ESSAY: Kiss And Tell

LOVE AND LUST IN BOLLYWOOD

I was on the edge of my seat while watching Kites yesterday. In my naiveté I presumed this would be the day Bollywood would consummate love on screen. After all, the setting was perfect. The hero is an American citizen with no 'maa', 'pitaaji' or 'khandaan ki izzat' to hold him back (although men aren't generally weighed down by 'izzat', it's the woman's department to shoulder that). The heroine is Mexican and in America to marry her way to riches. Then, as a bonus, they're already legally wedded -- he as 'groom for hire', she for American citizenship -- in an arrangement of convenience, but by Hindi film conventions, at least they're married. They're both terribly handsome, can only look at each other's eyes and bodies and feast, because they don't speak the same language and hence their so-called romance must hinge on lust alone. Now you think shackles that have bound Hindi film lovers behind an invisible 'purdah' for decades will be broken forever.