Pati Patni aur Woh Do: Do we need another film minimising adultery as a comedy of errors?

A week later, Varun Dhawan, Pooja Hegde and Mrunal Thakur starrer Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai releases in theatres. The film’s teaser has two VFX/AI babies discussing their parentage and wondering if they in fact have the same father. Varun will be seen romancing two women and potentially having kids with two different women.

 

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Whether he is married to both, one or neither remains to be seen. Interestingly, the film’s title comes from a song in Biwi No 1 which was another film about a married man cheating on his wife. Before the ‘not all men’ or ‘please learn to take a joke’ brigade comes for me, let me clarify that the problem here is not portraying infidelity on screen. The problem is the tone and treatment of a film portraying infidelity, and Bollywood’s penchant for passing off serious indiscretions by men as humour or the hazards of their gender.  Clearly, the release of films like No Entry, Thank You, or the Mastiii and Housefull franchises over the years were not enough. Or, worse still, the makers actually believe that we need more films to explore a man’s inability to contain his libido or remain faithful to his wife.

For a country that still puts the institution of marriage on a pedestal and whose citizens flirt with bankruptcy to get their kids married, we have had a vast number of films over the decades that explore marital infidelity on screen. These films are in different genres as well, from comedies or sex comedies like the ones mentioned earlier, dramas like Paheli, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and Astitva, or romantic thrillers like Murder, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster, and Haseen Dillruba. We have seen men and women cheat on the big screen, but where the difference really arises is in why they cheat and the consequences they face.

A Poster of Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster.

With a few exceptions, of course, in films across genres, men cheat because they are bored, they want some excitement in their lives, they want variety in their sex lives, or because a strange combination of biology and patriarchy has allowed them to justify infidelity. The trio from the Mastiii franchise, Meet, Prem and Amar (Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani and Riteish Deshmukh) have been sexually frustrated husbands over four films, finding excuses to have some masti (fun) and spice up their sex lives. Vinay (Anil Kapoor) in Salaam-e-Ishq, who cheats on his wife of 15 years with a much younger woman, Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon), who has an affair with Neha (Kangana Ranaut), a young employee in his office, Anand (Ajay Devgn) in Dil Kya Kare, Prem (Salman Khan) from Biwi No 1, or Ram (Jeetendra) from Ek Hi Bhool, are some examples of husbands on screen who cheated on their wives but were all eventually forgiven. Except for perhaps Arth, where Pooja (Shabana Azmi) refuses to forgive Inder (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), unfaithful husbands in Hindi films almost always get a second chance when they express remorse.

In contrast, there are no sex comedies or comedies of any kind where a woman is found cheating on her husband or long-time partner. Films with an unfaithful wife are always in more dramatic genres, with the lady in question facing serious consequences.  Female characters don’t cheat simply because they want to have fun, they find commitment confining, or because they feel entitled to infidelity by their gender. It’s a step they almost always take out of an emotional disconnect with their partner or after facing abuse of some sort. In Mahesh Manjrekar’s film Astitva, Aditi (Tabu) has a one-night stand with her music teacher. Her chauvinistic husband, Shrikant (Sachin Khedekar), says he can’t forgive her but admits to having had multiple affairs. Thankfully, she decides to leave him rather than beg for forgiveness, but her indiscretion ends her marriage.

Murder (2004) was a remake of the Hollywood film Unfaithful. But instead of showing Simran (Mallika Sherawat) committing adultery because she is a bored homemaker like the original film, the makers added the angle of her being a neglected second wife who has married her brother-in-law to care for her late sister’s son. Her affair ends with a murder, a police investigation and life-threatening situations.

In Humari Adhuri Kahani, Vasudha’s (Vidya Balan) husband has been missing for five years. She falls in love with Aarav (Emraan Hashmi), but he is blown up by a landmine. Rani Kashyap (Taapsee Pannu) in Haseen Dillruba cheats on her husband, and the consequences include the death of her paramour, her husband losing his arm and their house exploding.

In Kalank, an unhappily married Roop (Alia Bhatt) falls for Zafar (Varun Dhawan), but sadly, their love story too ends with Zafar’s death. Even in the film B.A. Pass, where the married woman was the alpha, grooming a young man into prostitution, she is assaulted and raped by her husband as a punishment when he finds out. There is no “oh, women will be women” quip to justify female indiscretion. There is no simple ‘Please forgive me, I made a mistake,’ when it comes to women betraying their partners. Perhaps this difference in how infidelity is treated on screen is an insight into how society functions, or it’s a warning to women that being unfaithful to your partner can have no happy endings.

Alia Bhatt starred in Kalank, which was backed by Karan Johar.

The fact that films like Pati Patni Aur Woh Do and Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai still find financial and creative backing is a sign that our benchmark for acceptable or forgivable male behaviour remains dreadfully low. There is also no denying that people cheat in relationships. Infidelity is as old as the institution of marriage itself. But at what point can we stop using phrases like ‘patiyon ki fitrat’ and ‘patiyon ka universe’ to justify or normalise behaviour that is just plain wrong? Can we really expect change if we keep creating films where we either glorify violence and aggression as masculine values or undermine infidelity and dishonesty with humour? Pati Patni Aur creative bankruptcy is what it reeks of, frankly.