Minority communities have always served a token purpose in Hindi films. 'Rahim Chacha' or 'John Uncle' has served the same purpose in our films as the cleverly calculated vote banks of politicians, but times finally seem to be changing.

Though the Muslim community did get more mainstream treatment, particularly in the genre known as the Muslim Social, the Christian community remained largely marginalized.

Of course, there were several eminently memorable Christian characters in the films gone by -- for instance, Lalita Pawar's Mrs D'Sa in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Anari" and, of course, Amitabh Bachchan's Anthony in Manmohan Desai's "Amar Akbar Anthony".

But these stabs at secularism didn't really translate into genuine insights probing the psyche and workings of a community... until Aparna Sen's "36 Chowringhee Lane" focussed on the desolation of a Catholic spinster.

The film's fabulous authentic detailing of the inner and outer lives of Jennifer Kapoor's character served to mirror the entire community's ethos with unparalleled integrity. Bengali filmmaker Anjan Dutta attempted to probe the community in "Bada Din" (where Shabana Azmi played a cantankerous Christian landlady), but with limited success.

Sen's film apart, there were very few successful attempts to look at the Christian community with anything more than a 'tokenist's' curiosity. Hiren Nag's "Anhkiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se" and Bharathi Raja's "Lovers" tried to pin down a Hindu-Christian romance into a formulistic pattern.

But now one notices a sudden resurgence of the Catholic-Christian community in Hindi films. Time was when full-fledged films on their lives were sporadic - "Akhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se" and Shyam Benegal's "Trikaal" were two films in the past which were set in the Christian community.

Now in quick succession we have Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" and Vinod Pande's "Sins" set entirely in the Christian community.

And Bengali director Anjan Dutta, who had set his Hindi film "Bada Din" in the Anglo-Indian community, has completed his English "Bow Barrack" which is again set in the Christian community.

In debutant director Sanjay F. Gupta's stylishly assembled "Karam", John Abraham's character John is again a Catholic, albeit indulging in extremely un-Christian activities.

Debutant director Sashi Kumar's neglected "Kaya Taran" is set in a convent and depicts a crisis in the lives of the nuns played by Seema Biswas and others.

Another new release, "Socha Na Tha", is partly located in a Catholic home. Debutante Apoorva Jha, who plays Abhay Deol's fiancée, is Karen. And much of the humour stems from the Hindu hero mock-warning his Catholic girlfriend's parents about the pitfalls of cultural and religious conversion. Like the heroine's grandfather in Raj Kapoor's "Bobby" 30 years ago, the girl's father in "Socha Na Tha" spends most of his time drinking.

The stereotypes of minority-ism do not cut into the fact that films and filmmakers are looking at setting their films in the Christian community.

Sanjay Bhansali who pegged two of his films, his debut-making venture "Khamoshi: The Musical" and now "Black" in the Christian community, feels the ambience afforded by such a setting renders itself effectively to cinema.

"The church, the organ music, candles and candle-lit interiors, the whole discipline and etiquette of the Christian community makes very aesthetic cinema," says Bhansali.

Is that why so many debutant directors -- from Aparn Sen to Bhansali to Imtiaz Ali and Sanjay F. Gupta -- have pitched their films in the church?