I wasn’t too certain whether or not to continue this blog, but my idea for a new blog tied in somewhat to the idea of international culture so I guess this blog is seeing another day. However, I will not be discussing the general overview of a country anymore, but rather idiosyncrasies about my own Indian culture that have puzzled me for the better part of (almost) two decades.

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India has some prevalent issues that are pretty conspicuous: corruption, lack of rights for many groups of people, poverty, and so on, but those topics have been covered thousands of times by many credible people, and in all honestly, I can’t really talk about those topics since I haven’t been in India for almost two decades and what I think India is like is pure speculation from the articles and pictures I see.

However, two decades later, and I’m still enveloped in the traditions of India and it’s as confusing as ever.

I think one of the aspects that makes little sense to me is India’s rampant film culture. India produces the most films in the world per year and it’s almost twice as many as the next country. Anyone who has heard of Bollywood knows of the seemingly random dance sequences placed into the middle of movies.

Now, I’ve seen very few Indian movies but I know most of the songs backwards and forwards and quite recently, I decided to look up the translations to a few songs.

For some reason, all these songs (from a wide variety of movies) were love songs. 

Moreover, it seems as though every single movie produced in India is a love story where the main characters fall in love through sometimes downright ridiculous circumstances. How can this be when almost 90% of marriages in India are arranged?

Sure, many movie include arranged marriages as plot devices, but more often than not, there’s a fairytale ending at the end of these movies as well where the characters realize that they actually like each other.

Now, these kinds of romantic movies have been present in the western nations since the birth of movies themselves because the west has wore away the idea of arranged marriages decades ago.

In my own experience,I’ve noticed that many Indians look down upon “love marriages” (in comparison to “arranged marriages”) so much so that they ostracize the couple who has married for love. Sure, most of the Indians around who grew up in the US tell me that their parents will let them choose who they want to marry as long as they get their parents’ approval, but clearly, that change in views is not reflected in India.

So why does India continue to depict marriage and love as something carefree and natural in movies when the exact opposite is true within its borders? Many of these movies make millions at the box office, yet it doesn’t seem as though these movies are relatable to the general public watching them.

So why are they so popular? Are movie-goers wistful for a overdramatic romance they probably won’t experience in their own lives? Is it just tradition?

More important than the answers to these questions, movie producers have begun using these movies as public service announcements, so although I don’t find these movies very relatable, I’m glad India has begun to use their movies for good.