The easy explanation is that this film dispels the age-old notion of love being an extroverted emotion.
Unlike most Hindi movies that succumb to the whims of social currency, RNBDJ is an innate critique of time. Ironically, this is precisely why I have both developed a deep fondness for Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and resisted the pressure to boycott my ownership of this affection. This is evident even across the content today – legacy production houses keep repackaging their classics in the tone of playful parody instead of heartfelt homage. In our pursuit to embody the progression of evolution, we turn “the good ol’ days” sighs into “good old days?” sniggers. But perhaps a lot of this retrospective rage is reactive: The newer generation of moviegoers has established its pragmatic outlook as an antidote to counter the fetisization of nostalgia by older generations. Or even David Dhawan’s sappy non-comedy, Swarg. Dutta’s Border was a definitive film of my childhood.
For instance, I can’t for the life of me admit that J.P. Over the last decade, it’s become cool to disown things – art, specifically – that we loved as youngsters.
