, the first show in a Mumbai cinema had collected only Rs 56. The next show netted Rs 64, the third Rs 98 and the last one crossed Rs 100. Jai Santoshi Maa was about to be written off as a disaster. Ten days later, collections began escalating beyond measure. The film prompted thousands of women across the country to keep the Solah Shukravar Vrat (a month’s 16th Friday fast).
The idol worship continues, but Anita Guha’s adulation was short-lived. She soon got tired of playing the goddess in mythological. After her actor-director husband Manick Dutt’s untimely death, she led a reclusive Garbo-like existence in her Bandra apartment. Anita Guha (1932-2007) passed away and the building in which she lived on Linking Road was subsequently pulled down for redevelopment.
Kanan Kaushal (born Indumati Sheth, 1939), the long-suffering Satyavati, was also typecast and despite 60 Hindi and Marathi and 16 Gujarati films, besides authoring two books, she never got the big break she had dreamt of. She was married to Shashikant Paigankar in 1964; their two children were named Parag and Milan. Subsequently, she retired to a quiet life in a suburban home.
Incidentally, after the whopper success of the mythological, superstitious beliefs began to circulate that the film had aroused ‘the wrath’ of Jai Santoshi Maa.

The film’s producer, Satram Rohra, declared himself bankrupt. Reason: his distributor, Kedarnath Aggarwal, was allegedly cheated out of his earnings by his brothers and suffered a paralytic attack. A perceptive article by Roshmila Bhattacharya in Hindustan Times (2010) pointed out that Ashish Kumar, who enacted the role of Satyavati’s husband, Barju, said he believed, quite irrationally, that all this happened because of the ‘curse’ of the goddess. Moreover, he insisted that he was the real producer-director. His wife, the 1960s’ dancing star Bela Bose, had, on the advice of their family priest, started keeping the Santoshi Maa vrat for the child they both wanted.

On the 11th Friday, since she was in a state of pregnancy, she couldn’t sit for the puja and requested her husband to read the katha to her. The birth of their daughter, Manjushree, and the regular Friday rituals strengthened Ashish Kumar’s resolve to take the devi’s story to every corner of the country. He claimed that he had convinced Satram Rohra’s guru-cum-financier, Saraswati Gangaram, to part with the initial sum of Rs 50,000 to get the film started. When it was stuck for finance, he had cajoled Aggarwal to see the rushes. Aggarwal’s wife, who had given birth after 20 years following Santoshi Maa’s Friday fast, persuaded him to buy the film’s rights in advance for Rs 11 lakh and the shooting resumed. Ashish Kumar maintained that he was paid a paltry Rs 25,000 for his efforts and didn’t even get the 15 per cent overflow he’d been promised

.Aggarwal’s partner, Sandeep Sethi, however, grumbled that Ashish Kumar had gone over-budget and shot more footage than required. He claimed to have re-edited the film and said Kumar sold off his rights and the 15 per cent overflow for just Rs 35,000. When the film was declared a big hit, Kumar sent them a notice but later withdrew charges. The legal tussle was redundant.

Neither Sandeep Sethi nor Ashish Kumar made another hit. Kumar staged shows of his play Katha Santoshi Maa, then invested all his savings in Solha Shukravar. It flopped; Ganga Sagar fared better, but it wasn’t another Jai Santoshi Maa. Needless to carp that Bombay’s filmmakers go by the maxim that nothing succeeds like success.

Jai Santoshi Maa was remade in 2006 with the same title, with Rakesh Bapat and Nushrat Bharucha, albeit in a version set against the post-new-millennium backdrop. Anu Malik was recruited as the music composer and Usha Mangeshkar rendered the songs again. It flopped miserably. Next, a TV series titled Santoshi Maa premiered in 2015, featuring Gracy Singh in the title role. More: another TV series, Santoshi Maa Sunayein Vrat Kathayein (2019), was telecast from 2019 to 2021. Such retreads were in vain.
Evidently, miracles at the ticket windows happen once in a lifetime, be it a Sholay or Jai Santoshi Maa.