What’s Love Got to do With It?

A desperate girl is about to arrive in the middle of the night at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi airport from a European city. To welcome her back are her brothers,who have been tasked with whisking her off to their Haryana town,where awaits an arranged groom she has never met. With great stealth,she smuggles word — this is the pre-internet,pre-cellphone era — to her boyfriend in Delhi,whose friends reach certain influential reporters,who make sure that the boyfriend is positioned,right at the tarmac,when she alights. The girl and the boy are speedily transported to a barsati in the early hours of the morning,where they spread nervous tension till they reach the nearest Arya Samaj mandir,exchange varmalas,and decamp.

You’d call this tale fully filmi,no? Petrified brides,bashed-up-by-goons-grooms,midnight rescue operations,runaway shaadis,have all been such faithful tropes of a Bollywood prem kahani. But I am here to tell you that this happened,because I was there,an enthusiastic baraati-gharaati rolled into one.

I remember thinking,all those years ago,how the whole escapade would make a terrific Bollywood script. It had everything. Head-over-heels lovers,furious opposition,painful separation,and an ecstatic reunion. We may not all have been that girl flying out to that boy,but we knew them,because we had seen them or variations of them,on our screens. Last week,a twenty-something heard me out with an impatient tapping of teeth,with a takedown that has no comeback: yuck,that’s so lame.

Love is lame? Whatever happened to the madly,deeply sentiments that kept lovers afloat and Bollywood romances in business? Have Hindi filmmakers forgotten how to create classic love stories? Or are these films not being touched with a barge pole because no one wants to see them anymore?

All evidence seems to support these easily-tossed-out,but hard-to-verify surmises. Think back to the last decade and give me the name of one film,not necessarily strictly a romantic film,in which a pair of young lovers burnt it up. Chances are that you,like me,will be able to count,on the fingers of one hand,scenes rather than films. Abhay D falling headlong on a dusty path,drunk on too much vodka and a lost love,in Dev.D. Chitrangada smouldering alternately at Shiney and Kay Kay in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. Imran and Genelia engaging in smart post-teen backchat in Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na. Saif and Rani showdancing in Hum Tum. Shahid saying the name of the beloved,learning,claiming,leaving Kareena in Jab We Met. I’m sure you may remember a few more; but these are some of the visuals that have stayed,which evoke passion and yearning,a dry mouth,an accelerated dil ki dhadkan,rubbery knees — the stuff that goes with the territory when two people fall in love,and want to be with each other,forever and more.

Not one of these films is what you could properly classify as a classic love story,(except perhaps Jab We Met which had elements of it) which places its protagonists and their amorous angst in the middle of the frame,and keeps everything else on the sides. What appears to have taken centrestage,instead of the love-lorn twosome,is the cosy threesome. Three guys who have more to do with each other than three girls. Three guys who share back stories,dirty loos,filthy jokes,sweaty hoodies,body odour. These fellows have the best lines in the movie. They are the limelight; their girls,whom they spend some of the time chasing,other times dissing and cursing,are the sidelights. Bros are where it’s at. Ergo,bromance is the new romance.

Look at those chirpy guys in Pyaar Ka Punchnama. They claim that the only way they can survive this life is if they get their girls. But they seem to be spending a lot more time bending their contours to each other’s mood and will. They are single-minded about their pursuits; the girls are little better than possessive shrews or compulsive shoppers. And those three slumming it in what has to be the grungiest flat a Bollywood designer dreamt up,in Delhi Belly? Except for one nicely realised female character who shares some of the action,it’s the boys who have a clear run.

Watch those distinctly older but equally chipper fellows in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. There is some sulky banter between Farhan and Hrithik,with Abhay looking on,because one of them took the other’s girl away. But hey,what’s a girl between friends? So here they are,making up a trio,tripping on a trip with scenic pit-stops involving the occasional bed-hop,or a slightly more serious entanglement featuring a kiss,and the tossing of a salad. This is a film,which puts primary focus on the struggling-to-grow-up guys getting back in touch with their inner boys,while reaching out to an outer girl. Yeah,like that.

These three hark back to those three,exactly 10 years ago,in Dil Chahta Hai. In which the three are in search of themselves. That is the biggest thread in the film; romance is part of it,sure,but oh look at those girls,do. One of them is a mouse,waiting for her fiancé to make up her mind for her whether she should sit or stand. Another is a bird brain who doesn’t mind going out with a fool. And yes,there’s that older woman angle,which ends badly,but is also instrumental in giving Saif Ali Khan the line he will always be known by,in which he talks of how far he can go for cake. Not,please note,for his girl,which leads him only to a retro Bollywood song.

