Recently, I came across a video essay by ScreenPrism that elaborated on the symbolism of toilets in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. It explains that scenes with bathrooms and toilets precede major deaths in the film. These bathrooms represent the ultimate isolation—these are one of the only places where characters (and ourselves) are really alone, and death represents the ultimate loneliness. Thus, toilets symbolize death in the film. In Tarantino's other films as well, there is a repeating motif of a bathroom scene.
While watching the video, I was reminded of Maneesh Sharma's Shuddh Desi Romance, a gem of a film based on the modern-day romantic relationships in India. Toilets play an important part in that filmas well, and represent something related to relationships. Throughout the film, the characters keep going to the toilet at crucial points. In fact, there are many scenes that are shot where the characters are sitting on the toilet seat itself. Early in the film, as soon as Goyal Saab (Rishi Kapoor) gets down from a bus, he asks the location of the toilet. Moments before Raghu (Sushant Singh Rajput) is about to get married to Tara (Vaani Kapoor), he wants to go to the toilet and, then, runs away from his own wedding. Toilet appears again when Raghu and Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) are getting married. Goyal Saab tells one of the boys to not let Raghu go near the toilet as he might again escape. During this time, it is Gayatri who goes to the toilet. She smokes a cigarette while sitting on the toilet seat, and the words Pyaar Do, Pyaar Lo are written on the walls. Raghu also feels the need to go the toilet but his friend prevents him going there. Raghu beats up his friend, and they find out that this time Gayatri has run away. Then, the film's interval appears and instead of the usual 'Interval' being written, the words 'Bathroom Break' appear underscoring the importance of toilets in the film.
The use of toilets continues in the second half of the film as well. When Raghu is waiting for Tara at the airport, he is standing next to a pillar that has toilet written on it. At some later stage in the film, Tara's friend is getting married. Gayatri bumps into Raghu at this wedding. A lady asks Gayatri to accompany Raghu to pick-up Panditji from the railway station. However, given their history, Gayatri makes an excuse that she needs to go to the bathroom first. Sitting on the toilet seat, Gayatri explains her reasons for running away from her wedding with Raghu. While coming back from the railway station, Gayatri again wants to go to the bathroom and asks Raghu to come with her. Later, when they reach back at the wedding spot, Raghu and Gayatri meet near a mobile toilet that has the words 'Chalte Phirte Shauchalya' written on it. During the final moments of the film, when Raghu and Gayatri decide to get married for the second time and start having doubts for the second time, they both walk to the toilet again and run away. The repeating instances of the characters going to the toilet are pointing to the film's theme of the inability of the characters to commit to the relationship of the marriage. They are unable to hold on to the commitment of marriage, hence, they keep going to the toilet. When Goyal Saab asks a young boy if he plans to get married in the future, even he is non-committal and makes an excuse to go to the toilet. Toilet provides a space where the characters are alone and do the act by themselves, perhaps, pointing that they are happy being single, unbound to any ties.
We never see Tara talking about or going to the toilet; it is mainly Gayatri and Raghu who cannot hold on. Tara, however, keeps asking for a thanda (a cold drink). When Raghu runs away from the wedding, leaving her stranded at the mandap, her first reaction is to ask for a cold drink. When Tara's uncle almost beats up Raghu when he sees him at another wedding, Tara comes to Raghu's rescue, and orders to bring a cold drink for her uncle. At some other instance, Tara and Raghu meet at a restaurant, and Raghu asks the waiter to bring a cold drink for Tara. He says to her if there is any specific drink that she would prefer. She replies that all thandas are the same. It is, later, that Tara reveals the reason of her drinking cold drink all the time when she and Gayatri get to talk inside the bus. She tells her that whenever she is confused, and does not know how to react, she orders a cold drink. It brings a certain comfort to her. And, we also see that if Tara keeps having a cold drink, Gayatri keeps smoking a cigarette. Each character in the film has been given some quirks.
