This character appears in the movie for perhaps ten minutes in all. Megha’s character was initially meant to be a guest appearance, but it created such an impact when the initial rushes debuted that her screen time was extended and she was given a more pivotal role in the plot. She appears only in flashbacks and dreams throughout, but it wouldn’t be wrong to say that she drives the events in the movie – everything that happens is directly or indirectly influenced by her.

The flashback scenes featuring Megha, her lover Raj Aryan, and her father Narayan Shankar are also the movie’s most engaging ones. The main plot, centering on three college students and their love interests, seems lacking in emotional heft in comparison, and borders on the insufferable at times (Looking at you, Uday Chopra and Shamita Shetty. Oh, and special mention of Kim Sharma). The six younger leads were launched with considerable fanfare in Mohabbatein. None of them were able to make it in Bollywood. When I rewatched this movie nearly 20 years later, it’s obvious why. Watching them on screen made me feel like my brain was liquefying into a puddle.

Plot summary

Narayan Shankar is the principal of Gurukul, a college which ahs the reputation of producing stellar graduates. Shankar runs the college with an iron fist, emphasising discipline above all else, and forbidding all pursuits he deems frivolous, like music, art and dance.

Three students begin their first year at Gurukul. Soon after, they fall in love with girls they meet outside college, but cannot do anything about it, because Gurukul takes a stern view of students pursuing romantic relationships, and Shankar has been known to summarily expel students who were found to be in a relationship. One of the boys narrates a legend of one such student who was poised to be a great success, but fell in love with a girl. This girl was Shankar’s only daughter. Shankar expelled the student despite having no other disciplinary or academic ground other than him being in a relationship. His heartbroken daughter then committed suicide.

Around this time, Raj Aryan joins Gurukul as a music teacher. Shankar is initially opposed to his joining, but gives in. Aryan is very unconventional, and goes against Gurukul principles right from the outset. He believes strongly in the power of love and art, and encourages his students to do the same. He takes special interest in the three boys, and helps them win over the girls they like.

Shankar is furious that Gurukul’s rules are being breached repeatedly, and expels the three boys. It is then revealed that Aryan was the student who had fallen in love with Shankar’s daughter, and that he has returned because he felt sorry for his beloved girlfriend’s father, who was spending the last years of his life lonely and grieving. Aryan bitterly tells Shankar that though he may have won the battle of discipline triumphing over love, he has lost far more – he lost his daughter over his inflexible principles, and is now losing a man who intended to be a son to him and look after him in his old age.

Shankar is shattered, and revokes the boys’ suspension. He then retires, and names Raj Aryan as his successor. The film closes on Aryan and Shankar walking together. Shankar’s daughter Megha also walks with them, in spirit.

Megha’s navigation of heartbreak

One truly feels for Megha. We see her in Raj Aryan’s constant daydreams – he keeps no photograph of hers because he feels she is with him every moment, and she does appear very frequently, especially on lovey-dovey occasions like Holi and Valentine’s Day parties, when the students are all with their girlfriends.

But we really see her for the person she was in Narayan Shankar’s flashback. Shankar has likely been a widower for a long time. Megha, only in her late teens, has assumed the role of housekeeper and caretaker for her middle-aged father, and it is apparent that she has been doing this for some time – she inhabits the role with confidence and the ease of habit. She is introduced singing a morning aarti – she has been up and dressed much earlier than her father, who has only just arrived. She anoints him with a teeka and gives him prasad, traditionally the duty of either the mother or the wife. She then begins to reel off a long list of things she has done for her father – she has made him his morning tea, kept it by his chair along with the newspaper, arranged for his meals, and sent his clothes to be ironed. Shankar listens passively, clearly used to having his chores done for him. Megha is the antithesis of a pampered daddy’s princess!

She adds, as an afterthought, that it is her birthday, and her father can wish her, if he wants. Shankar is clearly not winning any Father of the Year awards – he has forgotten it is her birthday. He even says as much, calling himself the world’s worst father. But Megha evidently cares for him both physically and emotionally – she lets him off the hook immediately, assuring him he is the world’s best father.

The unfortunate Megha has an admirer, Raj Aryan, who has spotted her during a field trip. He sends her a note on a dry leaf, and she accepts almost immediately. Not very realistic, but par for the course for Bollywood. The young couple spend a few blissful stolen moments together, but are soon discovered by Shankar, who seems to want to step up his game as the world’s worst father. He gives his daughter the impression that he is not opposed to her relationship, and then expels Raj Aryan, ensuring that she has no way to contact him.

The positively angelic Megha is seen performing the same morning routine she has been doing for years after hearing of Aryan’s being expelled and gone forever. She does the morning aarti, makes her father his tea and breakfast, and gives him her usual morning report. The only sign of strain she displays is red-rimmed eyes, from a night spent crying, and tears which still threaten to overflow at times when she speaks. Her father praises her composure and how easily she has acceded to his wishes, without trying to see how affected she is. It has affected her tremendously, though, because that is the last he sees of her. Megha commits suicide by throwing herself off a balcony the same day.

Megha’s character is not meant to be relatable – we see her only through the eyes of Raj Ryan or Narayan Shankar, who both idealise her. But it is hard not to feel terrible for Megha, despite her complete perfection and flawlessness. Her entire life, she has received next to no nurturing from her distant father, and when she does find someone who seems to truly care for her and is capable of fulfilling her emotional needs, he is snatched away from her. But this is what we expect from our young women as a society, I suppose – for them to exist on the margins of men’s lives, and never have needs and feelings of their own. When their needs assert themselves, as they inevitably will, they must suppress them brutally, lest they make the men uncomfortable, or cease to exist altogether.

The takeaway

We’ve been coached since infancy to aspire to the same perfection Megha portrays in Mohabbatein, and I’m guilty of forcing down and bottling up my emotions and opinions on several occasions, because I didn’t want to rock the boat. I’ve done this both in the family, and in my relationship. This suppression gave me no strategies to cope healthily with conflict and negative emotions, and I’m trying hard to work on this.

I have a feeling I’ve been idealised in much the same way as Megha was, by my ex-partner, especially. But I have to take some of the blame for it, because I let the illusion continue, and put unreasonable amounts of pressure on myself to live up to the image. This caused strain to the relationship as well. It left me feeling resentful, and when I tried to assert what I wanted and how I felt, my partner was taken aback and couldn’t reconcile this side of me with what he had been used to for so long. But being ideal comes at a great cost – the woman must cease to exist altogether as a human being, and forever subsume herself to what the other person wants. That is not a life I want, and I will try and be more authentic going forward, in everything. It will cost me some relationships, but I am better off without unrealistic expectations thrust on me anyway.

 

 

 

 

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is a great film to mark the beginning of the new era in Bollywood, also signalling changing social attitudes towards young women and relationships in India. The relationship in this movie is not mediated via the pressures of family and honour; the problems caused are purely due to individual personalities. This made the characters and their dilemmas relatable to upper middle class urban young people, who saw their own lives mirrored in the film, and made the film an unexpected hit.

