'Chhathi Maiya' from The Vvaan: The Chhath Song Bollywood Almost Never Made

Hindi cinema has filmed Holi a hundred times. Karva Chauth has launched entire plotlines. Durga Puja pandals, Ganpati visarjan, Diwali rooftops — all of it, again and again.

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Chhath, almost never.

Which is why the teaser of 'Chhathi Maiya' — the second song from The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest, out in cinemas on 25 September 2026 — has landed the way it has. A mainstream Bollywood production, a Bhojpuri devotional track, Tamannaah Bhatia in a red saree standing in river water at dusk. For millions of families from Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Purvanchal diaspora, it is the first time the most demanding vrat in the Hindu calendar has been given the big screen without being turned into a joke or a backdrop.

So this post does two things. It tells you what the song and the film actually are. And then it tells you what Chhath actually is — because if the song is your first encounter with Chhathi Maiya, the tradition behind her deserves more than four minutes.

'Chhathi Maiya': The Song, and the Film

The Vvaan is a folklore-fantasy adventure set inside a dense forest — hidden secrets, supernatural forces, Van Devi imagery. 'Chhathi Maiya' is not decoration inside that world; by the makers' own account Chhath is woven into the film's spiritual spine. The first track, 'Samjho Na', was the romance. This one is the faith.

Composer Vishal Mishra framed the release as a Bhojpuri homecoming, calling the language “our soil, our pride.” Tamannaah Bhatia said she studied how the ritual is performed in Bihar and Patna before filming, and was “stunned to learn the power it holds.”

Why Bollywood Has Almost Never Filmed Chhath

It is worth asking honestly, because the answer explains the festival.

There is nothing to shoot in the conventional sense. No idol is installed. No pandal is built. No priest chants. There is no procession, no dance, no climax of visarjan. There is a woman standing waist-deep in cold river water at sunset, holding a bamboo soop of fruit toward the sky, saying nothing that a camera can subtitle.

The music was never in Hindi. Chhath's canon is folk — Bhojpuri and Maithili songs carried by women across generations, most famously by Sharda Sinha, whose voice defined the festival for half a century and who passed away in November 2024 on the eve of Chhath itself. That canon lived on cassette, radio and the ghats, not in film soundtracks.

And there is the older reason. For decades Hindi cinema treated Bihar and Purvanchal as shorthand for backwardness or comedy. A festival kept by tens of millions was simply outside the frame of what the industry considered aspirational. That is what makes a mainstream studio putting a Bhojpuri Chhath song at the centre of a big-budget fantasy notable, whatever you make of the film itself.

What Chhath Actually Is

Chhath Puja is a four-day vrat offered to Surya Dev, the visible sun, and to Chhathi Maiya — identified with Shashthi Devi, the goddess who protects children and grants progeny, and revered as Surya's sister.

Three things make it unlike any other Hindu observance:

1. The deity is visible

Almost every Hindu puja is offered to a murti, a yantra, a symbol. Chhath is offered directly to the sun in the sky. There is no consecrated image to install and no temple you must reach. The riverbank is the sanctum.

2. The setting sun is honoured first

This is the detail that stops people. The first arghya — Sandhya Arghya — is given to the setting sun. Only the next morning is arghya offered to the rising sun. Every other tradition in the world greets the sunrise. Chhath thanks the light on its way out before it welcomes it back. Whatever theology you bring to it, the moral instruction is unmistakable: gratitude is owed in decline, not only in ascent.

3. There is no priest

The parvaitin — the person keeping the vrat, usually a woman, though men keep it too — performs everything herself. No Brahmin intermediary, no fee, no Sanskrit she must be taught. Rich and poor stand in the same water on the same ghat. It is one of the most genuinely egalitarian rituals in Sanatan Dharma, and that is not a modern reinterpretation — it is how it has always been done.

Chhath Puja 2026: Dates & Four-Day Schedule

Arghya timings follow local sunset and sunrise, so they shift city to city. Confirm both against your local panchang closer to the date.

The thirty-six hours

From the moment the Kharna prasad is eaten on the evening of 14 November to parana on the morning of 16 November, the parvaitin takes no food and no water. Roughly thirty-six hours, nirjala, including two long walks to the ghat and hours standing in cold November river water.

