Bollywood, Modern Love And What Is - Over, What Should Be: Dear Zindagi, Gehraiyaan, Satyaprem Ki Katha

If there is one thing that Bollywood has championed for decades between chiffon sarees in mustard fields and passionate dialogues in rain-soaked streets that love is grand, wounded, self-destructive, redemptive and always theatrical. But India is changing, its ethos is changing – dating apps and no-strings-attached are replacing chance encounters at coffee shops while therapy replaces silent suffering. And it is in this juncture that Hindi cinema’s idea of romance has found itself at a crossroads. Some versions of love feel definitively over, while others are quietly, insistently becoming what should be. For the longest time ever, Bollywood peddled the gospel truth of two people meeting, obstacles arising – parents, class difference, ego, fate

– songs are sung, sacrifices made and love wins. From YRF’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to Dharma’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, romance was all about persistence. The hero would follow, persuade, insist (sometimes in what appears – in hindsight to be harassment) and still get the girl – be rewarded with a yes. Desire was aggressive and consent was assumed. But times have changed, and that particular dose of love feels excessive and exhaustive.

Modern audiences, especially Gen Z and millennials who have grown up on both Shah Rukh Khan and social media are more alert to the politics of romance and the reality of lived love. The line between pursuit and stalking is not blurry anymore. The trop of ‘no means try harder’ does no age well. And mostly, the woman who exists solely to transform a brooding man’s feelings and stoke his ego feels like a relic. In an era shaped around conversations on consent, mental health and agency, some of Bollywood’s most used romantic templates feel problematic.The shift has been palpable – a decade back, Kabir Singh would have been consumed uncritically as a tortured lover. However, today, viewers argue, dissect, reject. Furthermore, the self-sacrificing woman is no longer the one who commands automatic sympathy. Modern love stories are beginning to ask questions. In the 2016 Gauri Shinde film Dear Zindagi, when Alia Bhatt’s Kaira chose self-work over romantic validation, the film made a quiet but radical shift – the man stopped being a solution.

The questions, however, remain. Tamasha questioned whether love can survive when one partner is disconnected from himself and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil explored unrequited love without granting it moral superiority. Turns out, modern love in Bollywood is also negotiating individual ambition. The idea that love must consume identity is a thing of the past.Love, now, is being celebrated as a companionship between equals. Lunchbox (2012) hints at intimacy birthed in conversation, not spectacle. Two lonely people exchange letters and there is just emotional honesty, in reflecting an urban loneliness that feels deeply contemporary. The 2018 Karwaan too presents modern love as quiet, unresolved, and deeply human - more about emotional growth and companionship than grand romantic declarations.Technology too has played its part in altering the terrain. Now is the time of dating apps, long-distance video calls, Instagram heartbreak, ghosting – and these realties are seeping into film narratives as well. Suddenly, separation is not villainy – sometimes, it is growth. Love Aaj Kal - in both its iterations- attempted to contrast eras of romance, suggesting that modern love is more self-aware, even if more confused.

There is also a growing appetite for flawed female desire. Women who want, who err, who leave – women who are real. Shakun Batra’s 2022 Gehraiyaan (with both Deepika Padukone and Ananya Panday) attempted to portray infidelity not as melodrama but as emotional restlessness, without offering the comfort of easy moral binaries. Similarly, the 2023 Kartik Aaryan, Kiara Advani film Satyaprem Ki Katha, frames modern love not as infatuation or obsession, but as consent, accountability and the courage to unlearn patriarchy.

Granted, the industry is still oscillating between progress and regression. But it is still learning. For every nuanced love story, there is another that repackages dominance as devotion. What can be said, the commercial pull of formula is strong. But perhaps in many ways, Bollywood mirrors India’s own romantic confusion. Here is a society, stuck between unending work hours where youngsters are negotiating tradition and Tinder, arranged meetups and algorithmic matches, parental approval and personal autonomy. Thus, cinema becomes both fantasy and rehearsal space. And with it, Bollywood is learning that romance need not be a battlefield but it can easily be a dialogue. Maybe modern love in cinema is about what we are brave enough to imagine next.