Plot summary

Aditi and Jai are as different as chalk and cheese. Aditi is quick tempered and ever ready to get into a fight. Jai is peace-loving, calm, measured, and hates fighting. Despite their differences, the two are best friends, and spend every waking moment together. Everyone around them – their parents, their college mates, their gang of friends – think they make a great couple. Aditi’s parents even invite Jai over to formalise their relationship and arrange for their wedding. The two friends are horrified, and worry that this perception might cause issues with potential partners in the future. They decide to find each other their ideal partners, so that the other is above suspicion.

Jai finds a girlfriend soon after when the friends are at a local pub – he saves Meghna from being harassed by two men without resorting to violence, and she is impressed. An unexpected fallout is that Jai starts to behave with Meghna just as he used to behave with Aditi, and spends disproportionate amounts of time with her. This leaves Aditi feeling neglected. When she points this out to a common friend, she tells her that Jai was always this way, except that he focused his full attention on Aditi instead of Meghna. This makes Aditi realise that she has feelings for Jai.

She can’t possibly break up Jai’s relationship, though, and decides to start seeing the son of a family friend, Sushant Modi. He initially seems perfect for her – he is virile, tough and manly – the picture of her dream man. Her brother tries to intervene, but Aditi ignores him and gets engaged to Sushant.

At the birthday party of a common friend, Aditi introduces Sushant to the gang as her fiance. All the couples pair up for a slow dance, and Aditi struggles with seeing Jai with Meghna. Jai, too, is unpleasantly surprised with Aditi getting engaged. Sushant kisses Aditi while they are dancing, and Jai is so upset that he abruptly leaves the party. Meghna tries to cheer him up, but he shouts at her, calling her childish and unrealistic. Meghna is very hurt, and tells Jai that her habit of constantly making up childish fairy stories about the world around her is a defence mechanism she evolved to cope with her parents constantly fighting. The next day, they decide to break up.

Meanwhile, Sushant, who suspects Aditi has feelings for Jai, forces her to confess, and ends up slapping her. Aditi breaks up with him, and decides to leave the country and her heartbreak behind. She enrolls for a course in New York to study filmmaking, to this end.

Jai hears that Aditi is leaving the country, and goes to meet her. He sees her bruised, and immediately realises that Sushant physically abused her. He goes to Sushant and thrashes him, indulging in violence for the first time in his life.

He is arrested for this, and meets the same men who were harassing Meghna when he first met her. They turn out to be village yokels with a specific mission – to be arrested. They tell Jai that they are from a very well connected family, and hence find it impossible to be arrested in their hometown. They move to Mumbai, where they are unknown, so they can be arrested. This was why they had been harassing Meghna. When Jai hears the name of their hometown, he realises that they are his longlost cousins, Baloo and Bagheera. His cousins explain that they wanted to be arrested so desperately to fulfill all the criteria required to be considered a real man in their clan. These criteria are to ride a horse, get into a fistfight, and be arrested. The two have finally fulfilled all the criteria, and Jai has fulfilled two – getting into a fist fight and getting arrested.

Jai explains the situation with Aditi to his cousins, and they offer him a horse so that he can get to the airport, despite an ongoing transport strike. They also get him released from jail by making calls to an important politician.

It is Jai’s first time riding a horse, but he takes to it naturally, and rides to the airport. Aditi has already checked in and cleared security, and Jai cannot speak to her. He breaks through security, and sings her the song he had always said he would sing only to the love of his life, when he found her. Aditi is delighted, and decides not to go to New York.

The closing scene takes place several months after. Jai and Aditi are now married, and are returning from their honeymoon, while their friends wait to receive them.

Aditi’s navigation of heartbreak

Aditi’s heartbreak is interesting, because it is one of the rare ones in Bollywood which is not caused by a disapproving parent/guardian. It is also a heartbreak occasioned by a relationship she had never acknowledged until half the film, further complicating how she expresses it outwardly.

She is initially only threatened and feels left out by Jai’s sudden and complete devotion to his girlfriend. She tries to get his attention by “playfully” breaking the couple apart by doing things like interrupting them when they are cuddling. She refuses to admit to herself that her actions stem from something far deeper than just wanting to tease her best friend. She realises this when a common friend points out Jai’s tendency had always been to attach himself to one person – the only difference is that she has been supplanted.

Even when she grows aware and accepts her true feelings for Jai, she cannot express them outwardly, because she is ashamed. After denying being in love with him for so long and so vociferously, she cannot do a complete turnaround now, when Jai is in a happy relationship.

Her response to the situation is largely summed up in this song:

She asks herself “jaana na jaana, kaise maine na jaana, yeh pyaar hi toh hai” [how did I not realise this was love?]

But it is too late now. Aditi has never been passive, and possibly for the first time, she finds herself in a situation about which she simply cannot do anything. There is nothing to do but watch silently; allow herself to accept her blindness and get over the grief. She is perhaps too young and inexperienced to realise this, however. She must act; she must feel she is doing something so she can give herself the impression that her life is still under her control; she is still moving forward. So she jumps into a relationship with a man who seems impressive on the surface, without delving too deep into his personality. She commits quickly, even getting engaged to him. She tries desperately to lose herself in this new relationship, only to realise, when she comes face to face with Jai after a long time, how completely useless all of it was. She finds herself still inexorably in love with him, and it causes her pain to see him in love with Meghna. It is at this stage she realises all her frenzied activity cannot help her get over Jai, and breaks down.

Sushant’s physical abuse surely was a horrific shock for a cosseted young woman brought up by liberal, adoring parents, but her continued state of being off-colour is due to her grief over Jai. She barely seems to register Sushant’s abuse or his leaving her life. Her new understanding of her grief brings her a measure of peace, though. She continues to grieve, but realises she has no answers for when, or if, this grief will ever end. She decides to focus on on other areas of her life instead of wallowing, and finds herself an opportunity for a clean start.

The takeaway

Several of Aditi’s dilemmas were relatable to me. The circumstances of my relationship were different, and my family’s reaction to it was very different, but I saw several of my own actions mirrored in her behaviour.

I was in denial for a while, too, and got into another relationship for the most superficial reasons. Of course, it fizzled out, and like Aditi, I had to deal with the consequences of committing too quickly.

I also recognise the urgency to act, to always keep doing something, because that way one feels that one still has some control over one’s life, and that things aren’t at an absolute standstill and are actually moving. Even if the direction they are moving in is the way to hell. But hey, no time to pay heed to these details when you are caught up in a frenzy of activity!

I am only recently learning that everything is not solved by doing. Sometimes, the only thing to do is just be. I have to accept the way things are, without thinking of the past or worrying about the future. I have to force myself to stay in the present, feel the grief, the emptiness, the lack of meaning life seems to have. Because that’s all there is to do, really. All the running and chasing in the world will not bring him him back.

The other thing to do is to focus on other aspects of my life. Travel solo. Learn new things. Exercise. Stop putting things off for “later”. How Aditi deals with grief here, by applying to study in New York to give herself a new start, seems like an approach several young women (let me qualify: urban area-dwelling, economically independent) take. It’s a wise idea to put relationships on hold for a while, and put my energies into becoming a better version of myself.

