ABSTRACT
The 1995 film Dilwale Dulhaan Le Jayenge (DDLJ, director Aditya Chopra) is seen by many scholars (Mankekar, 1999; Parameswaran, 2004; Uberoi, 1998) as inaugurating narratives centring an ambivalent relationship between India and those who left it behind. The opening scenes depict Baldev Chaudhury feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square. As he scatters grains to the birds flocking around him, he muses on his homelessness. “I am like these pigeons, I belong to no country . . . my need for earning my bread has become a chain holding me in place.” The song playing in the background – “Ghar a ja pardesi, teri desh bulaya re” (“Come Home Foreigner, Your Homeland Is Calling You”) – signals that the film clearly rests on a binary: home/foreign and India/the West. According to the internal logic of these binaries, Baldev, although he resides in the United Kingdom, is Indian, and he has held on to his Indian values, specifically by protecting the chastity and virtue of his daughter Simran. Very clearly, Baldev Chaudhury’s Indianess is embodied by his daughter’s behaviour as a “proper” Indian woman. Essentially, the movie locates allegiance to Indian tradition through his daughter’s laaj or modesty. If Simran, represents Indian tradition, then Raj, the diasporic hero – born and raised in the United Kingdom – of this tale, carries on the patriarchal story of female virtue. Although, he loves Simran, he refuses to marry her without Baldev’s blessing; his behaviour throughout the film indicates that he is the true heir to Chaudhury’s belief that Indian tradition is best expressed by the chastity and virtue of its women. Further, the masculinity he projects is self-confident, strong, but at the same time metrosexual in that he is able to interact with women in the family and take their “feminine” concerns seriously. But his “proper” manhood is articulated by this steadfast belief about protecting Indian women’s virtue.
