How Bollywood ruined love

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about the kind of songs we produce in our country, most of the Bollywood songs revolve around one single topic, LOVE. No matter the subject of the movie, it is almost impossible to find a movie without an angle of romantic love. I'm pretty sure that Bollywood directors would have forced a love story even in a movie like 'Man who knew infinity'. We've got so obsessed with love that we've forgotten about the other virtues of human life. Countless movies have been produced over the years in which love is the integral theme or the part of the narrative, love has been the most recurring theme in Bollywood movies. No matter how much we deny but these narratives have shaped our understanding of love and unfortunately this has ruined love for our generation. The way we love today, to an extent is a direct consequence of the misguided ideas propagated in our movies. 

Theory of Romanticism

So, to understand how Bollywood ruined love for us, let's take a deeper dive into the concept of romanticism which was originally invented in western Europe by the philosophers and poets of 18th century. The biggest idea that is promoted by our movies is the idea of a soulmate, it is the one person after meeting whom your soul will be somehow connected to theirs, you'll break free from the shackles of loneliness and embrace an eternal friend and lover who is meant only for you. Countless Bollywood movies have set their premise on the soulmate, the perfect human being who is meant only for you and you only. This idea of a perfect human being who is somehow meant to be the part of your life only is flawed from its very inception, it totally overlooks the fact that deep down each one of us is flawed and imperfect. Bollywood tricks us into believing that we are easy to live with, but we are not, this idea of one is delusional. The quest of finding the one often makes our characters travel a lot and often people find their love during some kind of a journey as portrayed by our movies. Characters in our movies travel exorbitantly and none of them have a job, they don't need to pay their EMI's, their parents never ask them to fulfill their duty towards their family first, they don't need to work arduously for higher studies or for a better paycheck, because according to Bollywood once you find your soulmate all these problems will be automatically taken care of. When you finally meet your soulmate how do you know it is the one? Well, according to Bollywood you know it by instincts. These instincts are the special feelings that can only be evoked by that particular person, only a mere glance of them can render you thoughtless and it isn't love if you put any logical thoughts into it. Another illogical idea that is proposed by romanticism is this, you must be aware of what's going on in your partner's head without them saying a single word. I think this holds true only for Professor 'Charles Xavier' from 'X-Men'. Bollywood discourages expressing feelings through words, everything should be well understood from reading their eyes only. Another flawed idea that is proposed by our movies is of doing grand things to win over your partner, but in real life, these grand gestures often result in grand public embarrassment and shame. Marriage and sex play a very important role in the theory of romanticism and this is where Bollywood distances itself from romanticism. According to Bollywood, marriage is the ultimate thing but in romanticism, sex is the ultimate expression of love. Often our movies end with the lovers wedded together and living happily ever after. According to our movies, marrying a person you don't love in advance will be a disaster for you, no matter how good that person is. Another idea which is falsely propagated, once they are married they'll never be jealous of each other's success, there will be no disagreements among them, they will never be attracted to another person and sex will always be fulfilling. Other misleading ideas promoted by romanticism are, true love is synonymous with accepting everything about someone you love, you'll never ever feel lonely, and feelings are superior to practicality. Romanticism gives no attention to practicality and finances, it won't be wrong to say that it despises the idea of finances and that's why we have so many movies with a very rich guy falling for a poor girl and vice versa but the reality couldn't be far from the truth.

Problems

Out of all this mess, my biggest disdain for Bollywood is that you'll rarely see a girl trying to win over a guy, it's always the other way round. The premise that its the guy's duty to woo her over and chase her has inflated the ego on the girls' side and at times it even brings abusive behavior among the guys. There are countless movies where a guy chases a girl relentlessly and keep pestering and harassing her until she says yes to him. I've personally asked a few girls and everyone came out with the opinion that guys should message them first even if the likeness is from their side. It makes them believe in their mind that they are somehow superior in their relationship. This creates a situation where the guy is generally the 'lover' and the girl is the 'beloved'. In this type of relation, it is always the guy who will make all the sacrifices be it his time, money, or friends' and girls' duty is to make him handle her tantrums because of her exalted position in their relation.

The solution: Greek philosophy of love

The idea of True love is delusional, it only inflates our ego and sense of self-righteousness, but it doesn't mean that love is overrated. What is overrated? It is our ability and capacity to love. To put this inability in the words of Zakir Khan "Zyaadatar relationships mein laundon ka overcommit under delivered reh jaata hai. Baatein karni to aa gai hain, par nibhana aata hi nhi hai". Ancient greek defines love as the sense of mutual admiration for what is virtuous or accomplished in another person. It involves a quest of educating one another and to become the better version of oneself. For example, you love maths or astrophysics, so, you make your partner see the beauty of the subject so that they can also appreciate the beauty of the subject. But what we actually do, instead of making them understand and giving them time to create their own taste towards a particular thing, we force our own likes and dislikes on them. Love is not just about what you feel, it is ultimately a skill that needs to honed like any other. And if you worry that you are not getting good at this, believe me, no one else is either.

Peace out

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