Bollywood, Love, and Entitlement: Commentary on Love Aaj Kal

*Warning: Spoilers.*

The just-released Bollywood film "Love Aaj Kal" ("Love Now and Then," inspired by a Taiwanese film and directed by Imtiaz Ali) does a decent job of probing at the nuances of human emotion with artful subtlety, and making one ponder the way in which the world has changed in the last few decades; the relative advantages and disadvantages of our plethora of options versus the simplicity of yore; and the very meaning of "love."

The movie starts out with the tale of Jai (Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (Deepika Padukone), two young modern-day Indians who meet in London, date for a while (and kiss, like normal people who date!), and eventually concede that they are in a relationship. However, as circumstances would have it, they have career goals that would lead them in different directions. Meera wants to move to India to restore old paintings, and Jai wants to move to San Francisco (w00t!) to build bridges (the deft symbolism/foreshadowing creeps in already ;P). So, the two meet over coffee one day and calmly, maturely, decide that they should break up rather than torture themselves with a long-distance relationship that will inevitably degenerate and leave them hating each other; it is the "practical" thing to do.

Both are feeling a bit down as Meera packs up and leaves, and this is around the time when Jai meets Veer (Rishi Kapoor), an older man who is very intent on learning Jai's story, as he sees a bit of himself in Jai. Veer cannot seem to understand Jai's nonchalance over the departure of someone he claims to love, and so he begins telling his own story (younger Veer played by Saif Ali Khan). Veer's flashbacks are interwoven with the real-time developments between Jai and Meera.

In "those days," there weren't as many options as there are for middle class, urban-esque people today: the option to consort with the opposite sex freely, hook up, date a bit, then part ways; the option to leave your home town and even your country simply to indulge your curiosity or explore one potential path; the option to defer or forgo the formation of a family to pursue other career or life dreams.

It was in such a context, in Delhi, that Veer fell in love with Harleen Kaur (Anonymous in the credits, but I hear she is a Brazilian actress named Giselle Monteiro), based on first glance at her pretty appearance and sweetly bashful demeanor. Charming her in too interactive a manner was not an option, so he chose to stalk her, and she reciprocated his affection is subtle ways, each in turn sneaking gifts, sweets, and black tea to one another. But as with Meera, circumstances took Harleen elsewhere: her family was shifting to Calcutta. Veer was determined to work and fight to stay with his beloved, and rounded up the rupees to stalk her some more.

The parallels contine to be forged between the situations Veer faced, and those that Jai faces. The circumstances bringing them to various plot points are different, largely because of the difference in the level of agency possessed by Harleen and Meera, and the fact that Meera deliberately takes some steps which further the distance -- but both men possess a longing for the respective woman in their hearts. Even as Jai and Meera go through the mechanical motions of moving on and seeing other people (or perhaps precisely because of that) the longing grows to to an increasingly intense level of desperation. For a few days, Jai and Meera delude themselves into thinking that their abandonment of romantic expectations has resulted in a new, carefree sort of dynamic, but don't we all know better.

Here's my gripe: the film seems to promote the message that love was the same yesterday as it is today, love apparently being defined as something that makes someone crazed, obsessive, and practically (or impractically) self-destructive in one's quest to obtain his/her object of affection. But neither does that idea of love sit well with me, nor am I convinced of the genuineness of true, deep emotion felt by Veer or Jai.

(Warning: I get into some details and pretty much give away the ending.)

Firstly, Veer. Homeboy sees the woman once, and he falls in love? I mean, fine, this is my asshole, modern-day "practical" thought on that, but how can you fall in love with someone you haven't so much as had a conversation with? You can be in love with her appearance, the vibe she sets off; she can make you feel warm and tingly; or, let's face it, she might just make you horny, and because you aren't allowed to say that without feeling ashamed, you say you're in "love"? Bollocks! Stalking her is giving you a certain adrenaline rush, a welcome thrill beyond working in the village, chilling with your family, and then getting an arranged marriage -- so when you go hustle to make the relationship come to fruition, I can't help but think it's just because you want something to happen in your life, which doesn't contain all the potential distractions that ours do. But it's all very sweet. And if the romance has actually sustained, then maybe its genuineness at the time formation is retroactively self-evident, and I'm just being unduly cynical.

