Abstract
The metaphysical conception of dharma has been quintessential in determining the contours of the ideal life in India. Dharma has imparted a didactic framework to mediate the idioms of such an ideal life, which in turn exteriorises itself into multilayered and multifaceted socio-cultural dimensions. One dominant idiom that signifies the representation of this kind of ideal life has been the family, which acts as a strong pillar, lying at the bottom of the complexly knit architecture of socio-cultural life in India. Family in this sense emerges as the crucial component of the debate on the very discourse on dharma. The fundamental ontological vocabulary that determines the very content of this debate is the languages associated with samskaras, which condition the structure of family life in India. Ramayana as a hypostatised scriptural canon manifests as a critical civilisational trope that embodies in it the axiomatic framework of the semantic and semiotic symbolism of samskaras. Ramayana as the ontological trope of samskaras has been disseminated in India, through various means, and cinema has been one dominant instrument in this regard. Considering this, this article seeks to understand the ways in which Bollywood cinema mediates the language of samskaras by employing the metaphor of an ideal family through a discourse analysis of the movies Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999) and Ram Lakhan (1989) that would aid in comprehending how the metaphysical trope of the Ramayana is deeply embedded in cinematic narratives.
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