Love and Arranged Marriage: back off Hollywood, Bollywood does it better

Toh Baat Pakki? Damn straight... Because I Said So!

Who said marrying off your youngest daughter to the first eligible suitor was just a Bollywood hobby restricted to strict (for some reason always Punjabi) fathers and helpless (often ill/widowed) mothers?

The other day, on a night I really should have bothered to go out, I was flicking channels while home alone and came across, Because I Said So (2007), a movie of the out-on-DVD-in-two-weeks variety starring Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, and no one else I care to remember.

Now, normally the thought of spending 90+ minutes watching Diane Keaton don the same white palazzo pants suit she has over the last 30 years (seeing her in a dress in The Godfather seriously destablised my chakras) would have been enough to keep right on flicking, but the plot line seemed much too retro-Bollywood to pass up.

Moore, Graham, Keaton, Parabon
Because I Said So (2007)
Image: http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/movies/02beca.html

Unbeknownst to her youngest daughter, Milly (Moore), Daphne Wilder (Keaton) takes out a personals ad to find her a husband. She finds not one, but two potentials. Yes, you heard right--old school, arranged marriage tactics.

We aren't entirely sure what compelled Daphne to do so other than her own assessment that Milly was on the path to spinsterhood because of her current lack of boyfriend, and that, in a nation where 50% of marriages end in divorce, her own failed marriage somehow left Milly deeply emotionally scarred (she overlooks the fact that her two older daughters seemed to have come out OK, and yes, miraculously were able to get married).

Milly displays no obvious or subtle personality disorders. Being in her 20s she is certainly not over the hill, is generally cheerful, and the sole neuroses she seems to have to deal with on a regular basis come from the general direction of her mother. I leave you to fill in the blanks but a few misunderstandings, an ick-worthy scene between mother and three daughters trading orgasm experiences, and a wedding later, the movie ends.

Needless to say, I was unimpressed. Not only did I have to sit through the white palazzo pants suit, a movie about arranged marriages without mehendi songs, red saris, embroidered lehengas, and an evil (or nice) saas just didn't cut it.

But before I could write to the Barjatyas and demand an updated Rajshri version, I got my hands on Toh Baat Pakki!

Tabu and Yuvika Chaudhry
Toh Baat Pakki! (2010)
Image: http://movies.sulekha.com/hindi/toh-baat-pakki/pictures/12.htm

The Bollywood remake is built around the same plot with the exception that Rajeshwari Saxena (Tabu), a happily married yet somewhat dominating woman, is a small-town middle-class housewife from Palanpur trying to find a suitable husband for her younger sister, Nisha (Yuvika Chaudhry).

As far as knock-offs go, it fares much better than the original. It's a simple, feel good comedy. The dialogue is refreshing, not least because the characters actually bother to speak Hindi (been a long time since I heard it in a Bollywood film) and the costumes are a treat for the eyes (they actually wear Indian clothes). Best of all, there are no cringeworthy orgasm scenes. Typical for a Hindi movie, the ending does stretch and some of the situations are taken too far, but all in all, this film reminds us of simpler times with a wedding thrown in. You get your horse, groom, mandap, and bride to boot.

Sorry Hollywood, when it comes to arranged marriages, Bollywood's got you beat.

Sirf Tum: No seriously, why the hell you?

Sometimes nostalgia is best left in the past.

Sanjay Kapoor and Priya Gill in Sirf Tum
Image: http://warez-freak.blogspot.com

Having had a rather stressful work week, I longed for simpler days and yearned for a movie I hadn't watched to death but which was, to the best of my recollection, nothing more than cotton candy fluff. As if on cue, a commercial for You've Got Mail aired on TV but since I've seen it so many times I could replace Meg Ryan in the lead, I decided that the Bollywood remake, Sirf Tum, would do.

To be fair, as far as remakes go Sirf Tum, starring Priya Gill and Sanjay Kapoor (and supported by a host of other usual suspects of the time including Johny Lever, Kader Khan, and Mohnish Behl), was fully rewritten and adapted for the Indian screen. The only real similarity is that the two main characters, Aarti (Gill) and Deepak (Kapoor), fall in love without meeting over a series of correspondences by (snail) mail. For the younger readers, yes a large amount of people actually did communicate that way *gasp* even up to the late 1990s--though frankly, I found it hard to believe that Aarti's sister and brother-in-law, with whom she lived, didn't have a residential phone line given their rather large detached home.

All I could really remember about the first time I watched Sirf Tum shortly after it released in 1999, was being struck by how quickly a Bollywood remake of You've Got Mail was executed (remember, satellite TV was new, youtube didn't exist, and entertainment sites on the internet were limited). I recently came across a review on Sulekha that it was in fact, a remake of a Tamil movie, Kaddhal Kottai, by the same director.

But I digress.

Fully blissfully ignorant of the Tamil movie scene, my rose-tinted optimism in fated love got the better of me. The image of Priya Gill singing in a range of coloured chiffon saris amidst the misty fields and hills of Nainital as Sanjay Kapoor penned romantic thoughts stuck, hiding a multitude of sins.