Retro is really a good time to remember that really,bromance has always been the thing in Hindi cinema. In a nation whose public spaces had been for the longest time colonised by gangs of men who grouped themselves in close proximity,or even two men with arms slung around each other’s shoulders without anyone thinking of inappropriateness,two (or three men) have always been the central thrusters in Bollywood. Manmohan Desai may not have used the term,but who’s to say that Amar Akbar Anthony was not Hindi cinema’s most popular bromance? The trio of Amitabh-Vinod-Rishi ruled; their lady loves Parveen-Shabana-Neetu were equally happy troupers but clear second-rungers. A lot of the memorable banter in the Manmohan Desai films centred around the men,and the all-male spaces,which allowed women in on an as-is,where-is basis.

When Aamir and Salman got young love back to Bollywood (Maine Pyaar Kiya and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak),reclaiming it from the muscular movies of the ’70s and ’80s,it was almost like the film industry started to re-discover romance. Anything these guys did,with the girls they fell for,was hailed as a new discovery. When Shah Rukh got his created-for-the-effect brand of negativism into this all-positive brew,that was another moment; and when he turned it on his head,asking for his girl’s hand from the prospective growly papa in Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge,it thunked the nail in the head of the rebel lover,who would do anything for love.

The present-day Cake Ke liye Kuch Bhi Karega lover is proud that he is not of the mar jaaonga,mit jaaoonga persuasion. Times,he — and she — will tell you,have changed. No one is willing to die for love anymore. “Tum nahin toh aur sahi”: if not you,then someone else. This kind of insouciance has been reflected in the contemporary romantic comedy,where love is permissible but only if it is accompanied by a poke in the ribs. The rom-com is still a fledgling,work-in-progress genre in which the rules are made up as the romantic leads go along,and the wooing happens alongside. It is the only kind of format in which modern-day mates are comfortable admitting to “seeing” each other. Pyaar? Kya yaar.

The recent spate of the return-to-the-old-fashioned actioner has made sure that the classic love story has got buried deeper. In Ready and Singham,throwback to the ’80s blockbusters both,Salman and Ajay join their girls,who are literally half their age,for a shake and shimmy,and then go back to business. The girls are not important,the guys are. That’s always been true in Bollywood,still is. A fully realised romance requires that attention be taken away from the macho hero,and build-up time,and who has that anymore?

Right now,this is what we are watching. Raunchy laughathons with very low brows. Outsize heroes bashing up the baddies. Buddy movies in which the guys are prime. Romantic comedies in which the girl and guy are jostling for the same sexualised space,and oodles of post-love nudge-wink irony.

What’s got lost in this fast-paced accretion of visuals in movies made on their saleable quotient is the attention on pure emotions,which need time to kindle,to grow,to bear fruit. This is a time when there is no mystery left about any of us,because we are at less than six degrees of separation from each other,and a single mouse click can reveal more about our histories than a questing glance. The enclosed space that lovers create,where the oxygen seems to have been sucked out by their sheer gasping intensity,seems now almost an anomaly: don’t go back too far,just to Dil Se,in which Mani Ratnam created two unforgettable scenes of a love that is so all-consuming,all-encompassing that nothing else exists. One when Shah Rukh and Manisha are hidden behind a swinging door on a terrace; the other when they are in full view of those passing by the foot of the stairs,where they stand. The universe fades away to just these two people,breathing,being. Alright,step back a little farther,and reach out for Amitabh and Rekha steaming it up in Silsila. A little more,for Guru Dutt and Waheeda in Pyaasa,walking hand in hand,out of our view,into a world completely their own. And Raj and Nargis in Aawara,him bending over a pliant her,barely being able to wait till we turned our backs on them. This is the real deal,the knock-your-socks-off ardour gone missing from our films.

Those who claim technology can trump love are just being specious. And cowardly. Do not tell me that slacker cool has defeated true love for ever,amen. It’s just got lost in the clutter. I’m getting a whiff of it in the upcoming Mausam,which has Shahid and Sonam looking longingly at each other. Bring it all back,I say. Hearts that meet. Beat as one. Or what are movies for?