Her casual approach towards friendship and commitment was appreciated as the young audience enjoyed the new-age relationship. The film highlights rich girl Veronica, played by Deepika Padukone, and her insecurity about settling down in a relationship. Homi Adajania's film starring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. The film also delves into the reaction of a small town society that frowns upon live-in relationship. It was refreshing to see that the plot doesn't unnecessarily stress on the institution of marriage (both are shown to run away from marriage). The film shows the small town hero and the heroine enjoying a live-in relationship and passing themselves off as brother and sister because they live in a conservative society. The recent release talks of youngsters who have serious reservations about getting married. Maneesh Sharma's film starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor. However, different as these films were in content, their treatment was too cliched to impress.Īnother recent example is Ranbir Kapoor's character in Siddharth Anand's Bachna Ae Haseeno, as a loverboy who hesitates to commit. In the late nineties, Satish Kaushik tried the unconventional plot of contract marriage in Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain and portrayed live-in a few years later in Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai. This film despite addressing an unconventional subject has been widely accepted even in the smaller cities because lately the audience has started enjoying real relationships,' says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.Īamir Khan as Akash in Farhan Akhtar's 2001 film Dil Chahta Hai was a first-of-its-kind protagonist who celebrated the phenomenon of not-committal youngsters. 'Films are released keeping in mind the content with respect to the target audience. Since Shuddh Desi Romance addressed a topic considered 'bold' by the larger section, producers Yash Raj Films avoided releasing it in too many single screens. It means they have less guilt or cultural pressure, even if it means risking more confusion, heartaches, accidents and a few falls along the way,' he says. 'It does not mean they are flippant or shallow. Sahni points out youngsters today have more choices that they exercise in everything from career to food, so it's unreasonable to expect them not to exercise one choice when it comes to relationships. The protagonist now is not in a hurry to decide about relationships,' adds Vishvanathan. Thank God that the films are no longer about over-committed heroes and heroines obsessed with each other. 'Bollywood films echo what is happening in society. The spate of films based on this theme is the result of changing mindset. Society needs to give flexibility to this idea, which is progressive as long as it is not manipulative,' he says. 'It is not really phobia but an attempt to experiment with relationships. Sociologist Shiv Vishvanathan sees nothing wrong in confusion about relationships at an early age. My script simply absorbed these characters around us,' adds Jaideep, stressing on how the film and the characters of Raghu the tourist guide and Gayatri have invited strong reactions from a cross-section of people. 'These characters are fictitious and not modelled on anyone, yet we know several such people who have serious issues about commitment and marriage. It is no trade secret when Bollywood presents the changing dynamics of relationships among youngsters,' says Jaideep Sahni, scriptwriter of Shuddh Desi Romance who analysed changing mindset in relationships and created the bold characters of the film. 'It is all around us, we only need to finely present it on the screen. A similar trait was spotted in Deepika Padukone's character Veronica in Cocktail last year. The girl here is also shown to develop cold feet towards commitment, as portrayed finely by Parineeti Chopra playing the smalltown girl Gayatri.

The Bollywood heroine, who has always been the quintessential good girl, too suffers from the same phobia in this story. What was different about Shuddh Desi Romance is that the malady is not gender specific in this film. The phobia was so prominent about the character played by Ranbir Kapoor in Ayan Mukerji's Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani that in the end, when he unites with heroine Deepika Padukone, she mouths the film's defining line: 'Tum phir bhaag jaaoge (you will run away once again).' In the recent past, we have seen films such as Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Ashiqui 2 and Lootera, where the hero had major issues when it came to settling down in life. Shuddh Desi Romance is the latest addition to a number of films made on characters having serious commitment issues. Several films have lately been successful in capturing this trend and effectively presented the mindset of the youth.

Phobia hindi movie story