Zeenat Aman Insta-suggestion that couples should live-in together before getting married is not quite the golden solution to contemporary relationship problems that it sounds like.
What happens to the girl’s reputation when after living-in the man decides they are mutually incompatible? Conservative as it may sound, it’s the girl who will suffer the aftershock of the failed live-in arrangement.
Filmistan has not really warmed up to the live-in theme either. The three notable Hindi mainstream films that I can think of within that genre are Ayan Mukerji’s Wake Up Sid,Shaad Ali’s Ok Jaanu and Laxman Utekar’s Luka Chuppi.
OK Jaanu is smart, slick heartwarming and endearing . Shaad, from material moulded in Mani Ratnam’s imagination , forges out an urban love story set in the city that gives love a shove for more practical considerations, like making a living and realizing your ambitions.Adi and Tara are a couple so believable in their exuberant ambitions and the determination to lock their mutual adoration in a chastity belt, that you can’t help feeling exasperated at their blindness to see the obvious.
Shaad lets his young actors express love with a great deal of impromptu responses to the brilliantly casual dialogues penned by Gulzar . The throwaway lines lend a lingering sense of déjà vu to the main relationship while telling us that some things don’t, and shouldn’t change in the man-woman axis.
In Wake Up Sid Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma live-in in her apartment after he is thrown out of his home by his father. Mumbai never looked less romanticized. The relationship between Ranbir and Konkona develops as they move around her cramped apartment. Miraculously their hearts never bump into the furniture. Ranbir’s Sid is a near-perfect portrait of the aimless young man searching for a direction in life. Ranbir handles the character’s inner life with the effortlessness of a Sitar maestro twiddling with his instrument’s strings to create a music that takes the audience to a world where the sounds suggest a harmony between art and life.
Finally Luka Chuppi. The light-hearted look love lust and live-in. Egged on by his best friend/sidekick the couple decides to give live-in a try. The adventures thereafter are not as smooth as, say Badhaai Ho where middleclass mores were projected with unflinching accuracy. Luka Chuppi sometimes goes awry in its search for satire, but is not the least fearful of stumbling.
Kartik Aaryan’s Guddu wants to do “everything” that live-in couples do. Kriti Sanon’s Rashmi isn’t biting the bait. But they do end up in bed and soon she whispers the four magic words, “Do we have protection?” Guddu is ready with an assortment of condoms.
In breaking the wall that separates love and sex in Hindi commercial cinema and in showing the lead couple with healthy hormonal instincts Lukka Chuppi raises hopes for the Bollywood comedy where kissing is still seen as big deal, and audiences are actually said to count the number of times lips lock on screen.
