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Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety – Real Eyes Realise Real Lies


Rumi, centuries ago professed that words are merely a pretext; it is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words, and that is precisely the basis of Karthik’s film.




What delighted me was how the millennial generation has taken like water to sponge to the concept of friendship and family and how in order to protect your family all is fair in love and war. And the proof of that is in the box office collections. The film started to packed houses and has been the third most popular currency-spinner after Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat and Akshay Kumar’s Pad Man.




However, we live in times where nothing is free of debates, and the babble doing media rounds that only the opposite sexes can feel irreplaceable bonds betwixt each other like how Sonu and Titu feel for each other is nothing but a heap of garbage. As Luv Ranjan, the writer and director, thinks, methinks too that love is beyond gender. That love for your friend is as pure as love for your family, and in this film Luv has drawn a perfect parallel to what Sonu feels for Titu – he holds Titu as central as his mother, and that is a sentiment so marvellously explored throughout the whole film. I also think that when these bonds are formed between any two human beings it is not necessary that someone else other than those involved in such deeper bonds need to understand them as they sink deeper than the deepest layer of deep.


In Book My Show, the critic has taken objection to, and I quote – “In one scene four men are sitting together, dipping their feet into the pool and knocking back the whiskey. They are chatting about marriage, women, and relationships. One of them exclaims: uparwale ne acchi ladki banana hi band kar diya.

I have no idea what director, writer and co-producer Luv Ranjan’s definition of acchi ladki is. But none of the women in this film – at least the younger ones – are deemed worthy of the descriptor. Instead they are positioned as manipulative shrews or hard-drinking airheads willing to do anything to snag a man. Their desperate desire to marry breaks the bro-code between besties Sonu and Titu. The two chaddi buddies aren’t lovers – this film isn’t brave enough to consider that – but they are emotional soul mates.




Two things here, first, ‘uparwale ne acchi ladki banana hi band kar diya.’ (The creator has stopped making good girls.) What’s wrong with that? To find a woman in the 21st Century whom one would like to live one’s life with has become increasingly difficult simply because to discern the wheat from the chaff these days is nearly impossible, even chaff has begun to look like wheat. Now is that an optical illusion? Or only a manner of fooling the mind, one cannot say, but women are not what they once were. Some might reproach me here of being sexist, and I am fine with that because if expressing myself as blatantly as I can is misread as sexist then be it. Also, men have been habituated to satisfying their needs in finding an outlet with a woman who is agreeable to be part of such a ‘no strings attached’ liaison, and women have taken to it like tracks are to a train, thus when the physical needs of women are met at their convenience, they then begin to pursue men who have the money and the worldly wants they can obtain from such a relationship. There is nothing wrong with that too, selfishness and sex has been used as a tool of achievement and assimilation since its birth, but if wealth is to be attained via means of sexual manipulation as claims Sweety, then the women are getting their intentions dreadfully wrong. It is respect and balance that keeps a family united, and if there are hidden agendas it helps nobody, and in time, the truth does triumph.




Vaginas may lead men to lose their minds, but men aren’t as timid as they are being made out to be by women in general. Entitle it an instinct or an intuition; unless a man is a monkey, he will not come under the sinister spell of a scheming woman. So in that context uparwale ne achi ladki banana hi band kar diya is most suited to the script. There is such a paucity of women of this noble temperament.




Second, “The two chaddi buddies aren’t lovers – this film isn’t brave enough to consider that – but they are emotional soul mates.

The premise of this film was not sexual love between two men; it was primarily about the power of near familial-like attachments even though Sonu and Titu do not share the same DNA, hence I do not understand what element of bravery she speaks of here. Even to imply something like this is rather rash, leave alone ridiculous. 




The Hindustan Times reviewer has said, “Have you met or heard of similar characters in real life? At least I haven’t.

Columnists ought to get it that criticism is limited to their own limitations. Simply because you are inexperienced does not mean that wicked individuals like Sweety do not exist, and says who that you have to meet similar characters in life in order to identify with them too? Obviously, Shakespeare didn’t kill to write Hamlet now, did he? I wish newspapers employ people who have some knowledge and not those who string words for the sake of filling up columns.




The Indian Express says, “Can Ranjan grow up his callow characters? Of course he can, because he has the smarts (remember Pyar Ka Punchnama?). Does he really want to? I’m not sure. Sharp comedy of the sexes is the hard stuff. Cheap laughs are easy.

Do I even need to attempt to offer an explanation to someone who is, once again, a sister from another mother to the lady at The Hindustan Times?




The Hindu is a well-regarded paper when the remaining have been peddled to ruffians, but the woman at The Hindu went way beyond every other publication when she stated, “FOSLA is a term I got to discover through social media. The Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association seems to be peopled largely by jilted men, at least in my limited experience. I’m told that there’s also a dedicated Facebook page for the community. Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (SKTKS) seems tailormade for the young male members of this club, in fact all of Luv Ranjan’s films are. The way he has steadily stood by angst-ridden young men, who have been disillusioned by women and failed relationships, FOSLA could well be called Ranjan’s oeuvre.




If FOSLA is Ranjan’s oeuvre, then I don’t know what words I have to use in order to describe those who make films that sport item numbers. Aren’t the men who take pleasure in such atrocious depictions of women on the screen equally guilty, and candidates who would most aptly fall under the FOSLA club?




