The Householder (1963) and Siddhartha (1972), that were filmed in India with an Indian cast and story. Also excluded are other Hollywood comedies such as The Guru (2002) and The Love Guru (2008). I also have not included an Indian film Sins (2005) which was about a Christian priest. There are numerous Hollywood films made on similar themes of asceticism in Christianity which are beyond the scope of this article, for instance, Scarlet Letter (1995) and I Confess (1953). All of the films introduced here were made by Indian filmmakers except for two Hollywood films, 1 1 Dev Anands autobiography Romancing with life appears to be a very honest portrayal of the man called Dev Anand. In this article, I review several films to analyze the portrayal of ascetics and householders, but cannot claim that the review is encyclopedic because there are so many films with variations on this theme. Whereas the ascetic captured the imagination with his (and sometimes her) individualistic spirit rebelling against the maligned caste hierarchy, the householder has been seen as a poor creature living a routine life according to the rules dictated by the caste (varna) and the stage in life (ashrama). The image of a half-naked ascetic with a stick in one hand and a begging bowl in other has captured the attention of scholars more often than the mundane householder. Renunciation is one of the most widely studied subjects among Indic traditions.
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