It is hard, to be honest. I am low on motivation, and I am constantly freaking out about the future, and there are always days when his absence makes everything meaningless. But one foot in front of the other. One day after another.

I’m not completely sure Masaan fits into the “Bollywood” category – it is an arthouse film, critically acclaimed but hasn’t made any sort of impact on the public imagination. I’m writing about it because a) it is a Hindi film with actors who also act in Bollywood films, and b) I intend to watch and write about the arthouse films of the 70s and 80s, and if I include them, there is no reason not to include Masaan.

Plot summary

Masaan has two parallel plots, both set in Varanasi, but entirely unrelated to one another. The thread which links them is that they are both stories of two individuals, socially disempowered in different ways, dealing with the loss of a lover.

The first story is of Devi. Devi is Brahmin and middle class. While not wealthy, her financial circumstances are still comfortable enough to ensure she has the basic means of survival. She herself works as a trainer in a computer institute, and has control over at least some of what she earns.

When the film begins, Devi is shown leaving her house, then changing into a saree in a public toilet, and then meeting her boyfriend and checking into a motel with him. The saree, then, is so that she can “look” married. The two intend to consummate their relationship. Her boyfriend Piyush hands her a wrapped present, after which the camera cuts to the couple having sex. They are still in the middle of the act when they are interrupted by loud knocking. Devi’s disguise proves insufficient; the motel owner suspects they are unmarried and has called the police on them.

The police film the couple in undress, and are threatening to call their families, when Piyush bolts himself into the bathroom and commits suicide.

Devi is bailed out by her father, Vidyadhar, a priest. The police inspector demands a bribe of three lakh rupees for hushing up the matter.

Once home, the father–daughter duo grapple with the aftermath of the incident. Vidyadhar is under immense financial pressure to pay off the inspector, and also struggles to understand and deal with the “shame” aspect of his daughter’s engaging in premarital sex. Devi is forced to hide her grief at Piyush’s death under the greater threat of  infamy. She is fired from her job, and has to leave another job as well, when the news reaches there. She finally gets a government job as a ticket issuer in the railways, but decides to escape the small town for a bigger city as soon as she can. To this end, she applies for a course in Allahabad, and gets through. Her father is distraught when he learns of her plans, and begs her not to leave, but she remains firm.

The film’s parallel protagonist is Deepak, the younger son in a family of untouchable crematorium workers. The family hopes Deepak will be able to escape the trap of their traditional caste occupation, and send him to get a degree in Civil Engineering at a local polytechnic. Deepak is all too aware of the burden of expectations on him, and studies diligently. He falls in love with Shaalu, an upper caste girl. He initially conceals his caste from her, but is forced to reveal it when she enquires where he lives. She assures him she does not mind, and encourages him to get a good job so they can marry. Deepak redoubles his efforts in the ongoing placement season. He is woken up one night to help out at the crematorium, because an unusually large number of bodies have arrived after a bus accident. Deepak discovers Shaalu’s corpse amidst the dead bodies, and is devastated. He loses all interest in getting placed, and spends the next few days in a grief-induced haze. He accidentally loses Shaalu’s ring, the last token he had of her, in the Ganga, and cannot find it again. This incident snaps him out of his grief, and he begins to attend interviews again, getting placed as an engineer in Allahabad.

Devi visits Piyush’s family in Allahabad, in an attempt to find closure, but is abused by his family. The film closes with her sitting on the banks of the Ganga in Allahabad, where she immerses Piyush’s gift to her, still unwrapped, in the river, just as one immerses ashes. Deepak spots her crying, and offers her water. He then joins her on a boat ride to the Sangam, and it is hinted that the two have a chance at a new beginning.

Devi’s navigation of heartbreak

Devi struggling to deal with Piyush’s loss are some of the movie’s most poignant scenes. There is no dialogue, because Devi has no one to speak to about her grief. Devi’s predicament is that according to society’s rationale, what she should be mourning is the loss of her honour. There is the more tangible stressor of having to pay the inspector a bribe. Despite all of this, Devi’s grief over losing Piyush seeps into the cracks anyway. We see nothing of how their relationship began, and Devi explanation of their getting together to have sex is entirely void of sentimentality – she tells the inspector that she was curious about the act. Despite this, Devi is wracked with grief over losing Piyush, and he haunts her thoughts constantly. She breaks a cultural taboo by going to the ghats to watch his last rites being performed, and cries as she watches (from a distance, of course – she cannot join his family without serious repercussions).  She obsessively visits his Facebook page, trying to piece together the person her lover was from his posts and photos. She attempts to call his family and eventually visits their house in Allahabad. It cannot be simply because Piyush gave her attention in a world where she was a nobody – Devi is the recipient of a man’s attention even afterwards. She had a definite connection with him – perhaps love, perhaps just the possibility of “something more”. Piyush is intimately connected with her attempt to leave home as well – she chooses his city to escape to, to hold on to a connection with him as long as she possibly can. Her leaving is also an attempt at trying to escape to a world where a Piyush is no longer so much out of reach; where a Devi can meet a Piyush and pursue the possibilities they both see with each other, without the horrible repercussions small-town life inflicts on them.

The takeaway

For me, a huge bonus was seeing the juxtaposition of Devi and Deepak dealing with heartbreak. Devi’s heartbreak is intimately bound up with notions of honour and shame; her love is not allowed independent existence. Because of this, her mourning is silent. I’ve said before that she never gives voice to how she is feeling, because she has no one to listen and sympathise. She is allowed a few tears, but these too must be quickly suppressed. She cannot engage in loud or prolonged lamentations.

Deepak, on the other hand, while disenfranchised in several ways, still has a voice, and listeners. He is poor and Dalit, but he has a close circle of friends who are willing and sympathetic listeners. He is also allowed to spend unrestricted amounts of time with them, and his mobility is not as curtailed as Devi’s is. His grief is, therefore, expressed in loud wailing and crying, while his friends console him.

It reiterates what feminist theorists like Frances Beale and Claudia Jones have stated over the years – a woman is oppressed along several axes. Devi has caste and class privilege on her side, but her mobility and freedom of expression is still curtailed, not by her liberal father, but by a larger faceless society, which demands her movements be restricted to the workplace and home. Deepak, on the other hand, while disenfranchised by caste, still has the privilege of purposeless mobility – he is free to spend time in leisure, and in public spaces. This outlet allows him to be outwardly, even loudly, expressive of grief, a privilege denied to Devi.

I got a few movie recommendations from a colleague for this project, because I want to see how the Bollywood heroine navigates heartbreak across ages. This means stepping outside my ambit of movies from the 90s and 2000s, with a sprinkling here and there of cult classics from the 70s and 80s. This is why I picked up Dil Diya Dard Liya, made way back in 1966. My mother was 6 then.

