In Hindi films too the ideal woman is married: Rachel Dwyer

In Hindi films too the ideal woman is married. So what if she has had a sexual relationship earlier.


Rachel Dwyer Film scholar
The trailer for Salaam Namaste caught my attention. Not just because it features one of my favourite stars (Saif Ali Khan) and is produced by Yash Raj Films but because the couple in it live together and aren't married. The trailer says this is the film's USP. Indeed it is.

Singletons (as they became known after Bridget Jones), especially women, aren't popular in Hindi films.

The adarsh bharatiya nari is, by definition, married in keeping with tradition: in the dharmashastras, while men have their various initiations (the thread ceremony, most famously), in stridharma, marriage is the only major ritual required for women.

A married woman dresses differently and these differences are cherished. In Hindi films some of the most emotive scenes are the adornment with sindoor (even in Mangal Pandey: The Rising one was slipped in just before the hanging) or its removal.

The Hindi film poses the question the other way from Jane Austen's statement that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Every woman is in search of a husband, even if she doesn't know it at the beginning of the film and a heroine who is not married has marriage as her major goal.

In Hindi films the woman has to be in love by the interval and be accepted by the husband's family as a true wife by the end of the film. Dancing girls dream of marriage (Pakeezah by Kamal Amrohi in 1971, Umrao Jaan by Muzaffar Ali in 1981-in stark contrast to the novel) and commit suicide at the thought of spoiling another woman's life (Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki by Raj Khosla in 1978).

Women who don't want marriage-or seem not to-are the vamps, the Mona Darlings. Helen, when she played the vamp, often had to die to prove that her love for the hero was pure, and to clear the field for the heroine. Older single women are frustrated freaks, such as Lalita Pawar's portrayal of Sita Devi, Anita's (Madhubala) feminist and man-hating aunt in Guru Dutt's Mr and Mrs 55.

That is the story. But it is a bit too straightforward. Is there such a thing as "the" Hindi film? And do they really follow tradition or do they just seem to? I began to wonder if there were exceptions that might prove more interesting than the rule. For example, asceticism has always been valued in India alongside the householder tradition. Fertility is a blessing and polluting, so often sexually inactive women are valued.

Hence the presence of doting widowed mothers-where the lack of sexuality overrides even the impurity of widowhood-and virginal sisters, whose honour is of such anxiety to the hero. Yet in modern India, a few prominent people still chose not to marry, including, in the film world, Lata Mangeshkar, Sahir Ludhianvi and Asha Parekh, and several politicians, including former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee and President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

There are films with heroic women, who reject marriage for various reasons. In V. Shantaram's Duniya Na Mane (1937), Nirmala (Shanta Apte) is forcibly married to an elderly widower but refuses to consummate the marriage and eventually her husband leaves her, signing his note "from your father".

In Mehboob Khan's Elaan (1947), good and bad half-brothers are rivals for a woman who has to marry the richer bad brother. After his death, the good brother wants to marry her but she commits her life to education and sings a stirring song from within purdah.

Pushpa (Sharmila Tagore) in Amar Prem (Shakti Samanta, 1971) is thrown out by her husband for being childless but even after becoming a prostitute and widowed, rejects marriage with her lover (Rajesh Khanna) to live with her adopted son.

In the many versions of Devdas, Paro and Devdas remain virgins to keep their love for each other pure despite her marriage and his relationship with a dancing girl. Interestingly, in Gulzar's film Meera, one of the problems with the text is her refusal to be King Bhoj's wife, as she claims she is already married-to Krishna.

Marriage is not only about the conjugal couple, or the extended family (most celebrated in Sooraj Barjatya's films) but also about motherhood. An interesting take on this is Yash Chopra's Veer-Zaara, where after 22 years the couple is reunited, but presumably too old to be parents, Zaara's maternal instincts are confined to running a school.

Whom among the following, if any, have you fantasised about going to bed with?
37% of those in the 18-25 age group have lusted after public faces. The corresponding figure for men in the same bracket is higher, 82 per cent.

Indeed, some couples enjoy sexual relations without marriage, notably in several of Yash Chopra's films, often with an intention of marrying but the man dies in service of the nation (Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila) or where the woman hopes to marry but is abandoned when pregnant as the man seeks his fortune (Dhool Ka Phool, Trishul) or the woman dies before her hoped-for marriage (Deewaar). Hum Tum (Kunal Kohli, 2004) had a surprise for the audience as Rhea (Rani Mukherji) is a widow but sleeps with her lover, Karan (Saif).

Even in Salaam-Namaste, where Saif and Preity Zinta do some pretty heavy-duty love-making by A-list star standards, the hero pops the wedding question just as the heroine is producing his twins. In one fell swoop, not only is live-in justified but so is having a baby out of wedlock. So what if the order is reversed. Even in Bollywood fantasies, all roads lead to the mandap.

  • Andriod App
  • IOS App
Do You Like This Story?