Why Hindi Cinema's Cynical Interpretation Of Infidelity Needs A Revamp Now More Than Ever

“MAIN DEVTA NAHI, INSAAN HOON," Amit tells a police officer, in a scene from Yash Chopra’s Silsila (1981). Amit isn’t accused of a crime, but falling off of society’s moral graph. His response to allegations of misdemeanour though comes in the form of a gracious appeal; to be looked at as fragile and flawed. Why does the world – in this case literally a policeman – demand purity, an emotional equivalent of the kind of restraint that also spreads homogenising evils like class and caste? For generations, notions around fidelity have been carefully preserved by a cinematic culture that likes to dispense morality in film-sized bottles. With the release of Do aur Do Pyaar, Hindi cinema returns to a moral arena it has rarely exited with gut, as opposed to performative grace. Might we be on the cusp of change?

Infidelity is by nature exclusionary. But not as consistently cynical as cinema interprets it to be. In Anurag Basu’s Life in a Metro, a film that explores messy relationships in a thriving, metro city, a middle-aged married couple react to the friction between them in contrasting ways. “Ab humari khamoshi bhi apas mein jhagde karti hai,” the wife, played by Shilpa Shetty, bemoans at one point in a voiceover. Her husband’s inner voice though we never get to hear. He is instead a sweaty, abominable summary of predatory instincts. The wedge between the two is as crystal as day and night. The premise of a chauvinist husband therefore adjudicates the right to seek love outside of the marital contract.

Similar problems plague Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, a valiant but ultimately futile attempt at mainstreaming the compressed lithography around infidelity. The idea of marital bliss is scratched, but the needle is handed to a man who is borderline contemptible. It’s easier here to again nurse guilt, ever-present like a torchlight blinking in the corner of a warm room that though vague in its geometry, hints at comforts that some of the more recognisable spaces in the world don’t offer. What if this comfort, over time, becomes other shapes and sizes than the ones you identify yourself through? Can love really be contracted or legally locked, the film fails to ask. Instead, fidelity is presented as the ally of belief as opposed to the other way around. Any attempt to scorn or desert this ship of thought is relegated to the ocean of farce.

In B R Chopra’s Patni Patni Aur Woh (1978), a jocular Sanjeev Kumar courts the affection of an attractive secretary. But rather than poke or analyse the undercurrents of power and hierarchy, the film opts for the comedic streak of confusion and casual fraud. Men therefore casually flirt, get caught and return to the pits, because what else does a dog know than to chase his tail like it were a fantasy? In Boney Kapoor’s wildly entertaining No Entry, three husbands try to engineer casual affairs, only to be taught the value of ‘ghar ki dal’. Indra Kumar’s Masti follows a similar ‘moral of the story’ template. Infidelity is teased, mocked, mimed and then slogged out of the stadium, like a spicy, but costly full-toss. More recently in Jugg Jugg Jeeyo, humour as a ruse to reconsider loutish men, resurfaces as a reading tool. Tellingly though, the man is neither imprisoned by guilt nor is he absolved of all that he owes. He is simply cast aside.

It’s tricky to explore the contours of relationships in a country that swears by what is sacred, as opposed to what is sensitive. Love, more often than not, is an arrangement sustained by the rescheduling of disagreements. Other than falling in love, falling out therefore becomes the only other emotional accident most people are capable of experiencing. But break-up, divorce or walking out of relationships continues to carry this stigma that maybe only the glamour of cinema can unwrap. Even in new-age films like Prime Video’s Gehraiyaan, falling out of love courts the reputation of deceit as opposed to the recognition of fallibility. For as long as cinema continues to re-assert this societal pragmatism, our conversations around relationships will continue to circle the drain of expectation. Maybe, Do Aur Do Pyaar can err towards reality.

On some level, the conversation around infidelity maybe needs to change its register and vocabulary before it tries to approach an argument. This is not an invitation to ‘cheat’ but to acknowledge that much like the act of falling into something spiritual, one can also fall out of something unaccommodating. Ironically, it’s easier to maybe identify the latter than recognise the former. Hindi cinema has written manuals for manipulating your way into relationships but nothing to the effect of withdrawing both consent and commitment from them. Love and fidelity therefore remain cinematic allies, confusedly switching places between being the branch and the trunk. There are, after all, no right answers. Just shelves stacked with perspectives that our cinema needs to be braver to adapt and exhibit.