India's booming stalk market

We've been telling you about the different avatars of the Great Indian Lover (here's a recap: the Bollywood Extremist, the Petrified Lamb, the Stalker, the Love Engineer, the Invisible and the Devdas), but given how the Indian male psyche is pretty much a global star currently thanks to things like the BBC documentary and the German professor refusing an Indian student, we decided to dissect the one that personifies the discourse - the Stalker. He never goes out of the news. In fact, just a month ago, a particularly juicy one was hogging the headlines because his stalking of two women in Australia was pardoned by a judge since Bollywood taught him that it was 'romantic'. His defence argued that he was fed on a diet of filmi heroes doggedly pursuing women which eventually caused them to relent, and that it was "quite normal behaviour" for Indian men to "obsessively target women". He did not realise his conduct was criminal, and the judge probably dismissed him as a desi bumpkin.

So, the act of pursuing a woman till she gets fed up and falls in love has been stamped as 'Indian culture'. Our movie-worship is a well-known fact, and maybe that judge thought we're all too dim to know better. But we do know better. That's why 'should Bollywood take responsibility for glorifying stalking' is a debate that takes no time to kick off when there's a high-profile incident. Stalker-staples like Darr, Anjaam, Tere Naam andRaanjhanaa are cited as examples of Bollywood's stalker obsession, even as others rush to their defence as being portrayals of the extreme, and of course no one will actually abduct/kill/harass because someone made a film. Because no films should then be made about bank robberies, murders, etc, too, and conversely, why don't people then get 'inspired' to do all the good stuff shown in films?

Yes, we're not so stupid (hopefully), and no, movies can't be blamed for all our ills. Particularly the aforementioned kind, because these films clearly recognise the protagonist's behaviour as deranged at best and villainous at worst. None of their stories ends well. Maybe they're not the problem. What if the problem was the 'normal' kind of protagonist, the non-deranged, non-I-will-kill-anyone-who-comes-near-you kind? The perfectly sweet heartthrob of millions?

Not deranged lover, but regular filmi sweetheart the problem?

Bollywood's formula of romance is so simple, there's been no need to change it in half a century. Boy sees girl, decides she's the one (who needs to ask?), and then on, does whatever is in his power to have the epiphany appear to her too. Follow. Sing and dance. Besiege existence. Embarrass in public, be a drama queen. Gently (or not) threaten with suicide. And whatever else is the truth of the universe, 'no' does not mean 'no'. And soon, cupid strikes her too, because love rewards the dude who tries the hardest or borderline harasses you, not the guy who respects your decision and leaves you alone.

Wooing, or harassing?

Girl's walking in a huff, boy strolls behind, singing, dancing, or, if he's Shammi Kapoor, just being Shammi Kapoor. She looks back, pouts, and turns around with a flounce. You could dress them up in decade-appropriate clothing and replace Rafi with Kumar Sanu, but the template of the 'wooing song' remains unbroken. Hindi film romance has survived on the serenade, the shadowing of a lady as you open your soul to her in song - while she appears to not give a s**t. That's essentially what Shammi Kapoor did in his hits - show up everywhere and shake it, and not let the lady shake you off, whether it was Kashmir or Paris.

Shammi fans might be bunching up their fists, but hear us out. Yes, serenading is not the same as stalking, and which heart wouldn't melt at the sweet, sweet persistence of those blue eyes? (That's another problem that needs to be addressed, that nice girls have to do some itrana before saying yes). But the moral is clear - persist, and you shall have it. The lyrics of many classics sound from mild besharmi to a full-blown creep-fest when removed from the angelic faces they were coming from. Maana janaab ne pukaara nahin, kya mera saath bhi gawaara nahin - yes, I'm uninvited, but can't you put up with me? Aaja aaja, main hoon pyar tera, Allah Allah, inkaar teraaa, ho - oh come my sweet, your refusal is a mere technicality. Badan pe sitaare lapete hue... zara paas aao, toh chain aa jaaye. Ugh. Imagine that from a roadside perve.

First no, then yes

Give chase. If the words didn't say it, the videos did. Raj Kapoor's insistent 'bol Radha bol sangam hoga ki nahi..' finally gets a tired Vyjayanthimala to say 'yes! Now leave me alone'. Shammi Kapoor's brand was to chase the angry heroine across expensive locales to 'akele akele kahaan jaa rahe ho..', being told off by a piqued 'ja, ja!' at his attempts at 'pyar ka sabak sikhlane..', but in the end hanging from all those helicopters and ski lifts paid off because the 'ja ja!' turned into a'haan haan'.

The 'naa mein haan' philosophy basically screwed up generation after generation's comprehension of the whole battle of the sexes thing. 'Tera peechha naa main chhodunga soniye'is a very twisted declaration of eternal love, but we suspect no woman was offended because they were all in love with Dharam at the time. 'Koi haseena jab rooth jaati hai toh aur bhi haseen ho jaati hai', 'Hum toh tere aashik hain sadiyon purane, chahe tu maane, chahe na maane' - here, bullying someone into having feelings for you was the height of romantic. In other places, it would get you arrested (Dharmendra gave a subtle nod to that possibility when he sang 'bhej de chahe jail mein, tera peechha na...').

Thank god the 90s are over

And with Rafi, Sultanpuri and Co passing on the baton, it got pretty bad in the 80s and 90s. The'jaan-e-tamanna' and 'janaab' gave way to 'laal dupatte wali'. The loving gaze and five-foot distance between girl and prancing guy was replaced by pretty semi-rapey stuff - pulling her dupatta, spinning her around, dropping her to the ground, hauling, pushing, and basically lots of manhandling. The (embarrassing) 90s college capers were one big lesson in treating women like inanimate objects to win their affection ('khud ko kya samajhti hai, kitna akadti hai', 'khambe jaisi khadi hai', to the erudite 'a aa eee, o, o, oh. Mera dil na todo).

In Deewana, Shah Rukh grabs weeping widow Divya Bharti at every possible 'intense' moment and forcibly colors her on Holi. Raja Babu has Govinda camp outside Karisma's house for seven days. The 80s-90s how-to-get-a-girl formula was sorted - stand outside her house, stalk her as she walks to college. While at it, sing a song about how arrogant she is for saying no. After all, kab tak roothegi cheekhegi chillaegi? Ek din haseena maan jaaegi.

The noughties got better, till all those remakes!

The noughties got a little better because the real-life dating game finally showed up on screen, but with our 90s/south remake obsession, the hero's back to being semi-rapey and the heroines are back to it being their thing. So Shahid wants to do gandi baat with Sonakshi, while in Mat Maari, as she rains abuses like 'kutta' on him, bizarrely, they're only leading him on (next time you tell a guy to FO, maybe that's why he was smiling), and even more bizarrely, his resolve becomes a turn-on for her. Chulbul Pandey thinks it's perfectly all right to tell a girl to 'pyar se le lo warna thappad se bhi de sakte hain', while Phata Poster warns ki 'tera peechha karoon toh rokne ka nai'.

A smoking scene comes with a dozen warnings, but 50 years of selling a singular idea of romance have so embedded this, we don't even realize it's dangerous. It's a prototype, one that countless Janardans like Ranbir try to use a la Rockstar. Bollywood, time to give the girls a say.