One more critic has alleged that the two friends in this film could as well have come out of the closet. As you would have distinguished from the gist until now the problem with the critics is that they are a poorly informed set of idiots who do their job robotically rather than delving profounder into their hearts and minds, and they do so because they lack the capacity to grasp that love is not about sex, and certainly all men who love each other aren’t closeted homosexuals. In a way I am glad these knuckleheads opened their mouths so that the public understood the meaning of real relationships and the box office numbers are the testimony of their support to such philosophies.

TO THE CRITICS OUT THERE

1/ Denounce films that have no rhyme or reason to be made. Don’t condemn work that works. Also, stop kissing the arses of foolish filmmakers just because they are famous.




2/ Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is unadulterated entertainment and not a story to be analysed or dissected for political correctness. Like literature is a mirror of the era, Luv is someone who presents us a mirror of what is happening around us. His characters aren’t in the least shallow or his work sexist. Look around you and you will see that the balance in humanity is a bit wonky, and it is this wonkiness that he portrays on the screen in form of light-hearted entertainment. Despite this summation if you still desire to luxuriate in roles that are etched with accurate equations then biographies should be on your watch-list.




3/ What I find incredibly surprising is that the media honours films that objectify women as nothing but primped up for sex with five stars, while they reproach Luv of being chauvinist. Don’t you think that in doing so you are revealing your innermost thoughts for as we think we are, and as we are, we speak? Wouldn’t it be a window to the world about how sound your standards are? On what sort of ideologies you uphold? Why is it that the critics do not study a film for its worth? Why is it that their reviews are inversely proportional to how much of an arse they want to kiss of the filmmaker who has bestowed them with goodies?

TO THE MEN OUT THERE

I would like to tell the men out there that no matter how much you love your women, do not be blinded by them – there is a huge difference between being manipulated, and loving someone for who they are.




I would also like to tell the men out there that do not ruin your relations with those who matter to you no matter how important the new person in your life. There certainly is room for everyone if you set your priorities right, so do not delay establishing the rules of the game right from the start.




A woman can give a man only that which a heterosexual man cannot give a heterosexual man, genital bliss, yet it does not take a squarehead to distinguish that genitals do not manage our lives. Our lives are made up of emotions and of love, and both love and emotions are not built in a day just as Rome was not too. These things take time, and a lot of burnishing in order to reach that level of an innate, intimate comfort. Be patient and be wary and guard your old relationships with an iron fist while you nurture newer ones until they have proven their mettle.

ON THE FILM




The music by Hitesh Sonik is fabulous. The supporting cast do their work most efficiently. The cinematography by Sudhir K Chaudhary is exemplary. The costume design by Niharika Jolly fit perfectly with the flow of the film. Rahul Mody and Luv Ranjan have done an impressive job with their words.




Kartik Aaryan (Sonu) is proving time and time again that multi-starrers and fancy scripts are not the chef’s special these days. That content is the sole ingredient that keeps the food well cooked and nearly everyone who eats it enjoys it with the same love with which it was prepared. Kartik is clearly one of the trendiest talents we have in our film industry. Nushrat Barucha (Sweety) is smooth as a crook. She has grown leaps and bounds from her first character in Luv’s film as a screechy lover to an evilly intelligent one in this one. Sunny Singh (Titu) is the hippest. He enacts this astutely daft role with much coolness. While he is shown as a goofball, when it comes to his priorities, he knows where is heart is, and what is best for everyone who matter to him. The only reason he is carefree is because he knows that he has people looking out for him.




The nicest, par excellence, scene in the film was between Pihu (Ishita Raj) and Alok Nath in Amsterdam. I rather you watch it for yourself than me wrecking the sparkle.  

Babu, the cook’s role, was a waste of time. It did nothing for the build up of the story really.

FINALLY




1/ The writer is not generalising his stance and plastering it as a draft on womankind, he is presenting his point of view, and it is left entirely to you to absorb it in the manner you deem it fit.

2/ I concur that not all women are cunning, but many are. Nowadays, they care less for traditions and more for the financial aspects of a relationship, and when the very foundation is built on shaky grounds, how can one expect the structure to survive the tremors.  




3/ The last scene is testament to the fact that in life we have to go to great lengths to save the one’s we love from the jaws of sharks. That family stands supreme o’er disagreements and ego.

Some women have been holding up their hands in rage, they are lambasting that the female protagonist here claims she is not the heroine but a villain, and if that is not enough she declares most unashamedly that she is ‘chalu’ (a player) as well. Much as women want to create a furore about it, it is best that women accept that women have become chalu these days, and men have to protect themselves as well as their ilk from such tormenters.

4/ When good films show up on the screen people want to find a million flaws and complain that no good cinema is around, and when nonsense is shown with craters of flaws, they accept the same with open arms. I am thoroughly appalled at the double standards of society.




5/ As far as the bond between Sonu and Titu, I would say that there are indeed people like Titu, and they need a Sonu to keep them from harms way irrespective of the world’s estimation of it. And that we have to love the people we love regardless of how beaten we are by the world for it. Even in instances where the very people we love are under the influence of those who are taking them for a jolly good ride, we must keep our eyes open and our mind vigilant because love is something that is beyond interpretation, and it is certainly not equated with sexual intimacy, only the intimacy of the heart and mind. Love just is and we must let it be the way it is. 

PS: A NOTE TO KARTIK


“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;


Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world better than he found it,

Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.”



PROUD OF YOU MERE BACHCHE

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