The most remarkable thing about Shuddh Desi Romance is its views on marriage. The film questions the concept of marriage itself. Marriage has been portrayed as the ultimate goal of a romantic relationship in films. Early in the film, Raghu questions this by asking if marriage is like a glucose drip that can cure all problems of life. The society does not easily recognize a relationship in which two people are happy living together and do not feel the need to get married. Raghu and Gayatri are not just suited for marriage. The film has many weddings, and unsurprisingly, we don't see any of the wedding ceremonies, actually, getting completed. Initially, Raghu runs away from his wedding. Then, Gayatri runs from her wedding. And then, they both run away from their wedding. Even a side character, such as Tara's friend, in whose wedding Gayatri and Raghu meet again, also runs away with her electrician boyfriend before the wedding is completed. In a hilarious scene, Panditji, who is picked-up by Raghu and Gayatri, sits behind in the car and does not say a word. He is of no use to the film's characters. Traditional marriage takes a backseat. While sitting in the car, Raghu asks for blessings from Gayatri (not from Panditji). At some other point in the film, Goyal Saab wonders if marriages will stop happening in the future and if his business of wedding planning will go bust.
Raghu and Gayatri work as fake wedding guests, again, pointing to the film's belief that marriage is fake and is nothing more than a monetary transaction. Raghu, actually, says that it is the fake wedding guests who can easily spot the pretense of marriage and its rituals, hence, he is not suited for this façade. In addition, it is a human psychology that if one is tied to something, he wants to break free. As long as one has no restrictions, a person is free to do anything, but as soon as he is told that he cannot do something, it becomes enticing to break away and do the same thing he is told to avoid. Marriage is like that kind of a restriction. An open door makes one go in and out as per his choice, but a closed door can only be opened. Raghu and Gayatri are happy to have an open-door policy, and their story ends with them living together with an open door, not bound by the restrictions of marriage. Earlier, when Raghu moves in with her, he shares the work responsibilities of the house with Gayatri. He cooks, puts clothes to dry, and does household work as well. They both are considered a sort of equal in their live-in relationship, quite a contrast with the traditional portrayal of a husband-wife in a marital relationship. Shuddh Desi Romance is, thus, a significant film that tries to subvert the conventional concept of marriage; it is almost revolutionary in its portrayal.
The film portrays all the three characters in the film as people who are free to do whatever they feel like. None of the three central characters have any visible filial relationships. Parents are absent or are dead. Gayatri's father does not turn up for her daughter's wedding. Gayatri stays all alone and not with her widowed father in Guwahati. She has had many boyfriends, and also had an abortion in the past. She frequently smokes in a society where women who smoke are judged (most recent example being Mahira Khan). All these acts are showed not as a sign of any rebellion, but as something that a normal girl will like to do. She is not shy to have sex. In fact, the opening stretch of the film, Raghu acknowledges that women also have armaan (desires). Tara, too, has a certain freedom. She is an orphan raised by her relatives. After Raghu leaves her, she does not start crying or become depressed. She comes to Jaipur and pretends that she is an air hostess as she always wanted to live her childhood dream of flying. She is more upfront than Raghu when she tells him that he does not need to flirt with her using his eloquent falsehoods. If he wants to kiss her, he can say directly. She also has sex with Raghu. In the end, she achieves her dream of flying and experiences true freedom when she lets go of Raghu. She is also free. At some points, we see that Raghu is in a dilemma of doing what the heart says, and doing what is (ethically) right. But this dilemma never was a serious problem for him. He always went on to do whatever his heart said, without thinking the impact that his actions will have on others. At some stage, Gayatri tells Tara that she did not intend to hurt her; she adds that she did not even think of Tara, again highlighting that they only think about their own self. In some ways, the film celebrates this individualism and encourages one to follow his/her heart in relationships.
My favorite bits were the monologues in which the three of them talked to the audience, being completely honest about their thoughts and feelings. They reminded me of Kal Ho Naa Ho. There is another beautiful scene where Tara says that it might be difficult to remember the moment one fell in love with but the exact moment when someone falls out of love is always remembered. And, I absolutely love Gulabi. It is splendidly shot. Everything in the song is pink, the song is also shot in the pink city of Jaipur. Red is the usual color of love. It is another interesting subversion where pink, a lighter version of red, becomes the color of love, much like the love between the film's characters. There are many other nuances that scriptwriter Jaideep Sahni brings in the film with his understanding of contemporary India. There is a blink-and-miss scene in the film where a billboard of the film Naya Kadam (A New Step) is being carried by a few people in the streets of Jaipur. I guess that film does not contribute anything to the context of this film, but Shuddh Desi Romance is truly a new step for Hindi cinema in more ways than one.
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