The impact of mythology on Indian art and storytelling dates at least two thousand years back to the Nāṭyaśāstra and continues to be felt strongly in the current day. While some of the most beloved and revered works of Indian cinema are rooted directly in mythology, the influence goes down to the bedrock of how cinema tells stories. Mainstream and mass-oriented cinema especially draw significant influence from epics such as the “Ramayana” and the “Mahabharata”, often wearing the association openly and blatantly on its sleeve.

In recent years, audiences and critics have expressed exasperation with multiple tropes of storytelling in mainstream Indian cinema, many of which can be traced back to the aforementioned mythological epics. These tropes include nonlinear plots, long-form storytelling, and the centering of a near-godly central figure. When seen through a modern lens, these tropes manifest as film narratives with excessive flashback or frame narrative portions, overlong runtimes stretched across multiple films,...