I remember the first time I watched “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge”, I went crazy. I pranced around the house, rolling myself in a towel and irritating the hell out of my mother.
That was my first introduction to love. In those days, love simply meant meeting a guy who you hate at first, but then eventually falling in love with them. After millions of atrocities committed on you by the society, you marry and have sex with the guy.
Actually, the ‘sex part’ didn’t come till “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”. Sex meant kissing each other everywhere, except the mouth, while fully-clothed and getting wet from an unexpected shower of rain. The actual lesson, though, came much later – with Brazzers, and not a Bollywood movie.
Real Life Intruded
So, when I finally got engaged to my husband after meeting him just once, my dreams of love were shattered. Of course, no one forced me to marry a decent man who was responsible and caring, but love isn’t supposed to happen this way!
Worse, my now-husband-then-fiance never understood. He never called me up at work, so that I could prance around holding my mobile while my colleagues teased me playfully. He never followed me home or got jealous of my male friends. I mean, that, according to me, is the definition of love – you have to get jealous and follow me!
Although, to be honest, I was scared shitless when I was actually stalked by a guy who threatened to slash his veins if I didn’t say yes. It hardly matters now – the compass was blunt and he didn’t even know the location of veins in his hand in the first place.
I couldn’t ask him to elope, fearing he’d fear for my sanity – so I was unable to sing “Gazab Ka Hai Din”. We never fought – so I could never sing “Ae Ajnabi Tu Bhi Kabhi”. Our parents never fought – so I could never sing “Mera Yaar Mila De”. My husband never friend-zoned me – so I could never sing “Kabira Re Kabira Maan Ja”.
Neither of us (touch wood!) had an accident, so that the other person could sing “Mujhe Haq Hai”. None of my boyfriends (a measly number anyway) were irritated enough to create a scene at my wedding and sing “Channa Mereya”.
Where Are The Wedding Dances?
The wedding ceremony was a disappointment anyway. The monstrosity everyone called my wedding lehenga didn’t have any flare like Alia Bhatt’s had, in “Student Of The Year”. My sister got cold feet at the last moment – and so, she wouldn’t perform to “Nagada Sang Dhol”. The maang-tika wouldn’t stay on my head and bobbed around like a pendulum with a mind of its own. I still can’t bear to watch my wedding video, with my tika going everywhere on my head except the front.
But the worst part is that the movies never explained what to do after the marriage. I mean, I knew what songs to sing for everything that happened before the marriage, but not after! “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi” was educational – but I would recognise my husband anyhow, and anyway, he can’t dance. And since married people are not supposed to be in love according to the movies I had seen, I wasn’t sure how to take the feelings I had slowly begun to develop for my husband.
No Song For Every Scene
Why isn’t there a song for the times when your husband buys you the book-set you have been looking at, forever? Or a song for the times when your husband feeds you the dalia he cooked, while you are lying down with a 104-degree fever? Or a song for a teetotaller husband trying to clean his wife’s clothes, as she lies in her own puke from a bachelorette party full of booze?
This is perhaps because married couples or couples with no drama in their lives are not worthy of attention. It’s also perhaps because our love stories, too plain for our ears, are not enough to satisfy our restricted imaginations. We want to delve into a world of flamboyant proposals, slow-mo dashes on foreign beaches and flying hair that never seems to get tangled.
And of course, almost no one sings songs for a man and woman lying in a bed – spent, after having sex for the first time in months due to their busy schedules, and yet, feeling far happier with the post-coitus talk than with the things that happened before or during the intercourse.
But Real Wins Over Reel
When love came for me, it didn’t rain, neither did hundreds of skinny girls dance with their dupattas flying in the air, going all “Bahara Hua Dil Pehli Baar Ve”. Neither did everything around me coordinate itself to become red (which seems to be the colour of love, according to Karan Johar).
It’s like the breasts you thought you would never gain – only to wake up one day and realise that A-sized cups won’t do anymore. You begin to admire what you have, even if it’s slightly lopsided. Because it’s what you have, it’s what you want – and no matter what Bollywood says, it’s what you’ve been waiting for.
This article was first written by Ruchika Thukral for Bonobology.com.
Featured image used for representative purposes only.