By YKA Staff:
“DDLJ” – a film that barely any Indian, or Bollywood fan anywhere, could not have seen – more than once. It is one of the biggest Indian films ever – but also a hugely patriarchal film (whether the fan in you accepts that or not). A film largely centred around the youth, it also did nothing to encourage them to question, tell them that it’s okay to break societal norms. As journalist Shivam Vij put it in a recent article titled “How DDLJ ruined my generation”, “it made love’s rebellion against tradition rather uncool.”
But here’s the thing – [envoke_twitter_link]DDLJ could have been worse[/envoke_twitter_link]. And the deleted scenes from the film made public by Yash Raj Films will tell you just that.
Remember how difficult it was for Simran to convince Bauji to let her go on a trip across Europe with friends? Of course, you do. Well, it seems the filmmakers had originally intended to include a scene which would have made that segment even more cringeworthy. Specially made for all the ‘Hindustani women’ out there who dare not go against their father, watch the scene at 2:25 in the video.
There are other ‘fun’ scenes as well. Such as mother Farida Jalal telling her daughter that she needn’t put too much effort to lighten her skin tone given that she is to be married in India where people approve of “gehun jaisa rang” or “wheatish skin colour”. And we’re not even going to start about how we’re told implicitly that the bride ‘belongs’ to the father until he’s convinced that a potential groom, versed in tradition, could ‘keep her happy’.
Well, some might agree, others may not. But given the phenomenon that was “DDLJ”, we doubt if there are any who wouldn’t be interested in watching this video.
