The painted portrait in Indian cinema or the legacy of Sanskrit theater

This paper proposes to consider the painted portrait in popular Hindi cinema as a figure inherited from Sanskrit theatre. This means that in a dramatic work the act of painting takes on the function of internal joinder (antara sandhi) ; the painted portrait is endowed with a dynamic of its own - shakti [strength] - contributing to the progression of the narrative thread. Popular Hindi cinema follows this concept, giving the portrait a special place in the narrative.