hasn't arrived), calling on to Krishna; however in many part of the film she is treated by her environment as common prostitute. This blurring in representation of a courtesan and a common prostitute has been a recurrent feature in mainstream Bollywood cinema, just as the theme of the fallen woman is. However, things were changing rapidly, only a few years later, Sharmila Tagore herself portrayed a far more realistic and feisty prostitute in Gulzar, directed, Mausam (1975), meanwhile, B.R. Ishara had already made the bold film Chetna (1970), with Rehana Sultan, clearly ringing in the end of monochromatic filmi-version of prostitutes and courtesans, which was seen in films like Bimal Roy's Devdas (1955), B. R. Chopra's Sadhna (1958) and even in Guru Dutt's classic Pyaasa. As the film evolves, Pushpa is no longer the fallen woman; she is not just redeemed — Anand Babu tells her, Tumne is kamre ko mandir bana diya (You have turned this room into a temple) – but in the end is deified, as she chooses to relinquish her profession and makes a living washing utensils, quietly suffering societal and psychological abuses all through the film, instead of fighting back or standing up for herself. This is also conveyed with the use of symbolism like the handful of mud being taken from Pushpa's brothel grounds to make goddess Durga idols prior to the annual Durga Puja festival, a popular festival of goddess worship. Further towards the end of the film, her purity is compared with that of the Ganges itself by Anand Babu, when she finally visits the banks of Hooghly river, a distributary of the sacred Ganges River to break her bangles after her ill-treating husband dies; and in the very end, the juxtaposition of the home-coming of Durga idols used in Durga Puja festival just as Nandu is taking Pushpa home. This makes her a veritable model for womanhood, although conservative and affirming patriarchal traditions. The fallen woman, solely longs to marry the man, but in vain, Pushpa too is reunited with Anand Babu in the end, however this is only a momentary meeting, and Anand Babu suggests she goes home with her foster son, Nandu as a mother. This genre was in direct contrast with similar maternal melodrama of 1930s Hollywood, where the abandoned mother often disappeared into oblivion and destitution; it continued in Hindi cinema for another decade, before the "avenging