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A BL RomCom

Date: January 20, 2020Author: Sneha Jaiswal 0 Comments
Saw the trailer of Shubh Mangal Zyada Sawdhan today, Bollywood’s first mainstream romantic comedy about a gay couple.

I’ll be honest, I was very sceptical about watching the trailer. Most Indian films tend to just make stereotypical jokes about the LGBT community and reduce them to mere caricatures for comic relief.

But the trailer of Shubh Mangal Zyada Sawdhan, is a breath of fresh air and largely steers free from making any stereotypical jokes.

It starts off with lead actor Ayushman Khurrana sitting in an auto with an uncle who asks him “kab decide kiya ki yeh banogey?” (when did you decide to be become this?)

Ayushman asks “what?”

The uncle stammers and says “yeh… yeh.. yeh” (this…. this… ) pointing out to his slightly loud clothes, asking him to take the hint.

“Yeh nahi kehtey hai, gay kehtey hai” (It’s not ‘this’, it’s called gay).

And then Ayushman asks uncle a good question – “when did you decide that you weren’t gay?”.

It’s a counter question every intelligent gay person throws at a hetero who thinks that they just wake up one day and decide “hey, I am going to be gay from today!”.

Anyway, back to the trailer.

Having no comeback, uncle hits where it hurts, asks “do your mom & dad know?”. Burn.

Cue music and the rest of the interesting cast in introduced.

Jitendra Kumar plays what seems like a nerdy simple boyfriend to Ayushman Khurrana’s sassy, fashion savvy stud boy.

Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao nail their roles again, this time as Indian parents who just want their son to be married, to a girl.

Got to admit that you get more of a friends’ vibe from the two, but they pass off as an interesting enough couple. I guess it’s a good thing that the lead actors weren’t made to put on some pretentious fake & exaggerated body language to scream “we are gay”.

The trailer was pretty breezy and promises to be a good entertainment film like Badhaai Ho had turned out to be. I like how the writers slipped in a Roadies joke when Ayushman warns his boyfriend against marrying a girl just to make his parents happy. (Roadies is an Indian reality show where the contestants are made to do tough tasks and Ayushman was the winner of some season of the show).

He says “What do you think? Your story is going to freeze at a happy ending when you get married? Roadies is going to begin in your life from your wedding night. Will you be able to do the task?” *cough cough*

Also, it’s pretty cool to see him play a guy who does not shy away from putting up a fight with his boyfriend’s parents and even calls them out for their homophobia.

Neena Gupta plays the cooler role, the Indian mom, who at first tries to convince her son not to go the gay way. But then, in the end, decides that her son must live his life the way he wants to. Will the father finally accept his son? That perhaps is the only mystery that the trailer spares. Or not.

Screenshot_20200120-155837

Because there is a “Dilwaale Dulha le jayenge” kind of an ending to the trailer. (The big-hearted will take away the groom) Basically, we are made to understand that the two boys get their happy ending. 

So yeah, maybe the trailer gives a little too much away. But I am looking forward to watching this one.

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Published by Sneha Jaiswal

Journalist. Artist. Recovering Nihilist. Author of "Bad Town Kids" Available on Instagram as @Writer_Jaiswal View all posts by Sneha Jaiswal

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