The Mythology of Tumbbad

Myths around Tumbbad

Before I start with the mythology of Tumbbad, let me first bust some myths around Tumbbad. Many YouTube videos and contents on the internet are spreading some misinformation. The first myth is that Hastar is an actual entity within Hinduism, who was forgotten. Hastar is purely a work of fiction and even the creators tried distancing their mythology with Hinduism.

The second myth is that the story is inspired by real events that happened in the village of Tumbbad. Their rationale is that the events are real because the village is real. Let me reverse engineer it. There is an actual village called Tumbad in the Konkan region of Maharashtra. But the village ‘Tumbbad’ with an extra b is purely fictional and was created for the film. The name 'Tumbbad' name itself was supposed to be temporary. It was borrowed by writer-director Rahi Anil Barve from the Marathi novel 'Tumbad che Khot' written by S.N. Pendse. This novel is again is based in a fictional town whose name was borrowed from the actual Tumbad village.

But 'Tumbad che Khot' didn't inspire the story of the film. The story was inspired by another Marathi book written by author Narayan Dharap. It was a short story from the book ‘Anolkhi Disha’, Part 3. In this book, there was a short story titled "Aaji" which means grandmother.

I have not read the story but the basic premise goes that a girl is left alone with her grandmother who gets possessed by a ghost. This could be the inspiration behind the scene when young Vinayak is left alone with the very old great-great-grandmother.

I am not aware if Hastar was mentioned in that story, but Hastar is originally a character created by American author Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft is considered the creator of the Cosmic Horror genre. Cosmic horror is something in which one doesn't fully understand the evil entity in the story, but it has psychological effects on the characters. Films like Bird Box and A Quiet Place can be considered examples of cosmic horror.

Narayan Dharap was heavily inspired by Lovecraft's creations and adapted many of his concepts in his stories. In a way, Narayan Dharap brought the cosmic horror genre to Marathi literature. Of course, with localisation. So, I guess he must have mentioned Hastar somewhere in his stories. One of the key themes of Lovecraft is forbidden knowledge. In Tumbbad it is knowledge of Hastar and his forbidden wealth.

Mythology of Tumbbad

The film begins with an exposition in which we are informed about the story of Hastar and his curse. This story is heavily derived from Hindu mythology, even though it is purely fictional and created for the sake of the film. The Purti Ki Devi is a combination of Bhu-Devi (earth goddess), Aditi (mother of gods), Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) and Annapurna (goddess of food). The Devi giving birth to 16 crores, sounds similar to Aditi's 33 crore sons (a mistranslation of 33 kinds). Although not quite related to Vedic mythology, Hastar has one similarity with Vedic Rudra. Rudra is referred to as scary and all the gods and people were scared of him. Apart from that, there is no similarity.

Hastar like any other creation of Lovecraft is a demonic god of greed. He is greedy, and he spreads greediness. The emergence of multiple Hastars in the climax is actually a metaphor for ever-rising wants.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Why 'Tumbbad' took so long to complete? 'तुंबाड'ला इतकी वर्षं का लागली? (BBC News Marathi) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckp7h2vGSM0

2. https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/hollywood-features/subversive-artistic-and-rooted-the-new-hindi-horror-film/