One of my objectives in starting this project was to get my head out of my own heartbreak. By watching all these women deal with getting their hearts broken, I either forget about my own pain, or find that my pain has been made tangible, and thus deal with the negative feelings I tend to minimise and suppress because it’s just plain ol’ me, and I don’t get to be that angsty. This movie fit firmly into the former category. I found the movie dreadfully slow and boring, and powered through only because I wanted to be sure of my source material before writing this post. The female protagonist’s dilemmas gave me some interesting insights, but I could not relate at all. Well, at least I stopped going crazy with longing for half the day, so…win?

Plot summary

Dil Diya Dard Liya takes its plot from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and then Indianises it. The desi Catherine is ever measured and shows no sign of madness or rebellion. And no marriages take place, ensuring that the burden the novel throws on its second generation cast of doing it right this time round is absent, but also, I assume, because for the desi audience, marriage is the be-all and end-all. To have had the heroine married to another man, even if it was a marriage she didn’t want, meant she was lost forever.

The film opens with a ship caught in a violent storm. All passengers drown, and only a male baby wearing a locket embossed with a mysterious insignia survives.

In a parallel scene, an old king is on his deathbed. He receives news that the ship his son was travelling in, with his young family, has sunk with all passengers. There is a chance that his infant grandson may have survived, but he is nowhere to be found. The king wills his extensive property to his grandson, and breathes his last.

The baby is found and adopted by a wealthy man. His daughter Roopa becomes fast friends with the boy, named Shankar, as they grow up, but his son Ramesh nurses a violent hatred towards him. The landlord passes away when the three children are still young. Ramesh takes full control over the estate and Shankar is reduced to the status of a servant. Roopa and Shankar continue to be close, however, and as they grow up, their friendship turns into love.

A wealthy childhood friend of Roopa’s, Satish, proposes to her, but she turns him down. Ramesh learns of Roopa’s love for Shankar and has him beaten and left for dead. Ramesh voices concern that Roopa has besmirched the family name, and Satish tells him that he is still willing to marry her. Ramesh sends her to Satish’s house, ostensibly so she can spend time with Satish’s sister Mala, but actually so Satish has a chance to woo her.

Ramesh has gotten into bad habits. He is addicted to alcohol and spends all his time with a prostitute. He eventually spends so much on her that he loses all his property to her. She turns him out of his house and begins living there herself. Because of this, Roopa no longer has a home to return to, and is forced to continue staying in Satish’s house. People begin to gossip about her extended stay. Afraid for her reputation and believing that Shankar is dead, Roopa reluctantly agrees to marry Satish.

Meanwhile, Shankar is working at a printing press when he runs into his grandfather’s dewan. He identifies himself as the long-lost prince with his locket, and is crowned the king. After the due formalities are over, Shankar leaves immediately to find Roopa.

When he returns to the town, he finds that Roopa is engaged to another man. Furious at her betrayal, he plots an elaborate scheme to take down everyone connected with her. He buys Ramesh’s ancestral house from the prostitute, and pays her to get Ramesh further addicted to alcohol. Ramesh, already smarting under failure, believes the prostitute is in love with Shankar, and murders her in a fit of rage. He then goes on the run.

Shankar woos Mala in a bid to make Roopa jealous, and Mala falls for him, despite Roopa’s warnings that his love is insincere. Roopa tries to explain to Shankar that she agreed to get engaged only due to societal pressure, but Shankar refuses to listen to her. Ramesh arrives just then and shoots Shankar. Shankar is admitted to hospital in a critical condition, while Roopa collapses from shock.

Satish compels a distraught Roopa to marry him on the appointed date, even as she mourns for Shankar. Shankar arrives in the nick of time and Roopa leaves with him. The two are shown happily married as the movie ends.

Roopa’s navigation of heartbreak

‘Navigation’ is the wrong choice of word here, because it implies action, and I have never seen a female protagonist less able to act on her grief. The surprising thing for me in the movie was how little Roopa’s grief and pain mattered to every character in the movie. Roopa never makes the slightest effort to hide her love for Shankar and her grief when she is torn away from him – she speaks out eloquently several times, to several people, about her love, the pain separation from her beloved causes her, and the hard choices she has been forced to make. She is shown visibly distraught as well – she makes no effort towards her appearance when she loses Shankar and constantly weeps over him. Her grief is so great that it sends her into catatonic shock during the climax.

Despite these very obvious overt signs, no one pays the slightest heed to her. Her well-meaning servants advise her to forget him and move on – at least this is advice on expected lines. Ramesh is the villain of the piece and is not expected to listen to her – his only reaction is to worry about social ostracism in case word gets out. To me, the reactions of Shankar, Mala and Satish, the only characters she repeatedly confides in, were astonishing. Neither of these three are meant to be antagonists. Yet, Satish, who is witness to most of Roopa’s mourning and also her repeated assertions of being unable to love him, routinely ignores it and tells her to get over Shankar and learn to love him instead. Shankar is by no means in the dark about Roopa’s feelings about him and her reasons for agreeing to marry Satish – she tells him herself. Despite this, his actions mirror Satish’s, in that he ignores everything she has told him and continues to blame her for her infidelity and hardheartedness. Mala, supposedly Roopa’s best friend, also talks on similar lines, and is more than happy to accede to Shankar’s wooing. When she does eventually come round to support the lead pair, it is because Shankar is still in love with her, not because of any consideration for her friend’s feelings. The focus seemed exclusively on physical possession of Roopa – her feelings on the matter were absolutely irrelevant, despite being eloquently and frequently expressed.

Roopa’s decisions are heavily dependent on fear of social ostracism. It causes her immense grief, but she has zero social or financial agency as a dependent young woman. She does not suppress grief – she is very expressive about it, in fact. But she might as well have been one of those heroines who are locked away, for all the good talking about what she felt did her. The people surrounding her, even the positive ones, perform excellent impressions of brick walls.

The takeaway

I couldn’t relate to Roopa, as I’ve said before. It made me rethink my stance on the female protagonist in Bollywood, and women in general, expressing grief and pain over a breakup, though. Young women in film and real life have little to no agency to speak about their pain, or even express it non-verbally (crying, venting rage, etc.). Expressing grief over a breakup when you weren’t supposed to be in a relationship in the first place can have grave consequences – loss of education, mobility, physical safety, and at times, life itself. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but this movie showed me how unimportant a young woman’s voice was, even if she spoke. Roopa does not face consequences for speaking about her pain, but the labels and demands remain unchanged – to Shankar, she is “bewafa” (unfaithful) before and after he knew of her predicament; to Mala, she is “cowardly and hardhearted”; to Satish, she must forget the man she loved with all her heart and mould herself to be a good housewife irrespective of her feelings. Why bother speaking at all, then?

The other thing that struck me was how irrelevant Roopa’s feelings towards Shankar were, to everyone. The men’s reaction was the most disturbing to me. It is abundantly clear that she loves Shankar. But he does not physically possess her, and it is the only thing which matters to both Satish and Shankar. Shankar continues to berate her  for infidelity, knowing she loves him as much as she did before. Satish blatantly ignores her repeated protests of being unable to love him, caring only that he possesses her, not Shankar. Mala riffs off of this – her support for the relationship comes only because Shankar still has feelings for Roopa. Roopa’s feelings are irrelevant here. And this, from a person who is her oldest and best friend!