From the beginning of the movie to the penultimate frame, Aarti whines and bemoans her down-trodden luck. Even though she whines throughout the movie about her raging unemployment, she manages to land a teaching job in Singapore with a salary of Rs. 20,000/month (remember it's 1998) but decides she would rather give it up to go back to her slightly abusive jijaji's house (by the way, we're later told that the mean jija bit was just an act since he wouldn't want his wife thinking he was flirting with her sister--some serious family issues there)!

You'd whine too if Richie Rich loved 
you. You know you would.
Image: www.zulm.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8336

If having phooti kismat means that your sister and brother-in-law are willing to let you live with them and pay all your bills until you get married or find a job, having an honest and hardworking man fall in love with you without ever meeting, having a friend in Delhi who opens her place up to you any time you need somewhere to crash, and having the richest industrialist in Nainital (Salman Khan) respectfully approach your family to ask for your hand, then phooto some kismat of mine, baby! The only time Aarti manages to crack a smile in the film is in the song sequences, but then I guess those are just figments of our imagination since the majority are dream sequences anyway.

And what can we say of Deepak's character? He sends random acquaintances birthday cards because he doesn't know his own birthday, being an orphan, of course. It seems having a family in Hindi movies is much too cliche. Facing some routine goondagardi issues from the mazdoors' union leader in Cochin, he wimps out on his job even though his boss is fully supportive of his concerns and begs him to stay. Of course, having a boss whose sister, Neha, (Sushmita Sen) owns a large company in Delhi is handy.

When Neha's unrequited love causes too much stress for him because he would rather be with a faceless woman rather than someone bearing an unusual resemblance to Miss Universe, Deepak quits his job and resorts to driving an auto riksha, despite having decent qualifications and experience and contacts from one of the largest companies in Delhi and Cochin. Oh... and rather than bunking with his reasonably well-off bachelor friend (Mohnish Behl) until he finds a job, Deepak would much prefer living in a one-room kholi with fellow rikshawaala Pritam (Jackie Shroff). Street smarts, I guess, are not Deepak's forte.

But I morphed into a sati savitri 
and I still can't get the guy.

These character issues aside, what really perplexed me was why Deepak and Aarti would actually want to be with one another once the mystery lovers are revealed. Unbeknownst to her, Aarti has recurring run-ins with Deepak in Delhi whom she charaterises as a good-for-nothing, woman-hungry lafanga, even though his only crime was to offer her some of his puja flowers at the temple, and bump into her quite mistakenly on the crowded platform stairs at one of Delhi's teeming train stations. She makes no qualms about her disdain towards him in every meeting and is repeatedly rude throughout the film.

Whine girl, whine!!!
Images: www.zulm.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8336

I mean, really, if I were Deepak I'd go running cap in hand to the ever doting (and conveniently, rich and beautiful) Neha. As for Aarti, she should have been grateful anyone would want to put up with her incessant whining, grab Salman Khan's with both hands, and run back to the hills of Nainital. Readers of my blog will know that in normal circumstances I would not suggest for anyone to run off with Salman Khan, but desperate times...

The only character you have any real sympathy for is Neha (Sushmita Sen). In a poignant scene, this otherwise independent woman confides in Deepak explaining that she leads a rather lonely life having lost the majority of her siblings (save her brother in Cochin) to a plane accident (yes, you can roll your eyes at this but the emotion is poignant nonetheless). Not only has she lost her family, she can't even seem to get the not-so-dashing, not-so-swift guy. My heart bled for her.

The saving graces are few but topping my list of eternal gratitude was that Kader Khan's and Johny Lever's 'comic relief' could be fast forwarded without missing any of the 'plot' development.

Surprisingly, the film did provide a number of life lessons:

1. If you whine and wear simple chiffon saris, you get the guy. But the key is to whine. Neha tried the simple sari look in the second half of the film but failed miserably because of a distinct lack of whining.
2. If you're a gal and you've got the looks of a Miss Universe and the money of a Donald Trump, you're resigned to a loveless, friendless life with, to quote Neha, 'only yourself to talk to in the mirror'.
3. If you're a guy with what we're supposed to think are dashing good looks (you know what I think of Salman Khan) and the money of a Donald Trump, you're resigned to a loveless life of playing golf.
4. Even though you know you aren't going to get the guy, you have to trade your designer dresses for simple khadi silk saris on the off chance that he might come bursting into your office one day.
5. If you're Jackie Shroff and have to play second-fiddle to Sanjay Kapoor in a film, it's time to through your hands up in the air and ask what went wrong.

My alternative ending would see the perfectly matched Sushmita Sen and Salman Khan characters hook up, diss out the wimpy, whiny losers they were pining for, and frolic in Switzerland while throwing stacks of money up in the air.

On a happy note, Sushmita's Dilbar Dilbar number is still catchy. Watch it by clicking on the link.