THE DIASPORA COMES HOME: DISCIPLINING DESIRE IN DDLJ & PARDES (the concluding part)

Hello Everybody,
How have you been? Trust your doing fine and all's well in your life. Well, I'm back again and apologetic for the delay in uploading content on my blog. In today's blog you will read the concluding part of last month's blog - "THE DIASPORA COMES HOME: DISCIPLINING DESIRE IN DDLJ & PARDES"(Read last month's post -http://sonyaa-random-musings.blogspot.com/2009/11/diaspora-comes-home-disciplining-desire.html).

As I said before I had studied this paper by Patricia Uberoi for an assignment on Sociology of Mass Communication during my post-graduation days in Mass Communication & Journalism. So, these were my inferences and observation I had in addition to make keeping the key-points made by Patricia in mind. So, go ahead and read on....

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THE DIASPORA COMES HOME: DISCIPLINING DESIRE IN DDLJ & PARDES (the concluding part)

Pardes
Cast: 
Amrish Puri as Kishori Lal, Alok Nath as Suraj Dev, Shah Rukh Khan as Arjun, Mahima Chaudhary as Ganga,
Apoorva Agnihotri as Rajeev

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (acronym - DDLJ)

Cast: Amrish Puri as Baldev Singh Chaudhari, Shah Rukh Khan as Raj,Kajol as Simran

3) Patriarchal system:It is observed that any decision concerning the family is taken by the male- head as he is believed to be infallible and it is his prerogative to decide what’s good or bad, right or wrong for the family.So whether it’s fixing up Simran’s or Ganga’s marriage without their consent or any decision concerning the family is all left up to the male member of the family to decide.It’s like ‘he’ is the ultimate and final authority and his words ‘must be’ adhered to.Take Simran’s case in DDLJ, she has not even seen the man whom her father has chosen and Ganga has only seen the boy’s photo which her father has selected for her.In both cases it is observed that the father has given a word and that ought to be obeyed. It’s not that I am saying that we must disrespect our parent’s choices after all they mean good for us; but forcibly imposing certain decisions may not be the right way to do things after all we are in the 21st century, where on one hand we are talking about women’s liberation, women marching ahead of men in different fields and on the other hand regressive value systems as these are impediments and stumbling blocks when it comes to the progression of any individual in the society particularly women who has been a victim to man’s oppression since ages.

In the film DDLJ, Simran’s mother begs for her daughter’s happiness telling her to forget about the man she loves because her father will never agree to this match as his word was a matter of honour, self-respect and pride. She tearfully cites an example from her own life when she had to make sacrifices as a daughter, sister and wife at different junctures of life. But when she (Simran) was born she vowed she would not let her daughter make sacrifices, but she concedes that she was all wrong. But in the end of both the films - Pardes and DDLJ it is heartening to see that finally Simran’s mother and Ganga’s grandmother finally pick-up the courage to confront the “decision-maker” of the family after their choices of groom turn out to be the wrong choice for their daughter and grand-daughter.

4) Family honour and Conflict between individual desire and social norm:Here again the question of ‘honour’ does not rest in the hand of the individual. It is only the male-member’s ‘honour’ that matters the most. A father’s honour lies that his daughter dare not disrespect his decision, but make sacrifice for the better good of the family. But does that mean that the daughter is less capable of deciding what is good or bad, right or wrong for her??

In DDLJ even Baldev’s ageing mother can see that her grand-daughter Simran is unhappy but the father just tries to play down the situation.Take Simran’s character profile in the film - compare her choice of dressing at home and during the trip, Simran’s desire to go for a trip has to be approved by her father only and you gradually learn from one of the conversation she has with her friends that her daily routine was college to home and she never had time to go out, party or hang around with friends.

And a dialogue in the film DDLJ which clearly stands out is when Simran’s mother tells her that you can never expect a man to make sacrifices for a woman, but the reverse was always true.

Take for instance in the film Pardes when Ganga goes to America and her fiancé tries to get physical with her and she runs away from a foreign land to protect the honour and comes back to India with a friend. If you carefully observe that moment in the film you’ll realize that the girl who has gone through the trauma is ostracised and humiliated for running away from USA and accompanied with a male friend. Now this becomes an issue of family honour and self-respect as they (i.e. the girl’s family) is now answerable to the society. It means that the girl's honour does not matter but the family's!

5)Issue of maintaining Indian identity in a foreign land:The protagonists have to affirm this fact all through the film that even though they are brought up in a foreign land, they are Hindustanis and Hinduism is the principal religion in both the films. And all this is very subtly brought out by the film-maker through the narrative, songs, dialogues and the mannerisms of the character.

Now the questions which I felt that were needed to be addressed were:

• Why is it that film-makers today promote the Hindu culture so extensively?

• Are we trying to say that the Hindu culture is the only representative of Indian culture?

• Why is it that the thought-process of the characters regressive (for instance: parents selecting the boy for their daughters, patriarchal family system etc)?

• How close are reel-life characters close to real life people?

• Why is it that the film-makers portray the NRI’s more Indian than a normal Indian? Does that mean we’re un-Indians?

I think these are some of the questions and ideas that the paper should have raised to understand the subject better and set the platform for debate in the minds of the readers.

Hope you enjoyed reading it so far and hope you agree/ disagree on my view-points shared in this paper...you can share your comments on this blog, write in to me at - sonyaa.random.musings@gmail.com

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Love,
Sonyaa