As cliché as it may sound, I think DDLJ made a point that no other motion picture did and that is a prime reason for its popularity. It put forth the idea that love not necessarily comes at hand by hatred but still takes a lot of courage to achieve. For years we have been fed on love stories in which if the parents don’t agree the lovers either run away or destroy their lives, alcohol, arson, agony being the primary weapons of choice. Very rarely do they fight back without abandoning their families. And the parents are a black and white sketch of a human being, who are either a Shahjahan of Mughle-azam who would rather kill the lover of his son than see him marry her or the Nirupama Roy who would never question his son’s choice even once even if he brings home a prostitute as a wife. There has been no existence of the parent who like the once that exists in the world just don’t get what their children think and prefer to feel that they knows the best. And yet are not evil. There are no such parents ever seen on the celluloid. And that was where DDLJ stood out. You never looked at Amrish Puri as Mogambo even though there was no chance in hell that he would agree to the marriage between Raj and Simran. Everyone just thought of him as a stuck up old man who wanted things his way but meant well.
The magic of the movie lies in the fact that at the end of it every girl wanted a boy like Raj who would not only stand by her but also respect her parents irrespective of their treatment. And every guy wanted a girl who, though a little high maintenance, did have the guts to speak her mind when the time came. Had Simran not run after the train in the last scene, there was no chance that her father would have let her go. It was her persistence along with Raj’s sincerity that made her father change his mind and made the last scene possible. And that is what differentiates DDLJs of the world from the Devdas’s. Like Anupam Kher says in DDLJ, the bride belongs to the one who take her away. There is nothing romantic about mourning except that your object of affection remains as perfect in your memory as you like it to be. And I prefer know that it is not perfect but you have spent years finding that out and have no regrets about that.
The point I am trying to make is that even though, at the end of the day, DDLJ is just a movie and not everyone is going to travel from London to Punjab in hope of love, it is the madness and faith that keeps it alive. And you see its proof in the love stories that exist around you. The ones who actually make it through. The girl who was proud of the years she put in her relationship and knew that she would convince her parents and ultimately did. The guy who respectfully refused to marry anyone unlesss his parents accepted his girlfriend as their future daughter – in – law and waited 5 years for that acceptance. And the numerous others who struggle everyday to knowing that its all worth the effort. Love is like high speed car racing. If you are in it for the real deal then there is nothing that would beat that high and if you are not … well baby then you screwed.
Love is not simple. It’s hard to get and even harder to keep. And if you are not ready to sweat it out, you better keep off the field.
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