It is, by a wide margin, the most physically demanding vrat in common Hindu practice. Nobody keeps it casually. That is the weight the song is reaching for.

Who Is Chhathi Maiya?

The Puranas identify her as Shashthi Devi, born of Brahma's own mind, the sixth aspect of Prakriti and the guardian of children — which is why she is invoked on the sixth day after a child's birth in many households across India, and why so much of Chhath is kept by mothers for the wellbeing of their children.

Folk tradition holds her to be the sister of Surya, which is why the two are worshipped together and why no arghya reaches Chhathi Maiya without passing through the sun.

The stories behind the vrat

• Karna. The Mahabharata's son of Surya is said to have stood waist-deep in water offering arghya to his father every day, distributing whatever he had afterwards. Many in Bihar trace the practice of standing in the river directly to him — and to Anga, his kingdom, present-day Bhagalpur.
• Draupadi and the Pandavas. During the exile, Draupadi is said to have kept the Surya vrat on the advice of Dhaumya rishi to restore the brothers' lost kingdom and health.
• Sita at Munger. A widely held tradition says Sita performed the first Chhath at Munger on the banks of the Ganga after returning from Lanka, at the Sita Charan temple that still stands there.
• Priyavrat and Malini. The Brahmavaivarta Purana tells of King Priyavrat, whose stillborn son was restored to life by Shashthi Devi — the origin story most often read as the Chhathi Maiya katha itself.

Chhath Samagri: What the Vrat Needs

Most of Chhath's samagri is deliberately humble and locally grown — sugarcane, seasonal fruit, coconut, thekua made at home in ghee. But the puja items themselves matter, and the one rule everyone observes is purity: nothing used for Chhath is used for anything else.

Bamboo soop and daura, sugarcane with leaves attached, thekua, coconut and seasonal fruit are best sourced fresh and local in the week before the festival.

If Sunday sun worship is something you want to carry through the year rather than only in Kartik, the Surya Dev Ravivar Vrat Katha eBook (₹49) covers the weekly vrat, its vidhi and katha.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the 'Chhathi Maiya' song from The Vvaan?
A Bhojpuri devotional track composed and sung by Vishal Mishra, written by Kaushal Kishore, released under Zee Music Company. It features Tamannaah Bhatia performing Chhath rituals by a river, and forms part of the film's folklore world. The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest releases on 25 September 2026.

When is Chhath Puja 2026?
13–16 November 2026. Nahay Khay on Friday 13 November, Kharna on Saturday 14 November, Sandhya Arghya on Sunday 15 November, and Usha Arghya with parana on Monday 16 November.

Why is the setting sun worshipped before the rising sun?
Because Chhath treats gratitude as owed at both ends of the cycle. Offering arghya to the sun as it declines, before greeting it at dawn, is the tradition's way of saying thanks is not conditional on gain.

Is Chhath only for women?
No. It is most often kept by women, but men keep the full vrat too, and the entire household participates in the preparation, the walk to the ghat and the arghya.

Do I need a river to keep Chhath?
A flowing river or pond is traditional, but families in cities and abroad keep it at artificial ghats, community tanks, and even rooftop tubs of clean water. The intention and the discipline are what the vrat rests on.

Can Chhath be kept without the 36-hour nirjala fast?
The nirjala vrat is the tradition's full form and is what the parvaitin keeps. Family members who are unwell, pregnant, elderly or medically unable participate in every other part — preparing prasad, accompanying to the ghat, offering arghya — without the waterless fast. Never attempt it against medical advice.

Is Chhath a Bihar-only festival?
No. It is kept across Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Nepal Terai, and travels with the Purvanchali diaspora — Delhi's Yamuna ghats, Mumbai's beaches, and communities in Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad and the Gulf.

A Song Is Not the Vrat

A four-minute track cannot carry thirty-six hours without water. It was never going to. But a festival that has spent a century outside the frame of mainstream Indian cinema is finally inside it, sung in its own language, and that is worth marking.

If 'Chhathi Maiya' is where you first met her, November is when you can actually meet her. The ghats will fill on the evening of 15 November, the sun will go down over the water, and thousands of people who have not had a sip of water since the previous evening will lift a bamboo soop and say nothing at all.

Jai Chhathi Maiya. 🙏