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From Band Baaja Baaraat to Sui Dhaaga: Bollywood redefines #couplegoals with stories about entrepreneurs
The new crop of Bollywood filmmakers are going beyond romance in man-woman relationships, showing them as equal partners in an enterprise. Industry names say that this shows the aspirations of a new India.
For the longest time, couple relationships have been at the heart of Bollywood film plots. So, we’ve seen rich boy-poor girl combos and vice versa, and many other angles to this man-woman story. At present, the #couplegoals in many Hindi movies is about turning entrepreneurs.
Films such as Sui Dhaaga - Made in India (starring Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma) and Made in China (starring Rajkummar Rao and Mouni Roy), soon to hit the theatres, are taking forward the baton of Band Baaja Baaraat (2010; starring Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma), which was about a wedding planner couple. The new films will also see the couples run their own businesses.
Is this a reflection of the present times, when a love for entrepreneurship is growing among young Indians?
“Yes,” replies Varun. “Sui Dhaaga is a film about self-reliance and self-respect. A lot of entrepreneurs have been coming out of India and doing extremely well. A lot of these innovative thinkers are coming from our heartland. This film will inspire the youth to think out of the box, and when they see the journey of Mauji and Mamta, hopefully, it can help them push for their dreams and realise that nothing is impossible.”
Mikhil Musale, director of Made in China, will tell the story of a Gujarati man, who, along with his wife, tries to make it big in business. “I think audiences are much more mature now. They want to see real stories [told] in an entertaining way. I come from Gujarat and I’ve witnessed multiple entrepreneur stories around me,” he says. The film’s producer Dinesh Vijan says, “The story line was compelling enough for us to go ahead with it.”
Even in the Akshay Kumar-starrer Pad Man, his character eventually convinces his wife (played by Radhika Apte) to support him in spreading awareness on menstrual hygiene and continuing his mission of making low-cost sanitary napkins available to rural women.
Filmmaker Shree Narayan Singh, who had worked with Akshay on Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, a film that also showed the power of enterprise, though not the commercial sort, throws light on the changing needs of the audience. “Gone are the days when the emphasis used to be only on romance. Our audience has grown not just in numbers but in IQ level, too — especially, the younger lot,” he says.
Band Baaja Baaraat director Maneesh Sharma believes that “the popularity of this genre has something to do with the zeitgeist of today’s India”. He adds, “I believe today’s audience sees a reflection in these films of their own aspirations, and hence are able to connect with these stories.”
The growing need to connect also brings in more money and footfall, says trade analyst Atul Mohan. “Youngsters want to feel reassured that their life is understood by the world. They feel this security when they see a similar story on the screen,” he says.
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