Manjulika: The Vengeful Spirit of Bhool Bhulaiyaa Franchise
Who Is Manjulika ?
Manjulika is a fictional vengeful spirit that first appeared in the movie Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a psychological horror/comedy that was released in the year 2007. Though it didn’t have any physical form, according to the narrative of the story, Manujlika was once a famous Bengali dancer whose soul is in unrest as she and her lover Shashidhar, who was also a courtyard dancer, were executed by the king while performing in the king’s court. The early concept of Manjulika can be traced back to a 1993 Malayalam film by the name Manichitrathazhu.
The movie served as the blueprint for Chandramukhi, the popular Tamil film starring the legendary Rajinikanth, which sparked a number of regional and national remakes. The Hindi adaptation of it, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, renamed the vengeful spirit of Chandramukhi as Manjulika. But due to its grand scale of production and distribution, the character of Manjulika became synonymous amongst all masses.
The Dark Lore Of Jealousy & Death !!!
Manjulika was once the most famous dancer from undivided Bengal who was known for her beauty, dance, and physical attire. Since her early age, she danced in many famous dance rooms (kotha) and royal palaces, where mostly the wealthy men came to see her performance and her beauty. Manjulika knew the bitter truth that the wealthy only lusted her body and not the soul. But as any other normal woman, she also had a heart that desired true love, and this love came from Shashidhar, a co-dancer who she met while serving regular performances at Vibhuti Narayan’s palace. Their love quickly blossomed into butterflies, but on the sinister side, King Vibhuti Narayan had also fallen for her. King Vibhuti Narayan was known for his cruel nature; he had a tendency toward brutality amongst the commoners. When Manjulika got to know about the situation, to protect Shashidhar she made a sinister plan to poison the king. But her plan foiled, as the king got the secret information of his murder and decided to kill both of them, and as the tragedy happened. One day while performing, King Vibhuti Narayan beheads Shashidhar in front of her, and after a while he stabs her to her death, making her unrest soul roam around the place for eternity to seek her vengeance and to kill the cruel king.
Transformation Of Avni To Manjulika
In the film, Avni (Vidya Balan) is a soft-spoken modern-day woman who started to get possessed by the spirit of Manjulika as she entered her husband’s ancestral home. The spirit of Manjulika started to associate Siddharth Chaturvedi (Shiney Ahuja) with the evil king Vibhuti Narayan as he was the fourth generation, resulting in the sinister possession of her wife, leading towards a series of unwanted happenings amongst the couple and the family. Later on, the iconic character of Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar) comes in rescue to solve the mystery. The movie in the 2nd half takes a more scientific approach to possession and terms it into a case of dissociative identity disorder (DID). This well-balanced blend of supernatural with science made both the film and the spirit of Manjulika forever to be remembered.
The Symbolism Of Manjulika
The fictional folklore of Manjulika represents the extremism of unfulfilled desires; it also takes a big dig on how jealousy can destroy people, so much so that a tragic soul becomes vengeful. As the film leads towards its end, Dr. Aditya explains how the childhood trauma of Avni intertwined with the tragic story of Manjulika, resulting in the possession or dissociative identity disorder and the series of horrors in Chaturvedi’s ancestral home. Unfulfilled desires are often the prime origin of supernatural folklore, both real and fictional. Both Avni and Manjulika were deeply in love with their grandmother and Shashidhar, respectively. In both stories, their pure love ended on a bitter note, making them lose hope in society.
The Legacy Of Manjulika
The character of Manjulika gave both the flavour of chills and empathy towards the audiences, making the film a commercial success. The fictional folklore of Manjulika had a classic trait of Indian horror stories where a vengeful spirit roams and also protects an ancient property with dark and hidden stories. The zamindari era of pre- and post-independent India witnessed some of the local folklores that are related to the story of Bhool Bhulaiyaa, where many ancient wealthy families and properties got destroyed by the curses of unfulfilled souls of the innocents. This can be one of the prime reasons why the film and the characters are still fresh in people’s minds. That is due to its reliability with the folktale that Indian grandmothers usually tell to their grandchildren. The character became so famous that it led to a film series that has no connection with the original film people usually love to rewatch.
Manjulika’s Connection With The New Bhool Bhulaiyaa Franchise
The character of Manjulika became so famous that it led to a franchise with little to no connection to the original remake! The spirit of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 was only named Manjulika, only to cash grab old sentiments of the audiences. The new Manjulika, played by great actor Tabu, is evil from the beginning, and the twin plot adds more confusion to the story. The spirit who once represented unfulfilled desires now represents the greedy angle of jealousy. This is quite a downgrade towards the character that is still remembered from the original film. The third part of the film franchise is re-introducing Vidya Balan, who played Avni from the first movie, once again to play the titular role of Manjulika, but true film fans know that this is also a chash grab. When a retelling of a good character doesn’t work, film makers often recast old actors to gain the emotions of the audience once again.
Conclusion
Weather the 3rd installment manages to connect with the audience that is up to its release (1 November 2024). But it is for sure whenever there is a talk on the topic of Manjulika, it is always Priyadarshan’s well-crafted horror comedy that always sticks in people’s minds, and the great performance by Vidya Balan with the haunting, magnificent voice of Shreya Ghoshal on the track “Ami Je Tomar” just adds a cherry on top.