Love in Bollywood

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What is Love? Ask a kid and she would say that it was love that Shahid and Kareena felt for each other in “Jab We Met”. Ask me and I would narrate you the story of “Maine Pyar Kiya” and how I had my first crush on Salman Khan after watching that movie. Movies have impacted our lives in a lot of ways. Even though we try hard not to believe in what is shown on the silver screen, we still build castles of dreams based on what we see in movies. Movies to an extent deviate from real life and tend to fantasize, but still reel life is not so different from real life 🙂

 

Love according to the previous generation had a totally different meaning. Even though the hero and heroine liked each other, it would take them 3 hours (of the movie) to express that. Hero is usually a poor chap with a single widow for a mother. Heroine is the only daughter to a big industrialist. Heroine’s father is against their marriage and the story revolves around their union or separation. Sometimes, heroine is poor or brought up in a brothel, but that would not hinder the spirits of our “Pyaasa” hero, thirsting for love. But the heroes do anything and everything possible to be with their woman. They take extreme steps and sacrifice their lives sometimes to marry that one lady love of theirs. They even drown themselves in alcohol, the way Dilip did in “Devdas“. In some cases, the heroine stops fighting and marries a different man giving heed to her parents’ wishes in a “Kabhi Kabhie” style. This is probably what happened in Kal. It would take immense courage to like a girl and propose her. It would also need a big nerve from the girl’s side to accept this proposal and go against the wishes of her parents. There were movies where the hero would not hesitate to sacrifice his love so that his lady love “Chandni” could lead a happy life.

Now let’s look at Aaj – our generation. There was a time when I watched “Maine Pyar Kiya” as a kid and assumed I would fall in love with someone who would be my best friend, the way Salman is to the heroine. I thought this exactly was how my love story was going to be. But do you think any boy in this generation would leave his family and parents for a girl? Would he toil day and night, when he is stinking rich, just for the sake of his lady love? I always thought these things actually happened in real life, when I was young. Every girl who watched “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” in school thought her knight in shining armor would take her away against her parents’ wishes. She never felt that the boy of her dreams could leave her just because he was scared that her parents will not agree for an inter-caste marriage. Nor did she think that a simple misunderstanding could make the guy leave her, forever. Reality strikes upon you, only when you get old enough to understand that all this was crap. There is nothing called true love and your dream boy just stays in your dream. Not that no guy exists who would fight for his girl. But there exists no guy who meets all your expectations. You have to compromise for something or the other.

Most guys like to have girl friends, so that they can show off in front of their friends. As soon as the word “marriage” is taken out, they get into a fix. Usually guys like their “space” and “independence” and visualize marrying at the age of 40, but by the time they reach 30, all the nice girls are married with kids. Commitment is something that totally freaks them out. It is easier to say “I love you”, than saying “Will you marry me”. The question to be asked is will they fight for their girl, if the entire world is against their marriage? Will a guy act like Aamir in “Dil” or “Qayamat se Qayamat Tak“? He might in rare cases but there are more chances that their marriage will crumble like it does in “Saathiya“.

I have seen plenty of real life examples of a rich girl marrying a poor boy. These “Raja Hindustani”s do end up with a rich girl, but their life is not so rosy. Parents have disowned their children in such marriages. The society is becoming broad-minded but it still has to go a long way before the rich-poor and the caste system’s interference in marriages vanishes. I never believed that a girl and a guy could actually fall in love by looking into each other’s eyes, the way it happens in movies. But when you see or experience this happening in real life, you know that there is a thin line separating the reel and the real life.

As soon as “Dil to Pagal Hai” got released, all the school and college crushes revolved around finding their “Maya” and later realizing they had found not one, but dozens of Mayas 😮 College crushes are not exactly “love”. All those who thought they were in “love” understood this, when their Aishwarya left them for Devgan (like “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam”), only because he was better and they realized that it was not “love” afterall 😛 Not all heart-broken people attempting to suicide, find their Kareena on a train (like “Jab We Met”). Do they? 🙂 Best friends always end up liking each other and “Kuch kuch hota hai” between them. This theory even though flawed, is not completely flawed. Most of the times, friendship is the stepping stone for love. When you want to spend some time alone with that special friend and you are totally comfortable with that, you are hardly friends anymore.

But I doubt if there will ever exist any couple like “Veer Zaara” in real life. It just seems so unbelievable. Leading a lonely life is so frightening that people inevitably end up finding a new partner, after losing one. Instead of such ‘fairy tale’ movies, one should picturize something realistic. Boy and girl do fall in love, but no boy leaves his rich dad for his love, nor will the boy fight for the girl and ruin his own life. It is parents, who remind their children time and again about their future and all they get back are blank stares from their children. Children usually have no idea what is happening in their life, until parents give them an ultimatum for marriage. A boy will never run behind a girl, acting like a “Devdas”. In movies, a hero tries to woo his arrogant heroine by following her, singing and teasing her. Just because a guy is irritating in real life, girls do not start liking him, the way heroines do in movies. The guy would instead receive some kicks and slaps 🙂

Why can’t they make movies more realistic? Prepare girls for what lies ahead in life. Instead of making them dream about their ideal boy, make them realize that no dream boy exists. Make them aware of the fact that no knight in shining armor is going to take them away. There are hardly any “happily ever after” these days. And this is where the similarity between reel life and real life ends. Real life is harsh, crude and more hurting than reel life. Wish movies would stop showcasing such impossible, fairy tales.

“Hum ek baar jithe hain, ek baar marte hain, shaadi bhi ek baar hoti hai, aur pyar….ek hi baar hota hai” from the lover boy, SRK himself 🙂

~By Dexcius (check this to know more about me and the legend of Indiana Legends)

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