Abhishek and Rani In Bunty Aur Babli; (above) Mallika and Emraan in Murder

In India, the diverse nature of the population also translates into a diverse audience of films. The ‘multiplex audience’ is only a section of the youth audience of Bollywood. Outside the world of pepperoni pizzas and designer plazas, fluorescent sneakers and dazzling shades, exists a world that isn’t as trendy as the ‘youth films’ jumping up like popping corn.

There is a section of youth who are not your typical ‘multiplex audience’. They don’t casually spend hundreds of rupees when they ‘go out for coffee’. They might not drink themselves silly in pubs and nod to trance. You might not catch these youngsters guzzling cola in multiplexes, but they’re as Bollywoodian as their urban counterparts. And the yearning for candyfloss romance remains at a peak for this section of audience as well. So even if they don’t see a reflection of themselves in the characters on screen, they can still enjoy the cho-chweet air of love-shuv in the ‘young films’.

When Saif and Preity dance to mushy tunes in Salaam Namaste, so obviously in love, they catch themselves smiling. But they definitely don’t approve of the fact that they are sharing much more than a roof. When it comes to the films that are closer to their hearts, they would obviously choose ones that talk about their issues, not those of their multiplex counterpart.

While the issues of these far-apart worlds are not the same, they appear to be similar to an extent. Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli is not what you could call an essentially multiplex film. But it turned out to be a massive hit all across the country, irrespective of the multiplex factor. Strangely enough, in the film, Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee played smalltown runaways who live together as they go around the country polishing their con skills. However, even after months of living together, their relationship ventures in the physical area only after they go though the customary saat pheras by the river. Even though they are surrounded by strangers, and there is no one to judge them, it is important for them to be married before they start a conjugal life. Probably because before they worry about others judging them, they judge themselves first. And that’s something a large part of India’s youth still identifies with. For many, living-in is not an acceptable alternative lifestyle. And that is why they would miss a film like Anurag Basu’s Murder that is uninhibited in its portrayal of sexual relationships, and choose to go for one like Vipul Shah’s Waqt that deals with familial issues. Like the multiplex audience, this is the way they choose to look at the issues of love, marriage and sex for whatever reasons.

This clear difference in co-existing but largely diverse sections of audience belonging to the same age group reflects the variety in the kind of people that inhabit our country. And this demarcation reflects itself in themes of films, too. That is why, where we have films that talk about a couple who have a live-in relationship which their parents are in all probability not even aware of, on the other hand, we also have films where the couple will not get married till the mummies and daddies have happily given them the green signal and agreed to dance at their wedding!