Now, Jai. Boyfriend has some serious issues. No doubt, the abundance of options makes the world an overwhelming place for anyone to live in today, and we are all constantly being pushed and pulled in many directions. But there is also a certain attitude that one brings to the table when confronted with these options, which will inform the nature of his personal energy and relations with others. Does one tend to appreciate and harness what he has, or somehow magically always manage to find restlessness and discontent in it? That middle-ground between sheer complacency and perpetual self-induced misery -- that place where adventure and emotional stability can go hand-in-hand -- is a tough one to find; but my overall impression of Jai is that he's a self-absorbed, confused motherfucker. Take, for example, the fact that when Meera asks to speak privately with him at her wedding, he -- guided by the assumption that finding out the state of HIS emotions is her sole reason for inviting him -- delivers a rambling soliloquy that's all about HIM and how HE feels; he gives lip service to giving her good wishes, but at the same time keeps slipping in bullshit about "But what if we're soulmates?" followed by "Shit, I shouldn't have said that." And what about when he goes to see the psychologist and doesn't even disclose the obvious key fact, and then just ups and leaves from the office? Nice attempt at being responsible and getting your act together to lead a constructive life, dipshit. And when does he ever really show his caring and concern for Meera and what is going on with her? It is hard for me to believe that he really loves her, rather than finding her to be a source of the comfort, familiarity, and validation that would be required by someone with his Peter Pan qualities. I think she just provides him a certain sense of closeness that he is afraid of losing, especially after being alone in a new city. He is motivated by fear and selfishness more than a desire for what is best for her.

Harleen hardly has any agency to speak of, and I think she reciprocates Veer's affection mainly because it gives her something to do. Meera does have a mind of her own in theory, and she always says the right thing, according to Jai, but in the end it's on Jai's terms and according to Jai's wishes that she conveniently also pines for him. Bollywood is all about moving forward the hero's agenda, after all, and it is a lucky coincidence that the heroine secretly reciprocates his desire. Identifying with the hero, the viewer would thus be discouraged from honoring a love interest's no as a no. And what of Meera's poor boss (Rahul Khanna), who is so in love with her and has married her, for chrissake? His love is a necessary casualty on the path to "soulmates" finding their windy path back to each other, it seems. In Bollywood, the hero and heroine are luckily on the same page with another as to the "soulmate's" identity, but unrequited delusions are a much more common phenomenon in real life, enabled into cyclic dysfunctions by films such as this one.

Production-wise, the film is excellent. The songs are catchy, with lyrics and picturization that cleverly move the narrative forward. My favorite video was of "Main Kya Hoon," and not just because it's filmed in San Francisco. It quite marvelously captures the whole journey from Jai's excited entry to San Francisco to his sullen state of despair and agony. There is a sensible sprinkling of laughs and dances to break up the emotional moments. The characters are reasonably fleshed out, and for a relatively short screenplay, quite a bit is conveyed. I've seen lots of hateration on Deepika Padukone's acting, but I thought that both she and Saif Ali Khan did justice to their roles. There are lots of subtleties throughout the film and in constructing the parallels of the two tales which I found worthy of appreciation.

So if I don't think either of the stories actually entails love, then what does? Hell if I know. But I just don't intuit that the cliched combination of distance-induced-mad-obsession accurately summarizes it. That is the stuff of infatuations, and the intensity can't possibly sustain for too long after the gap is actually bridged, when it was pretty much premised on the existence of challenges and barriers to overcome. I am more inclined to believe that love is quite a simple thing (albeit difficult to find) comprised of mutual respect, admiration, attraction, compatibility, and a genuine desire for what is best for the other person -- even if it does not involve you. As fun as it can be to agonize, I think that real love would bring with it a joyful sort of bliss. Or maybe I'm just having fun setting up a challenge for myself to finally come across such a feeling, as it gives me something to do.

I think this movie should have been titled in a way to demonstrate the positioning of the Bollywood hero across the eras: Entitlement Aaj Kal.

4 out of 5 stars.