‘A man who smokes should never marry a village girl’: Comments on Courtship and Marriage ‘Hindi Film-Style’

Abstract

Here, both texts and audiences take centre stage. They do so not merely by means of the diverse narratives of viewing generated during the research around which this book is shaped but also via an analysis of both specific film sequences and critical commentaries on these films. This chapter is devoted to a case study of two of the movies which were discussed most fiercely by young interviewees in relation to romance and marriage — Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The One with the Heart Takes the Bride, henceforward DDLJ) and Hum Aapke Hain Koun …! (Who Am I to You?, henceforward HAHK); concurrantly this chapter is committed to exploring the ways in which specific filmic embodiments of concepts such as ‘romance’, ‘family’ and ‘tradition’ interact with wider cultural conceptions of such ideas to become meaningful within young viewers’ social and psychological repertoires.

First in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ) there was the carefree boy. And then this girl comes into his life, Kajol, she alters him incredibly… it was the whole experience of being in love that changed him. When a man is in love, he is willing to go to different places. I just liked that part so much… when he leaves London, and goes to Punjab following her. Finding any little excuse, he catches her. Even in my life, trying to meet with my girl is an enormous tension; it was so difficult, I had to watch everything and people watched me too, and her, and it was very hard to get time alone together. In DDLJ the way it is, it is so in my life too. There is so much similarity between my life and that in the movies, I can’t even explain to you. Then there’s the time when Shah Rukh talks to Kajol’s mummy, it happened the same with me: I too had a talk with her mother. Her mother also advised us, she understood us. But her father doesn’t know. He may suspect. Her father is exactly like Amrish Puri, strict, jealous, his face is always angry. I try so hard to make Uncle talk to me… but he is always frowning and strict like the father in DDLJ.

(Rahul, 21-year-old viewer interviewed by author, Bombay, 2002)

[I]n Pardes when Shah Rukh is with Mahima and they are talking about the cigarettes I didn’t like that because [her fiancé] was lying to her and he should not have lied to the woman he was going to marry. It gives a bad image. A man who smokes should never marry a village girl.

(Meeta, 17-year-old viewer interviewed by author, Bombay, 2000)