A Love Story

Boy meets Girl. Girl hates Boy. Boy’s Best Friend likes him. Boy doesn’t know. Boy and Girl are about to get married. Boy’s other friend tells Girl that Boy’s Best Friend likes him. Girl calls off wedding. Boy chases after a train (or runs security at an airport). Boy and Boy’s Best Friend get married. ::cue music and background dancers::

So life need not be this complicated. At all, actually. Yet, Bollywood movies tend to romanticize this sort of thing and make it seem like all epic love stories must have loads of misunderstanding, heartache, opposition from all sides, and pain. The love endures in the end (most ends), but the path to it has enough stress to pretty much guarantee that neither party will make it past 60. For those of us either born outside of India or outside of the culture itself, first impressions may be along the lines of the overwhelming absurdity of these Bollywood love movies (and confusion at the frequent, random spurts of song and dance in the middle of a romantic scene, with hundreds of choreographed extras, to boot). However, there is an allure to Bollywood films that stems from a sort of idealized view of love and romance that it has created in billions of minds, which plays a key role in helping us escape our day-to-day frustrations and boring lives into the realm of magical love stories. In short, such Bollywood films are our drug.

With any drug comes the initial high, the plateau, and then the crashing down in epic proportions. In this case, the high is created over and over again with the seemingly infinite scenarios that you can find love, and idealized pairings that’d probably make ridiculously good-looking offspring. The first time we see a Bollywood love triangle, and the broken-hearted heroine finally being accepted by her lover, it makes our hearts melt, and we yearn for the same emotions we felt watching that movie. After all, it’s so beautiful right? Everyone wants to be loved. But no, we want to be loved like THAT. This initial exposure is the high. Finally, we have found what ideal love is. Finally, we know what to look for in my future partner. Finally, I know that love is going conquer all…

So this brings us to the plateau. Once we are exposed to this point of view of love, we stay here for a while. We finish most days with a decent satisfaction of what we accomplished in our daily lives, but having that underlying humming of Bollywood love in our brain makes it seem like you are living life with background music. The relationships you have start off in Bollywoodesque perfection. You’re tempted to break out into song for the girl across the room at an Indian wedding, because chances are you’ll fall madly in love and overcome all challenges to live a long happy life with her as your devoted wife. Many people hold onto this perception of love for a very long time. Their life and times become a framework for dramatic interjections of every day crises. You live on in hopeful agony, waiting for the true love and soul mate that will show up and sweep you off your feet.

For the rest of us, the next step is the crash. Sure, the Bollywood thing works for a while, but then comes reality. You hope for a Shahrukh Khan playing a violin at your doorstep, coming to rescue you from your loneliness, but instead you get a guy who’s afraid of commitment and forgets your birthday. Those who have bought into the Bollywood variety of love subconsciously (or consciously) compare their own life’s love to those made up ones in stories. Obviously, it will not measure up. Act 3: The Crash. Maybe this is where I’m at, and I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve learned my lesson the hard way that love is a lot more about commitment, understanding, and being on the same page, than the passion and lust that it starts off with. It’s nice to watch Bollywood movies, and revel in the cute lovey dovey stuff, but it is also very important you do not get carried away in idealizing what love is because of these films. Many of these movies make people cry because “it’s so beautiful” and “oh he experienced so much pain and now they’re together”, all those happy happy joy joy tears. The only time I’ve shed a tear is the rare moment that I catch myself hoping to want that love, and in a moment’s reality check realize that it doesn’t exist. I cry for the illusion that I know will never be. Once this crash happens, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pick yourself back up to that initial high, and therefore that level of ecstasy. The key here is to understand that love is not about the fleeting emotions, but about the long-term bond and companionship that everyone needs.

So Bollywood, thanks but no thanks. Going through these stages sooner rather than later would probably do loads for your sanity. In conclusion, just like the effects of a drug, this idealized, romanticized view of love is short-lived, impairs judgement, and a total fantasy.

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