It got me thinking that maybe men continue to have this attitude to the women they love, and maybe that is why marriage is such a big deal? It signifies that the woman has passed into another man’s physical possession, and she is off limits after that. How she felt before or after the wedding is irrelevant. I am glad things seem to be slowly changing, though, in Bollywood at least.

 

 

 

I woke up today thinking I have to let go.  I don’t know why this happened, why he did the things he did, why he still does what he does. But if I keep analysing and reading between the lines and wishing and hoping, I will never move on, and I have to.  I worry I will never be able to, though. I feel like a rock upon which an inscription has been cut – unable to go back to what I once was; unable to erase what was written on me without cutting that entire portion off of myself, thereby diminishing myself. It is a very isolating feeling. Everyone around me seems to be able to move so easily from one fling to another, flit from one Tinder date to another… they are all water, while I alone am rock. Everything and everyone moves ahead, hastily, gleefully, and I alone sit here with my unchangeableness, wanting to move, but so very unable to.

That is why we resort to art, isn’t it? “Art makes us feel less alone. It makes us think: somebody else has thought this, somebody else has had these feelings,” as Alan Moore said.

I watched Ae Dil Hai Mushkil when it first released in very different circumstances – heartbreak seemed distant and I laughed and joked about Ranbir Kapoor’s “nice guy” act with a bunch of new friends. I rewatched it recently, for Alizeh.

I remembered this character, and her helplessness in the face of the great love she felt, against reason, against her own better judgment, against what she wanted herself to be, and had sympathised, then. I empathise now.

Plot summary

Ayaan and Alizeh meet in a London nightclub, and hook up, only to find they have no chemistry. They find they have a lot in common, however, and bond over their mutual love for Bollywood.

They decide to double date, but it ends up being a disaster. Their respective dates develop feelings for each other. Ayaan and Alizeh decide to go on an impromptu holiday to Paris to get over their partners dumping them. The time they spend together strengthens their bond. Ayaan falls in love with her, and confesses his feelings to Alizeh. Alizeh turns him down, however, telling him that she would prefer they remain friends, because it is a purer, more peaceful bond than that of being lovers. Ayaan reluctantly agrees, hoping to win her over some day.

His plans are upended when Ali, Alizeh’s ex boyfriend, shows up out of the blue, and wants to get back with her. Ayaan fully expects Alizeh to turn him down, because she was crushed when he first dumped her, but she decides to go back to him. Ayaan is still grappling with Alizeh’s sudden departure when he receives an invitation to her wedding to Ali. Despite his continued feelings for Alizeh, he decides to attend. He nurtures hope that he will be able to persuade Alizeh to choose him over Ali, just like in the Bollywood movies they are so fond of. But Alizeh, who is deliriously happy to be marrying the man she loves, turns him down again. Ayaan abuses her and leaves, heartbroken.

While flying back to London, he encounters Saba, a poetess who lives in Vienna, at the airport. Saba leaves him her name and phone number. Three months later, Ayaan visits Vienna and gets in touch with Saba. The two begin a passionate relationship, but for Ayaan, this is only a rebound. He channels his pain into a successful career as a singer.

He also meets Tahir, Saba’s ex husband, a wealthy and famous artist. Tahir and Saba have parted on cordial terms, but Tahir is still very much in love with Saba, while she has moved on. When Ayaan asks if this does not bother him, Tahir replies that in a way, his one-sided love empowers him, because he need not direct it towards an actual human, thereby having to share it.

 

It is a powerful and affecting conversation, and sets the tone of the whole movie.

Ayaan gets back in touch with Alizeh, and attempts to make her jealous by sending her pictures of his new life with Saba. Alizeh is delighted that her dear friend is back in her life again.

Ali, a DJ, goes on tour and Alizeh accompanies him. She asks to meet Ayaan when they visit Vienna, and Ayaan invites her over for dinner, in a continued attempt to make her jealous. Alizeh genuinely believes he has found love with Saba, however, and is happy for him. Saba notices how Ayaan acts around Alizeh, and realises that while she has been developing feelings for him, he is still deeply in love with Alizeh. She breaks up with him.

After an unspecified amount of time, Ayaan, who has now become a famous singer, meets Ali, who tells him that he and Alizeh have parted ways, because though they loved each other, they loved very differently and were unable to meet each other’s expectations. Ali also tells him that Alizeh has been incommunicado since their separation, and no one has been able to get in touch with her.

Ayaan is stunned, and returns to London. He waits three days at a spot which he knows is Alizeh’s favourite, and finally encounters her. He finds her greatly changed – she is emaciated and has shaved off all her hair. Alizeh is delighted to see him again. When Ayaan demands to know why she disappered without a trace and why she looks so different, she confesses that she is in the final stage of cancer, and doe snot have much longer to live. The two make a pact to make the best of what little time they have left together, and relive their earlier days of roleplaying Bollywood movies and having fun. Ayaan is unable to let go of his feelings, however, and tries to kiss Alizeh on one occasion. When she rebuffs him, he is angry and demands to know why she cannot love him. Alizeh is disappointed that he cannot accept her as a friend, and leaves.

Ayaan, after some consideration, understands that his obsessive need for reciprocation can take away the little time he has left with Alizeh, and apologises to her, making peace with the fact that his love would forever be one-sided.

The film ends with an older Ayaan giving an interview about the one great love of his life. It is presumed that Alizeh has passed away.

Alizeh’s heartbreak

This one actually caused a pang; several pangs, because I could relate to so much of it. Alizeh is not outwardly miserable – she is living a full life, going out, meeting friends, taking classes in things which interest her. She is even dating other people. She seems to have well and truly moved on. The issue is that Ali is the love of her life. How does one move on from the love of one’s life, when this life still continues?

Alizeh’s hurt is so great that it has made her bitter and despondent about romantic love itself. She tells Ayaan “pyaar mein junoon hai, lekin dosti mein sukoon hai” (Romantic love is passionate, but only in friendship is there lasting peace and contentment).

Alizeh has everything, but at heart, she still feels hollow and incomplete without Ali. He is her one great weakness and she knows it, but she cannot help but give in, time and again. It takes little persuasion for her to return to him, and when she is with him, her joy is palpable. We see her with Ali only for the duration of a song, but here, she is a radiant, deliriously happy bride, very much in love with her husband and someone who eagerly looks forward to the prospect of spending a lifetime with him.

Alizeh in love is a different person from the Alizeh who is not – in love, Alizeh is much more foolish, hopeful, willing to take and give chances even as her rational, wordly self tells her it is a bad decision. Unfortunately, Ali is the one weakness she cannot help but give in to. Eventually, she does find the strength to leave him a second time, but even then, she is not completely happy. Alizeh is the archetypal modern young woman – it is not that she needs a man to complete her; she is complete with or without him. But with him, there is an inexplicable joyous dimension to her, which nothing and no one else can give her.

