Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Desi Way

Say yes if you dislike weddings as much as I do…
Say yes, if you despise the Indian obsession with settling down…
Say yes, if you like to live life on your own terms at your own time and at your own pace…

Say yes, if you identified with the movie Shuddh Desi Romance (SDR)…

Here was a movie with which I could thoroughly relate to, four years after I was blown away by Wake Up Sid. Parineeti Chopra brilliantly portrays a role similar to what Konkona Sen Sharma did in Wake Up Sid, a role which many of us play in our real lives: a girl in her twenties, working, independent, away from home, in a new city, finding her way through life and love, faltering on her way, but recovering on her own as well. She is smart, she is beautiful yet she has been burnt far too often; she is matured, strong and pragmatic yet she is vulnerable too; she doesn’t care for societal acceptance or conventional wisdom yet she guards herself in a miasma of smoke around her (cigarette smoke in this case). She is the 21st century new age heroine, a refreshing change from the crying, nagging damsels in distress who ruled the Bollywood roost thus far. Then there is Vani Kapoor, who is no Sushil Bharatiya Naari (SBN) either: she may have jumped on to the wedding bandwagon too soon, but when confronted with the runaway husband, she holds her own with dignity and pride. Finally there is Raghuram, the ultimate loser who we all love to hate, but end up falling in love with, every time.

Does this movie glorify live-in relationships?
Does it validate pre-marital sex? (a Bollywood movie with 27 kisses gets past the Censor Boards with a U/A certificate is a sure sign that times are changing)
Does it endorse commitment phobia?

In my opinion, it does none of this. It’s just an entertaining movie about how life unfolds for young people today at the backdrop a beautifully portrayed Tier II city.

It just reinforces our right to live life the way we want to without moral policing, without giving in to hypocrisy and without the obligation to win our neighbour’s approval

8 comments:

Shaivi said...

Nice post. I am yet to watch the movie...

Nefertiti said...

@shaivi

in that case I definitely recommend it :)

Anonymous said...

I guess the majority wud agree with your thoughts except the bit about the movie being entertaining....

Nefertiti said...

@anonymous

would be good to know who the "majority" is...

The Wife said...

Haven't watched it.. Maybe because I answer 'NO' to two of the questions you asked up there..

But independence? YES! Always YES! And luckily for me, marriage has only made me more independent than ever..! :)

Nefertiti said...

@The Wife
I am sure independence has a wider connotation than the conventional one, so yes, each of us are independent in some way or the other and the movie is the celebration of the same.

Neil D'souza said...

"Miasma of smoke"? I learn something every day.

Nefertiti said...

@neil
good na. even at your ripe old age...