In the opening scene of the blockbuster, mythological Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa (Vijay Sharma, 1975), Ganesh gives birth to a daughter at the request of his sons. They want a sister who can tie them a rakhi. This is a deft narrative move by the film’s makers, providing the Hindu goddess Santoshi Mata with a Puranic lineage, paving the way for her pan-Indian popularity. Historian Wendy Doniger in her landmark study of Hindusim, The Hindus (2009), writes that Santoshi was first worshipped by women in some cities of Uttar Pradesh in the 1960s, becoming popular only with the success of the film. “During screenings, the theatre became a temple, and women made offerings, pujas of fruit and flower on the stage in front of the screen,” she writes. “The medium was certainly the message here.”