NOW AND FOREVER

Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge initiated a dialogue between the two generations. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai said love is friendship. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam said that passion is paramount, Taal that love is power and Dil To Pagal Hai that love is chemistry. Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit are drawn like magnets despite all odds and Mohabbatein echoed that love is forever

For a long time love was symbolised by silence in Hindi films. The women never expressed their feelings (Parineeta) until confronted, and the men never questioned their suffering (Amar) when circumstances turned sinister. If married, the equation tilted, but only slightly. The women were more vocal but still supportive of their men.

Whether it was facing social changes in Do Bigha Zameen or moral accusations in Patita, the couples weathered the storm together for love meant loyalty. It sometimes meant adventure too, when a spirited Nargis ran away from home to fall in love with a charming and irreverent Raj Kapoor in Chori Chori or a soaked-to-the-skin Madhubala took refuge in a garage on a dark and lonely night in Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi or the beautiful village belle lost her heart to an enigmatic forest officer in Madhumati.

Pain remained a part and parcel of love. Who can forget the saga of the middle-aged film-maker in love with his protegee in Kaagaz Ke Phool. The sensitive lower-caste girl drawn to the rebellious Brahmin boy in Sujata. Fortunately, by the ’60s, love was slowly turning defiant. The dazzling courtesan in Mughal-E-Azam challenging the emperor with ‘Pyaar kiya to darna kya...’ and the chhoti bahu of Abrar Alvi’s Saheb Biwi Aur Ghulam willing to to do anything, including drink alcohol to dissuade her feudal lord from going to a courtesan, are immortal moments.

It was Shammi Kapoor’s films that altered the body language of romance. For the first time love was symbolised by energy. Dancing amidst a shikara, surrounded by the valleys of Kashmir in Kashmir Ki Kali, or hanging from a helicopter and proposing to Sharmila Tagore in Evening In Paris, this was a new expression of love on the screen.

Kapoor’s romance was acrobatic, infectious and subsequently shed many inhibitions. The women, even if slightly unsure, began expressing themselves too. Waheeda Rehman opted to live openly with her mentor in Guide and the highly repressed Sharmila Tagore mustered courage to leave her father’s home and follow her heart in Anupama.

In between, for a long phase, music turned into the metaphor for romance. Be it Rajesh Khanna cooing ‘Kora kaagaz thaa...’ in the hills in Aradhana or Dev Anand and Hema Malini having a lovers’ tiff in Johnny Mera Naam, melody triumphed over the moments.

Bobby emphasised that love is youth, so much so that every teenager in town was singing ‘Hum tum ek kamre mein bandh ho...’. The film was a celebration of first love. Around the same time parallel cinema’s Basu Chatterjee quietly ushered in Rajnigandha that said that love is instinct and sometimes, second thoughts are more dependable than first. The film’s heroine Vidya Sinha chooses Amol Palekar over Dinesh Thakur and never regrets it.

Jai Santoshi Maa professed that love is religion. The husband crosses seven seas in search of a fortune and cursed by a spell of amnesia, forgets to return home. The wife waits eagerly for him and when everything fails, turns to the Goddess who brings her husband back.

Interestingly, love never went out of fashion in marriage. No matter how serious their differences, the erring partner always returned home. The powerful politician in Aandhi and the petulant husband in Kabhi Kabhie are repentant in the end. A little late perhaps, but both accept that love is where the home is!

The sacrifices continued nevertheless and often it was difficult to determine whose sacrifice was greater. The wife watching her marriage crumble in Junoon or the courtesan of Umrao Jaan repeatedly deceived by love? The mistress in Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki urging her man to go to the wife or the rejected wife in Satyam Shivam Sundaram?

Love was often a mystery and the deprived chased it like a mirage. The actress in Bhumika goes through fleeting relationships but cannot overcome loneliness. At the end of the journey her life is empty and devoid of dreams.

As time went by, cinema was willing to make space so love could co-exist with conflict. A middle-class housewife fends for the family in Humkadam and that hurts her husband’s ego. It’s not as if the husband doubts her loyalty, but he feels threatened by her independence. In another instance, the hero assuming his wife to be dead, remarries, to discover that the first wife is very much alive in Mang Bharo Sajana. He is unable to tell the truth to either of them and as a result the film ends on a cowardly note going overboard in glorifying the other woman.

The misplaced morality couldn’t sustain beyond a point and Yash Chopra’s Silsila had to pay the penalty. The message imparted was that responsibility is bigger than desire. This was followed by Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog about widow remarriage, which said that love is humanity and simultaneously Shakti which said that love is freedom. Smita Patil decides to have Amitabh’s baby irrespective of her man or society’s acceptance.

For the older couple betrayed by their children in Mohan Kumar’s Avtaar love is self sufficiency. For themselves and their friends, Rajesh Khanna and Shabana Azmi lay the foundation for a life of dignity. The fragrance is carried over in Saaransh. The film was about an ageing couple, Rohini and Anupam striving to find meaning in their life, only to discover that life is too precious to give it up.

Often the boundaries of love extended to larger concerns and contradictory as it sounds, returned to everyday conflicts. Two friends are in love with the same girl in Saagar, one she has grown up with and the other, a man of her dreams. Predictably, she falls for the latter, in this case an attraction of the opposites. There are examples where attractions were illogical too. In Nagina Sridevi transforms into a snake to protect her lover and in Mr India, she dotes on a man who is invisible.

In Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak love is tradition.In Maine Pyaar Kiya it is questioning judgements. In Hum Aapke Hain Kaun... it is putting family before self. In 1942-A Love Story and Maachis, it is putting country before family and in Khamoshi, it is duty above everything else.

Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge initiated a dialogue between two generations. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai said love is friendship. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam said that passion is paramount, Taal that love is power. And Dil To Pagal Hai that love is chemistry.

Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit are drawn like magnets despite all odds. And Mohabbatein echoed that love is forever. Aishwarya Rai’s spirit lovingly haunts Shah Rukh until he has resolved his turbulence. As the poets say, love lives forever.

Bhawana Somaaya>>>>

email: bhawanasomaaya@express2.indexp.co.in