Haseena Maan Jaayegi

Adolescence is unflinching in its portrayal of how young men are socialised to feel entitled to women's attention and affection, and yet, it isn't exactly breaking new ground. These ideas were seeded much earlier in India, and, by extension, its populist cinema

- Debiparna Chakraborty

“Payal ko pata, fir hata sawan ki ghata,” (Woo Payal first and then dump her when you are done) Rocky advises a barely post-pubescent Rajiv in Ishq Vishk (2003) when he has an ardent dilemma: he does not have someone to hook up with on his freshman college trip. Amrita Rao’s Payal Mehra is straight-up out of the Sooraj Barjatya universe: she is simple, she is sanskaari, and Shahid Kapoor's Rajiv knows that all too well. But the ghost of Kabir Singh's (2019) past lurking in Rajiv's psyche convinces him to manipulate Payal nonetheless.

In Ishq Vishk, Rajiv's bildungsroman arc is disturbingly shaped through both emotional and physical violence upon Payal’s body, mind and soul. When he tries to force himself on her, she rejects him. And Rajiv promptly takes a leaf out of the incel textbook and insults Payal. He calls her a “behenji” who should have felt honoured to be desired by him. However, long before Rajiv learnt to crawl through the toxic sewers of deranged masculinity, Bollywood had already laid the groundwork for normalising such behaviour in the guise of romance.

One of Shah Rukh Khan’s most problematic Rahuls (an achievement of sorts) crooned, “Tu haan kar ya na kar, tu hai meri Kiran,” (Whether you say yes or no, you are mine Kiran) in the 1993 film Darr and sent shivers down an unsettled Kiran’s (Juhi Chawla) spine. The psychological thriller hit the nail on the head about how obsession, stalking, harassment, and a man’s inability to take rejection is not at all romantic but downright terrifying. But after the massive success of Darr, the audiences sympathised more with Rahul, not the hero who saved the heroine—a fact that Sunny Deol was not too happy about.