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A TGIF visit to the movies with friends, and I was watching something that might just be revolutionary in mainstream Indian Cinema - a same sex love story that everyone in the family can watch!
A TGIF visit to the movies with friends, and I was watching something that might just be revolutionary in mainstream Indian Cinema – a same sex love story that everyone in the family can watch!
A young girl who is doted upon by her family. The family is at a wedding. As is usual in Indian society, accha ladka proposals begin to come for her. And as luck would have it, the girl does indeed meet someone she likes. Very much.
Sounds familiar? The story of many families across the country, this is how most wedding proposals reach the notice of parents of a possible bride or groom. And this reality is often depicted in our movies. Only, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga is different. But we don’t come to know this right until the interval. Because we as a society have no concept of this – that love can come in various forms, and same sex love is just one of them.
What the movie does is exemplary.
Most movies on same sex love that have come not just out of India but also from Hollywood and other international sources usually deal with the subject seriously, and as a woman who is bisexual once pointed out to me, in most of them, one partner in the relationship is often killed off, or the couple might not have a happy ending. This ensures that only the serious, ‘arty movie’ type of audience watches these, and as a result, these relationships take on the patina of the ‘not normal’.
But this Ladki is delightful, and someone even a child as young as 10 can befriend. A rollicking and witty comedy populated by endearing characters that the audience will guffaw through, yet moistening your eyes as it does of an in-movie audience. The roles played by Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla help a lot on this way, educating us in simple, understandable, ‘non-preachy’ ways.
And as if that isn’t enough, many stereotypes that we take for granted are addressed.
A man who loves to cook and insists on it in the face of patriarchal strictures from his mother.
A woman who believes in taking her happiness in her own hands without subscribing to society’s ‘rules’ for a mother.
A man who does not think that a woman who doesn’t respond to his overtures should be penalized. And so many more!
As Rajkumar Rao’s character says at one point, isko dimaag se nahi, dil se dekhiye!
Image source: a still from the trailer of Ek ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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