The takeaway

I think this is my longest post ever, because this movie gave me so much to unpack. There is the idea of love itself – are we in love with the person him/herself, or an idea of him/her? Tahir deems one-sided love more powerful than requited love, because in the former case, you can continue to worship a perfect object which exists only in your head, and not contend with the real person with their annoying habits and foibles. This is a real problem for me – I am the absolute champ of dreaming up scenarios in my head as a way to escape from reality. It makes me wonder how much harm I’m doing to myself with this. Sure, I get to not be in so much pain temporarily, but in the longer run, it is just making me hold on to the past instead of getting the fuck over it.

I am very, very afraid of becoming Alizeh. I know I won’t wallow in misery and just cry 24×7 – I’m not doing it even now. I am still going out with friends, pursuing hobbies, living a healthy-ish lifestyle. I am able to joke, laugh, find things funny or beautiful or moving. But it feels like there is a chunk missing from my insides at all times. I feel hollow inside. Phantom pain shoots through me at odd times. This is what I am most afraid of – there is no becoming Alizeh, really. She did not want to become Alizeh either. Loving Ali was an instinct which could not be ignored, and she was helpless in the face of it. She (or I) would not fall apart without him, no. But she (and I) never feel the same joy and groundedness in life when he is gone. And how do you help that?

One more in the “autonomous female protagonist suffers a heartbreak” category – a rare find in Bollywood. This movie is a remake of a Hollywood film, titled French Kiss, but has been heavily Indianised.

Plot summary

Sanjana is an Indian woman who has no family of her own, and lives and works in Paris. She is engaged to Rahul, and dreams of settling down in a large Parisian villa and building the family she never had with him. She invests her life savings in her dream house shortly before their wedding.

Rahul is required to go to India on a business trip, and Sanjana insists on accompanying him. But she is terrified of flying, and makes a scene when she gets on the flight to India. She gets off, and Rahul leaves without her. Soon after, she receives a call from an inebriated Rahul, who tells her he has fallen in love with a local woman named Nisha, and that he plans to stay on in India and marry her. She is heartbroken, and decides to travel to India, despite her fear of flying, to win Rahul back.

On the flight, she is seated next to Shekhar, a seemingly rude, cocky man. He realises she is scared of flying, and distracts her with an argument while the flight takes off. The journey is marred by turbulence, but the flight finally lands safely.

While deboarding, Shekhar, who has stolen a valuable diamond necklace, sees a police officer looking for him. He hides the necklace in Sanjana’s bag so that the inspector does not find it when he searches his (Shekhar’s) luggage. Sanjana leaves the airport before Shekhar can retrieve the necklace. She goes to the hotel where she knows Rahul is staying. There, she witnesses Rahul making out with his new girlfriend and is so shocked that she faints. A thief takes advantage of this to steal all of her luggage.

Shekhar follows Sanjana to the hotel, only to realise that her luggage, and the necklace along with it, has been stolen. He tracks down the thief and retrieves the luggage, but finds the necklace is missing. The thief pleads ignorance when Shekhar confronts him, and suggests that it may still be in Sanjana’s bag.

Sanjana is still pursuing Rahul, and on finding he has gone to Palam, decides to follow him there by train. Shekhar follows her, claiming that he wants to change her mind and prove that not all Indians are as bad as she thinks. Sanjana comes down with an upset stomach on the train journey, and misses the train while she is in the toilet of a station the train has briefly halted at. Incidentally, the station is Shekhar’s hometown. The station master recognises him and alerts his family members. His brother arrives to pick him up, and takes both Shekhar and Sanjana to their native village.

Here, Sanjana grows acquainted with Shekhar’s large family and the many pressures Shekhar is under – he has to raise enough money to ensure his nephew can get a lifesaving heart surgery, and also save his ancestral house and fields from being reclaimed by moneylenders, to whom the family is heavily in debt. Sanjana reveals she has had the diamond necklace with her all along, and tries to persuade him to stay back with his family instead of trying to earn money in the city.

Shekhar has fallen for Sanjana, but offers to help her win back Rahul. The two travel to Palam, and concoct multiple plans to get Rahul’s attention, including Sanjana and Shekhar pretending to be a couple and recruiting someone to act as Sanjana’s rich grandfather who wants to bequeath property to her. Rahul’s interest is piqued after learning that Sanjana is poised to inherit substantial wealth.

Meanwhile, Nisha is threatened by Rahul’s growing interest in Sanjana, and arranges to get engaged to him at her birthday party, to which Sanjana is also invited. Sanjana is devastated after Rahul gets engaged to Nisha, and begins packing, telling Shekhar that she has lost, and that she intends to never dream again, because when the heartbreak which ensues when dreams don’t come true is too great to bear. Shekhar persuades her not to give up on her dreams, telling her to visualise her dream house, and Rahul waiting for her there. When Sanjana closes her eyes to visualise this, however, she realises that she sees Shekhar instead, and that she has fallen in love with Shekhar.

Just then, Rahul calls her and asks her to meet him. Shekhar urges her to go. Rahul, who is under the impression that Sanjana is a rich heiress, begs her to get back with him, but she refuses, telling him she has realised her true love is Shekhar. She adds that she isn’t really a heiress, and it was a ploy to win him back.

Leaving a shocked Rahul behind, Sanjana is returning to Shekhar when she is accosted by the police inspector. He tells her that the necklace is stolen, and that he can spare Shekhar from arrest if it is returned by the next day. Sanjana persuades Shekhar to let her sell the necklace, to evade suspicion, and secretly it hands over to the inspector. She arranges for her life savings to be transferred to India, and gives the money to Shekhar, telling him that she has sold the necklace. The two then make preparations to depart, each unaware that their love is mutual.

Shekhar sees Sanjana off at the airport, believing that she has left with Rahul. He is accosted by the inspector, who informs him of what Sanjana has done for him. Shekhar also sees Rahul trying to get back with Nisha, and realises Sanjana has fallen in love with him too. He races to the airport and manages to stop Sanjana’s flight from leaving. He confesses his love for her, and Sanjana happily stays behind, reunited with the one she loves and finally having a family of her own.

Sanjana’s navigation of heartbreak

In a way, Sanjana’s view of Rahul is similar to Geet‘s, in the sense that when her beloved leaves her, he does not just end a relationship; he also demolishes the entire conception of her future, because he is the foundation it was built on.

Sanjana’s despair is heightened, however, because Rahul is also where she thinks herself as belonging. Geet comes from a populous, loving family, who she loves back equally, and is by no means an orphan. As Sanjana puts it, she has no one to call her own apart from Rahul. She is spared the sense of shame that haunts Geet when her relationship fails; there is no one who will judge her for her bad decisions. When she first hears of Rahul breaking things off with her, she is crushed. But she battens down her despair and grief by replacing it with an outrage-fuelled sense of purpose, arising from what she feels is owed to her by the world – a family. Everyone has a family; people who care for them. How can she have no one? It is impossible; she therefore must retrieve what is rightfully hers. She does not once question Rahul’s rights or accountability – she is convinced that Rahul cannot have acted of his own volition; he has been led astray by the Indian girl.

