Opinion From ‘Mili’ to ‘Saiyaara’, why is the sick woman in Bollywood always a cog in the hero’s redemption story?
Bollywood continues to romanticise female illness while erasing its painful reality. But real illness doesn’t come with soft lighting or noble silence. It's time their stories are told differently
It was reported that young people, especially men, walked out of shows of Saiyaara weeping their hearts out. I can understand that impulse: The film worked because it marked a return to “feelings” that Hindi cinema used to be all about. But that doesn’t negate the fact that cinema has rarely allowed for unpretty truths that women struggle with every day. Illness, when it belongs to a woman, is aestheticised into soft lighting and noble sacrifice 
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The sick, beautiful woman of cinema. What do we do about her? This was the recurring thought running through my mind while watching Mohit Suri’s Saiyaara. Since it is Bollywood’s success after a long dry spell, I decided to watch it the day it landed on Netflix, and even though my expectations were low, I was surprised at how watchable it turned out to be.
This was ’90s cringe in Yash Raj packaging. Alibag looks like the Maldives. People who are supposed to be financially rocky have beachside bungalows. The angry male protagonist is called Krish Kapoor. Aesthetics are manicured. However, the emotions the film is trying to tap into are still very primal. And still, sadly, a male fantasy.
In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1975 film Mili, Jaya Bachchan’s Mili, a chirpy, happy young woman, saves Amitabh Bachchan’s Shekhar from himself. Then, he sets out on a journey to save her from her illness. This is a standard trope for the sick woman of Hindi cinema. The woman is ill. She is beautiful. She is innocent and naive but adventurous. Uncorrupted. And most importantly, she is fragile.
In Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, Ranbir Kapoor’s Jordan looks for tragedy to fuel his art. He finds it in the form of Nargis Fakri’s Heer. She follows the same trope of beauty and fragility — of an adventurous spirit seeping away to a fatal cancer. 2011’s Heer or 1975’s Mili become 2025’s Vaani Batra in Saiyaara. They exist to fix the man, be his muse, bring him back into life. Their purpose is to replace the hero’s sorrows with hope, joy, and passion. Seen through a male gaze, we feel for them because the men feel protective of them. We are “sorry” for them, but our hearts weep for Jordan and Krish. For the loss they suffer.
What would it feel like to watch a film where Krish or Jordan are just companions in Heer or Vaani’s journey? Where the illness is a discovery Vaani needs to make for herself? To understand her aspirations, the uncertainties set against it? What kind of support system would she lean on, build, and how would she want to cope with her disease?
“Saiyaara” is an Arabic and Urdu word that signifies a solitary, bright star that is always in motion. The film, more than once, holds out Krish as the saiyaara. But I wonder why Vaani couldn’t be the saiyaara in her own universe. Or why couldn’t there be two lone stars, bringing light wherever they go? Why Vaani’s “career” as a lyricist holds no value beyond being the voice of Krish? Why she is allowed no aspirations, no interiority, no thoughts about her future? Why does she lend herself so easily to being the perfect victim?
But then, what does sickness, fragility look like in an imperfect woman? When pain is wracking through your body? When the disease is ravaging the last vestige of your patience and tolerance? While watching Saiyaara, I was reminded of an aunt of mine who died of stomach cancer. She was always irritable, always seething at her condition. She yelled and threw things, raged as her body hollowed out. Her illness had no beauty. It was painful, draining, and all-consuming for her and my uncle, who took care of her.
The illness unburdened my aunt from any performance of femininity. I would imagine that would be the case for many women. But films that view illness through the lens of masculinity seem incapable of realising that.
We saw a glimpse of the messiness of a body in pain in Farhaan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai (2001), where Dimple Kapadia’s Tara Jaiswal is shown to be the imperfect woman. She is independent, divorced, angry, talented, and an alcoholic. She is ultimately destroyed by her illness. She does not want to be saved. She dies without a redemption arc. She is real and she remains an anomaly in our films.
It was reported that young people, especially men, walked out of shows of Saiyaara weeping their hearts out. I can understand that impulse: The film worked because it marked a return to “feelings” that Hindi cinema used to be all about. But that doesn’t negate the fact that cinema has rarely allowed for unpretty truths that women struggle with every day. Illness, when it belongs to a woman, is aestheticised into soft lighting and noble sacrifice. It is never the irritability, exhaustion, or plain ugliness that comes with it. But what if we dared to look at the imperfect sick woman — angry, unkempt, uncooperative, demanding? What if fragility was not her defining trait, but simply one part of her existence?
Saiyaara could have been that film, a story of a woman insisting on her life even as she loses parts of it, with Krish as her witness. Until Bollywood allows its heroines this interiority, the sick woman will remain trapped in the same orbit: A fragile star whose only function is to illuminate a man.
Indurkar is a writer, editor, and poet from Jabalpur
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