After hearing one KANK reference too many from friends, acquaintances and strangers on blogosphere over the last few months, I decided to watch the movie. I was curious to know why it resonated with so many people who apparently had little in common. They most definitely did not share a common taste in cinema. What was the draw then, I wondered.
The story seems to make sense to the young, affluent and urbane desi of today - specially those who are or have been married. The message is simple : feeling the vibe, the click, the spark and having chemistry is not optional while entering the state of matrimony. Just having one nice person marry another nice one is no guarantee of a lifetime of happiness.
This turns traditional wisdom on its head which said that any two nice people once married would inevitably come to love each other, that the vibe, click, spark and chemistry were impermanent and should never form the basis of a durable relationship. You were taught to think of the very long run - the real dividends from marriage came when the two were nearing death, up until then you continued to nurture and invest in it, you never sought solace elsewhere to ease boredom.
Whereas our parents and grandparents were saddled with a lot of responsibilities from an early age to late in life in the form of dependent siblings and aging parents, we have the incomparable luxury of contemplating the nature of relationships into our thirties and beyond. We delay starting a family because we can afford to do so. We are willing to try several relationships for fit, spend the time and effort it takes because "the journey is not less important than the destination".
Our options have increased to the point where no one choice is truly final. In the west, all of this has been true for a while. While KANK is no great cinema, it is an epiphany of the state of desi matrimony today. Small wonder then that it strikes a chord with such a wide variety of people.
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
Comments
i am a huge KANK fan, but i havent been married or affluent ... but thats not the point.
but u didnt write if u liked the movie urself!
Also liked how they show the lack of chemistry between spouses and how the same people are transformed when they are with who they really like.
Other than that it is fairly typical Bollywood fare :)