Her breakdown happens when she comes face to face with the realisation that her ownership over Rahul has lapsed, after witnessing his engagement. It is interesting that she thinks she has a chance as long as his relationship with Nisha is merely a relationship; the moment it becomes official, she decides to back off. I may, of course, be reading too much into it. So many of us are faced with situations where we willingly delude ourselves, half knowing what we are doing, only to be eventually confronted with one pivotal incident, conversation, Instagram post, which forces the blinkers off.

Sanjana’s behaviour is surprisingly mature after this incident. She is clearly heartbroken – defeat marks her dialogue and body language, and she cannot stop crying. She tells Shekhar that she intends to never dream again, because the pain of not having dreams come true is simply too crushing to go through repeatedly in one lifetime – again, most of us have said/heard a version of this after a crushing heartbreak. But she also says she had a life before Rahul; she was happy even before him, and she can go on living and even be happy after he has left. All true, but not easy to realise when the pain of a heartbreak is still fresh (for Sanjana, it is only the next morning!). Perhaps this maturity and clearheadedness is a result of her having to fend for herself emotionally for most of her life, something Geet and other female protagonists in Bollywood do not have to do.

The takeaway

I watched this movie yesterday, and a lot of it was silly and very 90s.

I am quite impressed, though, by Sanjana’s measured reaction to realising she will never have Rahul back, as is obvious by the earlier paragraph. I relate emotionally to her saying she never wants to dream again. I do not want to ever invite another man into my life again either. My rational self tells me this is silly and that I will feel differently after I have worked through this…but I don’t know if I ever will. I simply do not have love or passion or energy to give to another man; I feel exhausted, used up, and above all, claimed. All of this belonged to a certain person, and it feels wrong to give it to anyone else.

Am I able to be like Sanjana and say I was happy before this relationship even began, and can be happy again? Again, rationally, yes. I am happy even now – I am happy when I am talking to my friends, I am happy when I see the trees fairly exploding with spring flowers, I am happy that the evenings are longer and it is still light when I leave work. But I don’t know if I can ever go back to what I was. It feels like having a sharp object buried beneath the skin for a long, long time… it is almost part of the body now, but it is still foreign. Everything seems okay…but then you turn a certain way, and suddenly, pain radiates throughout your body. That is how it is… I am going through the day, and suddenly, missing him washes over me like a wave… 9 AM in rush hour traffic, 3 PM as I am peering at an incomprehensible Excel sheet, 7 PM when I’m stirring my dinner over the stove…

They say “Give it time”, that’s what all the advice out there says. But it has been a long time now. And I still love him; I am still anguished and lost without him. And I don’t know if there is ever a going back to what I was. I’ve said this before…he was the foundation on which my future was built. Now I am in the future, and he is not there, and I don’t know what to do anymore.

I have been consistently talking of the pressures of young women dealing with heartbreak when they weren’t allowed to be in a relationship in the first place, and how this affects their outward display (or lack) of mourning.

Naina’s story arc forms a minuscule part of the sprawling plot of the beloved K3G, but I thought it would be interesting to analyse how a young woman would be shown to navigate heartbreak if the relationship was socially approved and parentally sanctioned. How does the Bollywood heroine react when she no longer faces the pressures of bagaavat and family purity?

Plot summary

I will not delve into the larger plot of the movie, because it is irrelevant to Naina’s character arc. She exits from the movie after her subplot ends, so knowing what happens afterwards is unnecessary.

Naina has been in love with Rahul Raichand for as long as she can remember. When Rahul’s father approaches her father to arrange their marriage, Naina is over the moon. But Rahul has fallen in love with Anjali, a poor unsophisticated girl from Chandni Chowk, and thus, is far from pleased at the news of his marriage being arranged without his even being consulted.

He takes her aside to speak to her privately and get their alliance called off. His less than enthusiastic reaction tips Naina off to the heart of the matter – Rahul is in love with someone else. She preempts his confession, and admits that she has loved him her entire life, but in life, one can hardly expect one’s love to be returned all the time. She urges him to go get the woman he loves.

Rahul is deeply sorry for the pain he has caused his childhood friend, but is heartened by how well she has taken the rejection.

There is no happy ending in store for Naina – Rahul does not realise years later that she was his true love all along, and return penitently. Nor is there a second hero who materialises to make her realise her love for Rahul was merely an infatuation. Naina simply fades out of the narrative after the scene in which she is rejected.

Naina’s navigation of heartbreak

We do not see how Naina deals with the fallout of her rejection after Rahul leaves. It can be argued, also, that Naina’s heartbreak is not the same as the heartbreak which ensures after a loving, requited relationship ends. The hurt isn’t any less, though, as is apparent from her obvious grief at letting Rahul go. Even as she tells him to go chase the woman he loves, her voice breaks, and she is crying. Hers is a very mature approach to love and heartbreak, though – she knows love cannot be forced, and lets go gracefully.

The takeaway

Bollywood loves good girls and the “parents know best” trope. Hell, this movie has the tagline “It’s all about loving your parents”. In this context, it is a wonder that Naina’s story arc resolves itself as gracefully and unproblematically as it does. Naina’s heartbreak does not turn her into a vamp; nor does Rahul return to the “good girl” his parents chose for him after realising the girl he loves is a vamp. In a movie adored and mocked in equal measure for over-the-top unrealistic scenarios and characters, the Naina–Rahul equation is the closest thing to real life.

We must contend, too, with what Naina has to – “Zaroori nahin hai ki jisse main pyaar karti hun, woh bhi mujhse pyaar kare.” [It is not realistic to expect that the one I love, will love me back in return]. We do not have the motivation or the luxury of resources to turn into vamps who dedicate themselves to sabotaging the hero’s relationship; nor can we sit around waiting for the eventual possibility of his return. We must move on, as Naina does.

Naina’s character is refreshing, because little as we know of her, we do not see evidence that she is dehumanised and objectified as much as even protagonists are. Everyone around her seems to recognise her value as an individual, even unattached to the male protagonist. This value makes her secure and grounded – Rahul’s rejection certainly saddens her, but she doe snot lose sense of who she is. She is still able to think rationally, make the right decisions, and even support her childhood friend. It is a nice commentary on what women, and relationships, can be if only external pressures of family honour, parental control and gender-centric subjugation are removed. We cannot erase heartbreak from the world; as humans, it is our lot to feel. But if only we were allowed to just be, perhaps the grief would be a little lighter to bear.

In my last post, I discussed how the female protagonist’s navigation of heartbreak and mourning is circumscribed by her status as property. The movie I chose came out 23 years ago, though – an entire generation has passed since then. Have attitudes changed, and do our movies reflect this shift? Are female protagonists free to mourn a heartbreak, and do they receive support devoid of shaming and guilt tripping? Going by what Gully Boy shows us, not really.

