What do you do when you have created a hero who is more beast than man? Who's entire life can be condensed down to one word--fire? Who is burnt to a cinder, who's concept of relationships is so terrible, he calls his father by his name, calls his mother a devil, and who's most constant friendship is with a wh**e? What value will he give your heroine, this man?
You have written yourself into a corner, haven't you?
What do you do with a man who is so "male" that he is just basically aggression, all temper, lust, beastly impulses, deathly reflexes? Who's very job defines him, and that job is, at the end of the day, all about power, death and control? Your hero is no mother's ideal son in law, much less any girl's ideal husband. Your heroine will be hated for her beauty, despised for her womanhood. She will be hurt by barbs so sarcastic, they can pierce body armor. Frightened, poor Baisa, by a raging storm of such pain and bitterness, she wont be able to keep up with the tempest that is this man.
So what do you do? As the creator of such a man--What woman do you give to a man who hates women? You can try an educated and worldly lady, and he will sneer at her and turn away. A colleague? He does not see women as equals, so what colleague? You can offer a confident, experienced woman, and after giving her the sexual thrill-ride of her life he'll walk out the door. You can try a "vamp" -- smart, knowing, manipulative. This man? Having been trained by the best to expect the worst out of women, he will catch her out at her own game. He will outplay the player, and then? watch out!!
So you think it over. And you accept defeat. You wanted a sherni to his sher, didn't you? A modern-shodern woman? All those hard hitting Hitler-Didi heroines, wielding brooms, jobs, paychecks and Mahila-Samithy memberships? No. You created this man, and you cannot give him the ordinary girl. The twenty other normal men out there would be happy with that girl. But for this man? You give him his exact opposite. You freak out the fan-dom, and give this hero his exact foil--an innocent who exists because he does. You take symbiosis literally, and create a woman who will die if he dies. A mirror image, only, like all images--the reverse image. The positive to the negative film. A ying to the yang. You give him--Paro.
To the man who's hands are red with blood, you place into his palms a dove of peace. The man with the intelligence to break a terrorist network? Give him a child-like spirit, untouched by not just man, but by the world. To the worldly man with the high profile job and the education to be a Major in the army, you offer a girl who could not study beyond grade 5, a wide eyed village girl who cannot pour herself a cup of tea or light a gas oven without his help. To the man who believes he has no family even though he is living with people he is related to, who claims no parents though both are still alive, who pretends as he lives inside his father's haveli that he has no home, give into his care a girl who has seen her dead parents burnt, who's village has rejected her very identity. If he throws her out his home, she will literally have no where to go. She will sleep where he has put her--because she can set her head down nowhere else but at his door.
To the man who has an entire community of men to call his comrades, give him a rejected innocent who's living relative is lost to hell, and who truly has no identity, no home, or name to call herself. To the man who is so fierce he pours whiskey over a bullet wound, give him a girl who's tender skin turns red with a too-tight grip on her wrist.
To the man who is the embodiment of darkness, give him a woman who is terrified of the dark. The man who's tongue and sarcasm can cut glass-give him a girl so soft spoken and gentle, she wont protest her own humiliation or speak about her hurt. To the killer who has a kill count into the double, triple digits---give him a girl who literally won't harm a mouse. To the man who's job is to protect---give him a girl who will die, without his protection. Everything she is, is due to him. Everything that touches her, comes from him. New experiences, new dangers. New identity, new life. Good, bad, easy, hard. Every belief, every truth, every relationship. Him. His. And she has no one to speak for her-not even herself. She is his to hurt, and his to save. His choice, which one he does. No one in her life, on her side--but him.
All she has--everything, the good and the bad--is from him. And after giving him this girl, don't make him do anything. Nothing at all. You wont need to. You don't need to come up with situations, with ways to inspire romance. You just need to give him a girl who is breathing, safe, healthy and alive because of him. This girl. And having given him Paro, you can sit back, Creators---and watch him become---Rudra. Because the hero he will now be, the man he will now turn to--she will make it happen. The man who you couldn't control, will come like a tame beast to the stroke of her hand. And she will bring him to his knees, by just being---Paro.
That is how you make magic. And how you make a hero, and a heroine, like the eternal couple I saw on TV tonight. Sit back, Creators, wherever you are. Take a bow, tonight. You've done it right. Thank you.
Udne Ki Aasha
