Longing For A True Blue LOVE STORY
There is a folk wisdom in Bollywood that says never make a triangle love story with new comers and avoid making a straight love story with established stars..First part of this folklore has some rationale behind it..In triangle love story it is basically a question of who will get the girl(mostly) ..Its two versus one..And both the heroes are generally equally balanced..And that balance to be justified requires a sort of an image, a star value..Audience roots for their favorite star and wants him to win over the girl..If two freshers are taken to compete for a girl, its kind of Lays chips packet that seems full but when you open its not even half filled..Lots of air surrounds the content..Because the debutantes have no image, no character that can only be gained over a period of time, so their fight over a heroine seems undeserved and unworthy.
I don’t fully subscribe to the second part of the folk wisdom..Still it has a grain of truth.
In the classic love story, a boy meets girl..Either it is love at first sight or after some hiccups guy woos the girl..They fall in love..Dream of their world together to the accompaniment of some really melodious and soulful music..But a conflict is planted from the very beginning either by way of difference in religion, caste, language, class, circumstances or plain family rivalry that spans across generations.
Now oblivious of all these differences the two young love-birds give flight to their dreams a la Jonathan Livingstone Seagull..Once this setup is established come the obstacles planted from the beginning and the young couple has to overcome these obstacles, defy the established order, rebel against the mores and manners, tradition(parampara)and face many trial and tribulations to resolve the crisis..The question invariably is will the lovers unite after the ordeal? ..And it depends on the resolution how the story is ultimately wrapped up..tragic or with a happy ending.
Moreover in a classic love story one of the most potent ingredient is the separation of lovers by the established order..And these pangs of separation create a space for longing that fuels the love between the love-lorn couple..More than the coming together of the lovers its their parting that creates all the drama and lump-in-the-throat moments..And then their is an element of sacrifice –at times from both the protaganists that lifts the story from mundane to metaphysical.
Like ROMEO-JULIET, in our folklore also most of such lovers of classic love stories defied the established order but eventually paid a heavy price..Notable being LAILA MAJNU and SOHNI MAHIWAL..
Now in Bollywood whenever a newcomer from a film family is planned(mind you planned) to be launched, the vehicle chosen invariably is a love story where a boy and girl are fresh and debutantes..It somehow represents the freshness, the vulnerability and gradual coming –of- age of the protagonists..Moreover it provides lots of scope for debuting Hero to showcase his talents and versatility ( His innocence, emoting, biceps, six-abs, horse-riding, car driving,drifting and all that can be done with the car, and action—a kind of passage from boyhood to manhood).
In past two months four love stories were released or unleashed..Two just said hi-n-bye ( HAAL-E-DIL & KHUSHBOO) to the multiplexes..Two others generated lot of pre-release excitement..Between these two, LOVE STORY 2050 proved to be a damp squib and JAANE TU—YJN went on to become a rage amongst the younger generation and the youth in general..All these four movies had nothing classic about it..Some of them were not even contemporay except JTYJN in its treatment.
As I wrote in my previous post : “AT Times You Don’t Need Love–YOU Need Luck”,both the films did not click with my sensibilities, especially in context of a classic love story..But if democratic norms are adhered to then definitely I am in the minority so far JTYJN is concerned..Its not a Love Story as such but more of an exploration and coming-of-age incidents packaged and promoted very well..
You may not agree with me..But the movies that have really stayed with me through the decades as classic love stories in Hindi Cinema are : (And they were coincidentally the launch vehicles of many a star– Rishi Kapoor, Kumar Gaurav, Kamal Hasan, Sunny Deol, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan.
BOBBY
LOVE STORY(KUMAR GAURAV’S)
EK DUJE KE LIYE ( This was not a debut movie of Kamal Hasan but in a way it was his debut to the Hindi speaking masses)
BETAAB
QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK
MAINE PYAR KIYA
In almost four decades hardly six movies ..You may wonder what about DIL & DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE..Well both DIL & DDLJ are certainly in the classic mould in their story content..I did not put them in the list as these did not have debutantes as their hero and heroine..Similarly with JAB WE MET..Not only the protagonists are not debutantes but the premise of boy-meets-girl and living the experience, excitement, ecstasy and agony of first love is not there..
Then there are movies on the other end of the spectrum..Debut movies with love story as the content but these did not click quite well with the audiences..Notable is Kajol’s debut movie BEKHUDI..Then there is BARSAAT( Bobby Deol and Tina Munim’s launch pad)..
One movie that I am not quite able to strait-jacket in a genre is Hrithik Roshan’s debut vehicle KAHO NA PYAAR HAI..Its story has germs of a classic love story but then it quantum leaps into a different sphere post-interval..Maybe you can enlighten me much better on this.
But one thing is for sure, considering the present rash and mish-mash of Love Stories, if this is Love then give me Lust anyday!.
Tags: barsaat, BEKHUDI, BETAAB, BOBBY, DDLJ, DIL, EK DUJE KE LIYE, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, LAILA MAJNU, LOVE STORY, MAINE PYAR KIYA, QSQT, SOHNI MAHIWAL
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
u forgot my favourite film….which was a debut vehicle for abhay deol and ayesha takia ( though tarzan released first)….
Socha Na Tha…….
BARSAAT — Bobby Deol and Tina Munim’s launch pad..
it seems galti se mistake ho gaya
Jaane tu…hmm, Genelia is not exactly bollywood debutante.
She was with Riteish Deskhmukh launch vehicle, and then Masti even Mere Baap Pehle Aap.
Yeah, it should Tina/Twinkle Khanna for Barsaat :-) or did Tina Munim also debuted in older 80s Barsaat?
Also,there was Prem that lasted too long in making that Tabu became known before that.
And Refugee -AB baby and Bebo starrer.
Yeah, I think movies like Kaho Na Pyaar Hain, and even Himalayaputra (A Khanna’s debut) that are typical masala movies which are just more than love story.
you mean to say that Neil Nitin Mukesh’s entry into filmdom was not planned as he didnt debuted with a love story.. he too is from a film family after all..
and if we connect Kaho na pyaar hai with your initial remarks then can we categorise that as a love triangle with the newcomer playing doble role of two lovers falling for d same woman?? sorry for this..
I think Saawariya also fits in the boy meets girl genre of films which typically are launch pads for boys and girls of film families.Thankfully Saawariya is not a showcase of Ranbir’s six pacs or driving skills.
@Pankaj
@Vishesh,yes,galti se mistake ho gaya aur jaldi se bhi..It’s not Tina Munim but Twinkle Khanna..thnx for the same.
@golghosh
There is no denying the fact that even Neil Nittin’s entry was planned..But my focus was on the genre of films that are usually chosen for debutantes..And another factor you will notice is that mostly these boys have been launched by their home productions..Neil Nittin,Ranbir Kapoor are exceptions..Well Kaho Na Pyar Hai being a triangle love story from ur pov is an interesting observation.
Socha na tha is one of the best love story that i hv seen in the last decade……it was Imtiyaz ali’s debut movie only because of poor promotion it bombed at box office.
Socha Na Tha and Tujhe Meri Kasam (Ritesh and Genelia) were both very nice “love” stories …
you are correct. people are fed up of triangular love stories. In fact whenever i happen to see two guys and a girl in poster i stay way from it!! Its quite natural in this industry that if a movie goes blockbuster it takes longer period to revolutionize.