Plot summary

Gully Boy isn’t a love story at all – it is the journey of how Murad, a Mumbai slum dweller, overcomes his circumstances to find success in creative expression.

It is worthwhile, I think, to not go into the plot of the movie, because Murad and Safeena’s relationship is the only thread I need to focus on here.

Murad and Safeena are already comfortably ensconced in what seems to be a long-term relationship when we first see them in the movie. Viewers are introduced to this couple when Safeena confidently walks up to sit beside Murad in a city bus, and takes one half of his earphones from him to plug into her own ear. Murad, with the ease and comfort of habit, readjusts his left earphone and continues listening to music – a significant act, because music is Murad’s escape from the world, and seeing how he lets Safeena share in his escape so easily, it establishes the relationship as an equal source of inspiration and comfort to him.

To Murad, the relationship is the one place he feels he truly belongs and wants to belong. The constant hunger and discontent which characterises every other aspect of his life is noticeably absent when he is with Safeena – here, Murad is sure, content, safe.

Safeena does not view the relationship through the same blissful lens. It is very important to her, but she also sees it as constantly under threat, and something she must be ever vigilant about and defend. She disapproves of Murad having any sort of deeper acquaintance with another woman, physically attacking the two women who express interest in him. This too-tight grip has repercussions, however. When balancing the pressures of his current life and the new vistas opening up to him through music gets too much for Murad, he decides the stress Safeena’s jealousy and aggression adds is simply not worth it, and breaks up with her.

His music producer, Sky, expresses her attraction to him after the break up, but Murad turns her down, confessing that while he is attracted to her too, Safeena is an indelible part of who he is – in his words, “Safeena ko chhod doon toh aisa lagega ki bina bachpan ka bada ho gaya” (If I leave Safeena, it will feel like I have grown to be an adult without ever having had a childhood.).

While Murad juggles his day job, his music career, and his family problems, Safeena is under pressure to get married. Her mother hands her a stack of bios of eligible men, and calls her “lucky” because she is being allowed to choose (from amongst a carefully curated, already chosen list of men, of course). Safeena finds Murad’s friend’s bio in the list her mother has given her, and knowing this is her ticket to getting back with Murad, selects him.

When the friend arrives with his parents, he requests that he be granted a few private moments to talk to Safeena, and then laughingly asks her which of them should refuse the match. To his horror, Safeena claims she intends to agree to the match, and then adds that if he wants his friendship with Murad to remain intact, he should persuade Murad to get back with her.

The friend does not want to marry Safeena – to him, she is Murad’s property; his girlfriend. Marrying her would constitute a violation of the bro code, tantamount almost to breaching a religious taboo. He thus hotfoots to Murad as soon as he can and conveys Safeena’s demands, ensuring his horror at the alternate prospect is conveyed as well. His reaction is met with hilarity, but Murad does contact Safeena. Fortunately for her, he does not view her manipulation as abusive, and reconciles with her.

The movie concludes with Safeena cheering Murad on as he raps as Nas’s opening act, after winning a nationwide talent hunt.

Safeena’s navigation of heartbreak

Safeena’s attitude to the relationship, to me, was deeply problematic. A simple test of equality is to see what our reactions would be if the genders were flipped. Think, for example, of Shalini’s abusive boyfriend/fiancé in Dil Chahta Hai. Why is he so problematic? It is because he does not see Shalini as an adult individual. To him, she is a cross between property and infant – he owns her, and he also believes that she is incapable of being a trustworthy partner unchaperoned. He must intervene and beat up any and all men who show interest in her, because on her own, her rejection is either not forthcoming, or is not valid.

We have seen this template of the abusive boyfriend in several other movies – he may not physically harm the female protagonist, but he feels he must constantly guard her as if she were an object, beating up any male who dares to eye his property. We have come to see this behavior as toxic.

Why then, is Safeena’s behaviour met with hilarity instead of horror?

Safeena’s aggression is so extreme that it causes severe injury to the other party, and necessitates police visits. It puts her already limited autonomy at stake. Yet, she refuses to even consider changing – Safeena’s attitude to Murad is oddly “alpha male”; he is “hers”. An article in The Hindu reads her violence as the only outlet she can find to her passion – she cannot express physical passion towards Murad, constrained as they are; therefore it explodes in episodes of brutality against other women. I cannot agree – to me, it seems like Safeena’s territorial aggression is because her relationship is the only thing this driven, Type A personality can control. She is a bright student, but is too aware that her career dreams are liable to be ripped away from her the moment an irresistible marriage prospect becomes available. Moreover, she is also hyper aware of her status as the family’s property. She has no freedom of movement, dress, or personal space – the only space she can control is when she is around Murad. So she performs the same commodification on Murad that society in general and her family in particular have performed on her – Murad is hers, and she jealously and violently resists all attempts to take away the only object she owns.

When Murad breaks things off with her, Safeena loses her subjecthood in a system where she exists as a passive object. Her immediate reaction to Murad telling her he wants to break up is rage – she begins to scream at him and remind him of past transgressions. But Murad, for the first time in their relationship, strips her of her position as a subject, and cuts her off – he will no longer listen to her speak.

I have already examined the reasons for why a young Indian woman is not allowed to exhibit grief over a heartbreak – the reasons hold good in Safeena’s case, too. Her being in a relationship in itself is an act of transgression, and therefore, the relationship’s end must be as secret as its existence.

The camera allows Safeena only one long moment to demonstrate to the outsider eye that the end of her relationship has affected her at all – she lies, spotlighted, in a darkened room on a bed , staring vacantly at the ceiling. There are no more tears or histrionics, because there cannot be. Her education, and the brief window of a social life it affords her, is at stake, and if she externally demonstrates any signs of grief, even these things will be taken away from her.

Safeena’s navigation of her heartbreak is interesting because she refuses to let herself become a passive object to whom things are done to. She refuses to believe that the relationship is over, or that her claim on Murad no longer exists. She can do next to nothing in her constrained circumstances, when her mobility is monitored constantly by her parents, and hence remains passive, until she sees a chance she can take. When the opportunity presents itself, however, she seizes it, and manipulates it to get Murad to contact her again.

It is interesting to speculate what she would have done had Murad refused to see her again. Would she then have been forced to submit to being married off and becoming a housewife?  Would she have wrangled another bid at independence? And how would her feelings for Murad have come into play, for her relationship with him and her bid for personal autonomy are inextricably linked?

The takeaway

I found it hard to identify with Safeena, because I could not see past the constant toxicity she exhibits. I understand the reasons behind this behaviour, but it did not make it any more palatable to me. One may invent a thousand similar arguments of social and economic disenfranchisement for a male abuser.

Having said that, Safeena’s having to pack up her feelings and hide them away so as to not make her family uncomfortable is a familiar theme. It seems to be the pattern in Bollywood – the family’s feelings inevitably take precedence over the female protagonist’s feelings. She can be indulged to a certain degree, in the first half, but she must invariably put aside her personhood and choose her family’s emotional comfort, either due to threats of physical harm, emotional blackmail, or threats to well being, like Safeena.