The Narrative of Romance

I love love stories. From the cheesy Mills and Boon variety to epic ones like Dr. Zhivago and Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights. And the movies – oh, there are some exquisite ones there. It’s almost like love stories fulfill some deep-seated need to believe in something pure and untainted in a very tainted world. Or a need to believe in magic – that some exquisite, inexplicable enchantment is possible in an otherwise dreary, wearisome world.

Strong consistent narratives keep recurring in these stories.

Like the Cinderella one. Poor girl, down on her luck, finds the man of her dreams. There are trials and tribulations on the way. Villains try to keep them apart. But there is a happy ending, when the prince disavows societal disapproval and figures that the girl he truly wants is the one without the money. Cinderella of course, is the role model. But there is also the dour Darcy falling for the feisty but poor Elizabeth Bennet; Richard Gere finding the prostitute Julia Roberts irresistible; the chauffeur’s daughter Sabrina falling for the lord of the manor; Jennifer Lopez seduced by Ralph Fiennes in The Maid in Manhattan. It works best when the girl is spirited, inventive and independent, not a boring Cinderella. Jenny in Segal's Love Story.

Then there is the Falling for the Bad Boy routine. Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind is the ultimate bad boy. Scarlett takes her time, and the whole 1000-odd pages of the book to realize she has fallen for him, but fall she does. Baby in Dirty Dancing is no match for Johnny and his dirty moves. And of course, can any girl in her right mind resist Danny in Grease? It’s the lure of the unknown.

On the other side is the shrew. As in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew variety. We had our Indian shrew in the form of Sridevi in Laadla, ultimately tamed by Anil Kapoor. A bossy Sandra Bullock in The Proposal is ultimately reformed by love. A tad distasteful is this narrative, a bit regressive perhaps.

And so we come to Forbidden Love. Always ripe for tragedy. Romeo and Juliet, of course. And the modern day Westside Story. Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (why do I love his love stories so?). The extra-marital love– Greene’s magnificent The End of the Affair, Karan Johar’s pretty bad Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Zhivago and his Lara, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love. Very rarely does this narrative end in happily ever after.

Another one that rarely does is the dark, brooding, obsessive one. The Heathcliff variety. Sharon Stone in Fatal Attraction. Shahrukh Khan’s obsession for Kkkkiran in Darr.

One that can be quite touching is the unrequited, unfulfilled love. Sydney Carton in The Tale of Two Cities. Keira Knightley’s section in Love Actually. One of my favourites - Maharaj Kumar’s in Nagarkar’s The Cuckold. How could he compete for his wife Mira’s love with a dark-skinned god? Yet he tries, gamely.

And then what about the love that is delayed, for years? The Hum Tum variety. The Before Sunrise and The Before Sunset series. The sense of anticipation in these is quite delicious.

So many narratives. Over so many centuries. Each with its own powerful enchantment. Someday it could be material for a paper. Or a brand strategy perhaps.

Love and Longing

As I grow older, it’s interesting to see how my little-girl fascination for enduring love stories has shown little signs of fading. Some of my favourite movies and books are still about love – unrequited passion, can’t stay away from each other obsessions, illicit love.

Here are some love stories I have come to love over the years – they are the ones I remember at this point in time and are in no particular order.

• Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff’s obsession with his Catherine proves detrimental to all around him. Yet there is something that is primal and raw and fundamental about his ardour. Bad Love.

• Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: I like all of Jane Austen, but Darcy and Elizabeth are special and enduring. It is a classic rich guy, not-so-rich girl plot… but Elizabeth is so feisty and Darcy so vulnerable, you cannot help falling in love with them.

• Yuri and Lara in Dr. Zhivago: The novel has other merits – telling a personal story of idealism and courage in a time of great historic change, bringing alive the Russian revolution, capturing the beauty of Russia in a way I have not seen before. But for me the lasting impression is of Yuri and his Lara – doomed love in the time of revolution. Poetry adds that extra bit (so do Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the movie)

• Vicomte de Valmont and Madame de Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons: Here I am talking of the movie, not the 18th century epistolary novel on which it is based (and which I have not read). Malkovitch was brilliant as the wolf set to seduce Michelle Pfeiffer, the innocent lamb, and losing his heart and his life in the process. Cruel Intentions, the adaptation set in New York with Ryan Philippe and Reese Witherspoon was not bad as far as adaptations go.

• Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind: Rhett’s famous last words to Scarlett were a heart breaker – ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’. Not when Scarlett had just about realized after 600 or so pages that she had feelings for him.

• Cecilia and Robbie in Atonement: Beautiful, tragic, utterly magical.

• Jesse and Celine in Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset: A perfect example of interesting conversations leading to crackling sexual tension. There comes a time when you want them to just shut up and kiss or make love. In those beautiful European cities.

• Arvind Swamy’s Shekhar and Manisha Koirala’s Shaila Bano in Mani Ratnam’s Bombay: Forbidden, inter-religious, impossible love. Mani Ratnam has a special knack for creating achingly beautiful and unusual love stories – Dil Se, Yuva, Mouna Ragam… the list is long.

• Harry and Sally in When Harry met Sally: Another of those postponed love stories; when everyone, but them, knows they are meant for each other.

• Jennifer and Oliver in Erich Segal’s Love Story: After all these years, it can tug at my heartstrings (and make me cry) in a way few books can. ‘What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.’ I can still remember those first few lines!

• Karen and Denys in Out of Africa: The beauty of Africa offsets this outsized romance – love out in the wild. Redford and Streep had a chemistry that felt tangibly real.

Each of them has a searingly aching magical quality to it. Some end well, most do not. Which is why, in the case of love stories, I believe the best ones are ones where ‘all is not well’.